Faery Finery-

Back again after a week at my parents'. Busy times, lots of family and food. HAD to stay busy - in order to stay distracted from the fact that my son is indeed now out on his own...

I spent the last couple of days with my mother working on faery costumes for my nieces. Each niece designated what type of faery she wished to be for Halloween, and chose material from my mother’s vast and lush fabric collection.

The older niece wanted to be a somewhat Gothic ‘night’ fairy and chose colors in the purple family.

We had great fun layering colors and textures, cutting and fraying as we went. The front of the skirt is shorter than the back. (Taking a leaf from the wonderful wearydrearies book as inspiration, albeit theirs is an ‘older’ look).

Close up of the lined, velvet, laced bodice.

(It’s not showing up well in this photo, but the bodice edges are lined with sparkling black beads as well as some beading on the velvet itself. I wish I had three more days there - just to embellish!)

The younger niece wanted to be a ‘dragonfly’ fairy and picked bright, shiny, iridescent fabrics.

Again, layers and layers of textural, eye-candy deliciousness.

How cute is the shape of this little lace-up bodice? Unfortunately I had to hop a plane before getting to bead this one (but I left detailed ‘suggestions’ of where the iridescent leaves and glass turquoise teardrops should go).

Still to come – matching drawstring bags, head apparel, wands and wings. I am lobbying for photo updates!

[Ed. update: I must amend and point out that my mother is the seamstress and apparel artist. I try to avoid anything to do with a sewing machine. I just designed and cut out the skirts and the embellishments. Give me a glue gun or a beading needle. That's as far as I go!]