Fairy Costume in Green

This is the first (of hopefully many) serged costume I made and I didn’t use a regular sewing machine at all, though I did hand sew the rosette in the middle of the shirt onto the rest of it.

The costume is designed to be worn in layers over a black shirt and pair of yoga pants for easy costume changes in public as well as less wear and tear on the outfit, as it doesn’t need to be washed as frequently and can simply be used for performance and taken off since all the sweat is on the bottom layer. In addition, having had many challenges over the years with costume malfunctions (especially breasts that just seem to have a mind of their own and want to be exposed to the cool night air), I have taken to wearing a bottom layer that I’m confident won’t spill out any of the good and will hold my body in the ways I want it to be held for fire. Bras simply have never worked that well for me, so shelf tanks are my thing.

The idea was to create something that had contrast and would show up better in the fire than black alone might — the cactus color (lighter green) is going to be especially effective at that.

For my body type, working with something tighter under the bust is often best with flowing fabric that is not fitted over the hips, stomach and butt. In this photo shoot, I’m not wearing the arm fringe. These are pieces that look like the knee fringe only they go above the elbow. (I hadn’t put the elastic in yet for this photo shoot.) Photos are taken at Samovar in the Castro by Addrianna.

The rosette in the bust area was inspired by my days at the Renaissance Fairs over a decade ago when I did bodice and costume fittings. Part of the process was to make rosette’s out of these long pieces of gauze cotton, so I learned that back then and was happy to apply it to this costume. I did not use a pattern and this was really the first thing I did with this serger, though I had some experience with Devin’s serger for the gauntlets I made while I was in Chicago. I’m certain that having a dress form would make this whole costume creation process much easier — doing the back of a shirt is really challenging when you can’t see what’s going on.