Nauglamír

I’ve finished a number of things for my Finrod costume, but Nauglamír is the most important one. The Silmarillion says of Nauglamír, Finrod’s fabled Dwarf-necklace:

And in that time was made for him the Nauglamír, the Necklace of the Dwarves, most renowned of their works in the Elder Days. It was a carcanet of gold, and set therein were gems uncounted from Valinor; but it had  a power within it so that it rested lightly on its wearer as a strand of flax, and whatsoever neck it clasped it always sat with grace and loveliness.

I can’t match that, of course, but I did my best with what I could get.

The pants and shoes I’ll wait to photograph until I have the whole costume together. (They’re plain blue, and not much to look at.)

I also purchased a cheap werewolf head mask to use as my trophy. (When Finrod went to help Luthien rescue Beren, he was captured and set upon by werewolves. He killed them with his bare hands and teeth, then died of his injuries.) Besides adding some blood streamers to the bottom, I installed a zipper so that if I end up going anywhere on Halloween, this can double as my purse.

Also, Tournament 3 of Nerd Wars has officially begun. One of the challenges requires us to link a project to a haiku, preferably one that we have written. So I have been trying to come up with some Lord of the Rings haiku.

A butterfly clip
Graces your ebony hair
Not very manly

Taters, nice taters
Boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in
a stew, potatoes

Fennas Nogothrim
Lasto beth Lammen! Ando…
Oh, it was mellon?

Spears shall be shaken!
Arise! And the sun rises!
Ride now for ruin!

A day may yet come
When the courage of Men fails
It is not this day

Olórin, Tarkun,
Mithrandir, mainly Gandalf,
Too many names, dude.

The Dwarf breathes loudly
I could shoot him in the dark
Blindfold that sucker

No man can kill you
But it’s time for you to die
For I am no man

I will take the Ring
Though I do not know the way
And I am so small

One does not simply
Even with a thousand men
Walk into Mordor

Now that it’s October, I need to go up in the attic to look for Admiral Spookington the Ghostie Pinata. I’m sure he’s still around somewhere.

Half-Finished Elvish Stuff

I finally realized that I’m going to have to admit defeat on making my own beads for Nauglamir. The last two batches of resin I poured did not cure all the way to hard. They’re squishy and stretchy. The problem may be the humidity we’ve been having, or I may have measured too much hardener. Anyway, if it’s the first, there’s nothing I can do about it. I did some math (ouch, my head) and even if the rest of them came out perfectly, I’m not sure I’d have enough by Halloween, considering it takes me three days to make two beads. While I still think I’m capable of making all my own gems for Nauglamir, I simply do not have the time or storage space to buy more molds.

With sadness in my heart and Metallica in my car’s CD player, I went to the craft store to scrounge some beads to make do with. (Should have played Blind Guardian, in retrospect.) I ended up with malachite, coral, moonstone, and reconstituted lapis lazuli—hardly the treasures of Nargothrond, but still semi-precious. (But inexpensive.) I’m still using the resin pendant that I made.

The first side isn’t finished yet, but I think it’s looking nice so far.

The decorating of the outer robe is going well. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sew the cord in straight enough lines on the back, but they look good despite a little wigglyness. It’s going pretty quickly, too. I’m not bothering to photograph one yet since it currently looks less nice than the picture of the cord pinned on.

Today is Hat Day.

Actually, I think today is Ask a Stupid Question Day, but I neglected to celebrate that one because I don’t want to be really annoying.

My own pirate hat for the renaissance festival is finally finished!

Eleanor gets to wear a bad wig for the occasion. It doesn’t look too bad in the photo with the hat on, but it really is a horrible messy wig.

On Sunday, my sister and friends and I had a barbarian party. We had meat on legs, roasted root vegetables on skewers, unsliced bread, mugs of soup, mead, and the recent Thor movie. I wanted a viking hat but wasn’t willing to pay what the stores wanted for one, so I made one out of aluminum foil. Then my sister suggested I make another one in the style of Loki’s helmet, so I threw this together in about thirty seconds. It shows.

While this hat has the advantage of allowing me to pretend I’m a badass comic book character AND keeping aliens from scanning my brain, it also prevents my mother from taking me seriously, which is the main reason I’m still wearing it around the house.

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Ahoy there, mateys! Ye may have noticed that I’ve not been updatin’ me blog for quite some time. Here’s what I’ve been workin’ on:

I didna be completely finishin’ me own pirate costume in time for International Talk Like a Pirate Day, so I finished the most important parts in order that I’d still have something good ta dress up in. Usually me nom de pirate be Bluestocking Jane, but this year I be The Dread Pirate Roberta. Every year me good friend from yooniversitee be holdin’ a party for International Talk Like a Pirate Day. This year we had ta hold it on Saturday rather than the day of on account o’ we be the kind o’ pirates what have to hold down day jobs durin’ the week.

Me pirate costume will be lookin’ much like me sister’s, but in red an’ black instead o’ cream an’ plaid. Yes, she be holdin’ a sonic screwdriver. I give good Christmas presents, and at the renaissance festival later in the year we’ll be time-travelin’ pirates.

O’ course, costumes weren’t the only thing I were makin’ for the occasion. The first year we had an official party at me friend’s house, we had a plank but weren’t really sure what ta do with it. So, this year, I made a Boo Box. (Unfortunately, I forgot ta get a picture o’ the various rubber bugs we had fer the Boo Box.)

Natchurally, I had meself a trip in the Boo Box.

Have yerselves a happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

No Sir, I’m No Extra

Dude. Dood. Dewd. It is so much easier to create a costume from the appearance of something that already exists rather than trying to come up with what a character, who’s never really physically described, is supposed to look like. Jus’ sayin’.

Manly posture: I doesn’t has it.

You can see the colour correctly in this one, but the flash makes it too shiny.

You can see the correct amount of shine in this one, but the colour's washed out.

However, all goes well. I may have to tack down the collar as my attempts to get it to lay nicely aren’t working properly, but other than that, I’m quite happy. The removal of the waist shaping worked.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. OMG SHINY!!! Yes, I did indeed want the costume to be shiny. Elf-lords should be shiny. I promise, the material’s not as reflective as it appears to be in the top picture; that’s the camera flash at work. However, it did occur to me (and my sister agrees) that I don’t want to be mistaken for an alien from the original Star Trek series.

So, to cut down on the glare a bit, I will be making an outer robe to go over this one, a la Council of Elrond. (Well, I’m still deciding whether or not I’ll give it sleeves.) And that will be a dark green.

Also—le sigh, woe is me—I’ve decided that I should probably buckle and make pants. If an Elf isn’t wearing trousers under his robes, he may just be wearing a dress. (I’m making an assumption here; I’ve never peeked under an Elf-lord’s robes, unless you count the extras on the Fellowship of the Ring DVD that showed the layering of Elrond’s costumes, and he did indeed have trouserings.) Probably those will be dark blue and will be the same fabric as the shoes.

I have not been as successful with resin this week. When I did a larger batch of blue, I got a translucent effect with the opaque dye just fine. However, I usually mix up such a small batch of resin (one teaspoon at a time) that I just can’t get a small enough amount of red dye to come out of the squeezy bottle. I shall need to switch to the translucent dye, I think.

We shine, but we don't sparkle.

Also, the “pearls” for what I’m going to attempt for my sister’s Luthien circlet need a lot more pearlescent powder. (Also, I don’t think I got all the bubbles out when I poured it…oops.)

We aren't shiny enough.

Still need to get the fabric for my own pirate costume. However, both my favourite crafting stores sent out really good coupons this week. Yea, savings! Wheeeeeee!

Progress: I Has It

Finrod

• Robes
• Sash
• Circlet
• Wig
• Ears
• Shoes
• Nauglamir (necklace)

I’m glad I opened up the pattern I planned to modify for Finrod’s robes, because I’ve run into a problem. I thought that the dress consisted of a front and a back with darts, and I’d merely have to change the shape of the sleeves, remove the waist shaping, and attach the “layered” collar to the front to remove the boat neck. I discovered today that the dress is, in fact, in four parts. After much examination, I think I have figured out which curves to straighten out. The nice part about this kind of modification is that I’m cutting the fabric bigger than what the pattern calls for, so if it doesn’t work I can just cut it again along the pattern.

