Orange is my favorite color!

Anytime someone asks me my favorite color, I think I give a different answer. But this weekend, at VARF rehearsal, for the purposes of filling out an "about you" form, I decided it would be orange.
And seeing as I deemed orange to be my favorite color of the moment, I'm posting a small homage to orange.

First, my new hat:

Its supposed to look like a spanish style, not quite a flatcap, but similar. Its a buckram and wire stiffened brim with a large circle of fabric pleated to it for the crown. And a beautiful huge ostrich feather courtesy of Auntie Tina, of course. Thank you again! Its comfy, stays on my head nicely (okay, its a bit tight, but nowhere near as tight as the mad hatter creation), and provides a bit of shade unlike the heart shaped bonnet. I'm going to reserve the bonnet for overcast days. I got tired of squinting at the NC faire.

Second, Beth and I have been talking about decorating our parasols for faire. The original plan was to cover in silk/fabric of some sort, but as faire starts next week, the quick fix was a bit of (orange, of course) paint and a period-ish looking stencil:

Not sure if you can see the stencil design well, so here's a closeup. Of course, I learned that I'm a fairly blobby stenciler. This is actually one of the best ones. ;)

I also worked on some jewelry bits last night, but those'll have to go up later, since they're not orange. ;)

Utter Silliness

The HMHounds group is participating in the Spoutwood Farm Faerie Festival this weekend.

The problem: I found myself fresh outta fairy gear. Fairies just aren't my speciality, and I've never made a fairy costume in my life. Its probably pretty obvious that I enjoy doing reasonably well researched and somewhat documentable costumes, so this is really out of my realm. I'd love to do some research on fairy stories and look at some great fairy images before doing a project like this, but with about 6 hrs to devote to making a costume for this event, that'll just have to wait. Maybe if we do the fairy fest again next year.... I'd love to do some sort of water nymph.

The solution: My fearless hounds leader, Jen, lent me a wonderful chemise-y dress. Its that wrinkly cotton material, the bottom is two layers, cut jaggedly for that nice fairy effect. Its frilly, fun, and oh so comfy. But I needed to have at least a bodice for supporting the gals, if you know what I mean....
I used the corset from my venetian days (its never getting worn again, seeing as i have the spiffy and lighter weight effigy now) for a bodice. I added an oh-so-stylish orange strip to the neckline.
The problem then was that the tabs weren't very stylish.

To the rescue: an old sheer curtain and some changable silky fabric that was gifted to me were what I had on hand (okay, I have plenty more on hand, but this was what I was willing to sacrifice to a quick and sloppy project). They colors don't match at all....um, unless I'm some sort of "dawn" fairy....

So I made skirts for covering the corset tabs--there are two skirts, one that is two layers of scraggy cut periwinkle sheerness (thank you old bedroom curtain), and one shorter skirt that is a layer of firey orange with a little scraggy-cut periwinkle tutu. Its well...fluffy and silly. I also made arm cuffs with frills on it, cuz, well, whythehecknot? ;) Here is my best attempt at looking like a playful frilly fairy ballerina person: