I recently tried out a crochet pattern for a circlet of flowers that I picked up over at Anticraft. A fun little project, though you’ll have to forgive me if I didn’t initiate my new costume piece as the pattern recommends, dancing skyclad under the full moon in the shade of a hawthorne tree. I don’t know of any hawthorne trees around here and my neighbors think I’m weird enough already.
When I finished it, I thought, “You know, it’s a shame this doesn’t match my wings. Maybe I need new wings.”
Now I’m on the path to trouble.
I did some research and ended up at friend’s house late one night watching Serenity (yes, again, I know) splattered with paint and covered in wire clippings. I made two trips to the craft store and two to the hardware store. The Home Depot guy looked suspiciously at us.
“So what are you two doing with all this stuff,” he said, spooling out heavy gauge wire.
“Please don’t ask.”
So now I have wings that match my circlet. I fashioned the wings so that they could be tied on around the shoulders or inserted into the back of a corset via a removable wire frame. Of course the corsets I have are really all wrong for it. It should be strapless. And blue...definitely blue. And pointy at the bottom, not rounded. And how wicked cool would it be if I could crochet a corset? I could paint the boning with a decorative pattern and insert it into the stitches so that it could be glimpsed from the outside.
Do you see where this is going?
A new-found Ravelry buddy mailed me an old magazine she had with a crocheted corset pattern in it. While perusing that, yet another friend said, “I know of a really great knitted corset pattern.”
“I don’t know how to knit.”
“Well, then I’ll teach you.”
For my birthday, said friend presented me with the necessary accouterments for this as-yet unattained craft – one of those old dogs and new tricks kind of things.
So here I am, armed with a pair of size 10 knitting needles, a new book, and an old ball of scrap worsted practicing casting on and binding off.
And all the while I’m thinking, “If I did make a new corset, I’d definitely need a new chemise. White gauze, I think. Raglan sleeves. Maybe a 4-piece body construction with triangular godets cut into the seams to fill it out and uneven the hem. Tea-length. Definitely tea-length.”
Sigh.
Before you know it I’m going to be chairing an organizing committee for the Northern California Faerie Faire and Festival. This is how these things go with me. Spinning wildly out of control until everyone gets dizzy and falls over.
Epilogue:
I wore my fabulous new wings to the Whole Earth Festival this past weekend. Shawn and I passed by a booth of woven rugs. A loom was placed proudly out front, with a work-in-progress stretched across it.
“If you get one of those,” Shawn says, noting the infamous glassy-eyed expression stealing over my face as I caressed the loom, “then I can have that 17” printer.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t know how to weave... yet.”
“Yet?”
“Besides, I’m far more likely to take up spinning first.”
“Hmmm. Don’t prick your finger.”