And if that doesn’t work, I may just modify my modification–that is, modify the sash instead of the dress. I don’t exactly have an hourglass figure, so if I make the sash wider and add extra interfacing, I think that will be good enough to disguise my waist.

I also think I’ve come up with the circlet I’ll use. I wouldn’t exactly call this one masculine, but it’s much more unisex than the previous one.

Medieval Irish Pirate for Sister

• Underskirt
• Overskirt
• Blouse
• Vest
• Hat
• Scarf
• Sash
• Loot bag

About halfway done with my sister’s vest. I was going to get her to dress up this morning for a picture, but she’s already spiffed up for a job interview, so I guess it can wait until Wednesday.

Pirate progress and loot!

I was going to make my sister dress up and take a photo for me last night, but the only piece of her costume I completely finished so far is the underskirt. The blouse and overskirt are almost done—she’ll probably be forced to dress up by the end of the week. (Well, not forced; she tells me that the bits she’s tried on are extremely comfortable, which is a plus in any garment.) I should have taken a picture of the lace she’s making to decorate the sleeves. Yes, she does tatting and makes her own lace, a hobby I have not yet even sampled.

The underskirt!

Instead of finishing the overskirt and blouse, I decided to work a bit on the bodice. Why? Because it has boning. I’ve worked with millinery wire before, but never boning. And, for some reason, I was extremely excited to try sewing something with boning for the first time. Perhaps it’s because I know that shaping things with boning can be tricky at times. If you’re making a corset for tightlacing, you have to get the shape exactly right or you’ll pinch nerves. (Of course, this bodice is not compressive or restrictive in any way.)

See those channels? That's BONING!

I traced out the lines for the channels I needed to sew on both sides of the front of the bodice. I used one of those disappearing sewing pens. I only sewed one side last night; I got up this morning and looked at the other side, and the ink had disappeared! The way it’s supposed to! I have never had one of those pens actually disappear properly before! I’m still stunned. Maybe I got one of the special working pens that wasn’t supposed to leave the factory or something.

Now, for the second part of this post: loot! Hobby Lobby currently has their Simplicity patterns on sale for 99 cents each. I got three costume patterns, and will probably go back to browse the regular patterns today.

This is not normal pirate loot, but it's MY kind of pirate loot.

The two Victorian costumes are just ’cause I think they’re cool and may use them for costuming someday in the future. The bottom one will be for Halloween, and was the deciding factor as to what to go as: Finrod from The Silmarillion! I’ll be modifying the dress on the left to make it look more like robes, and to make Finrod’s famous necklace, I’m going to attempt to add a new craft to my repertoire—casting resin! I got a mold with my coupon yesterday, but I’m focusing on sewing for now as it’ll take me a bit of time to get the resin, the catalyst, the dye, the pearlescent powder, and the release agent.

Let the costuming begin!

Ahoy there, mateys! Do ye know what time of year it be? That’s right—it be the beginnin’ of costumin’ season! I tend to do me sewin’ in big spurts, usually between August and December, on account of havin’ to take over the dining room whenever I want to sew something. Me family wouldn’t be likin’ it if I did that year round.

Why be the end of summer to the beginnin’ of winter costumin’ season, you may ask? Well, it be startin’ with International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19—thus I be writin’ this post in Piratese. Then comes the Renaissance Faire, then Halloween, then the Dickens Faire. I start me sewin’ in August to make sure I be finishin’ everything on time.

I still be decidin’ what to do for Halloween; I be torn between Sanskrit (the language) and Finrod from The Silmarillion. If me sister be doin’ Luthien after all, then I’ll have to do Finrod. Either way I get meself a fun new wig.

For now, though, my sewin’ be startin’ with a medieval Irish pirate costume for me sister.

It don’t look like much yet, but it ought to be right snazzy when I’m done. I already made her hat:

I still be decidin’ if I want to make meself an identical costume in red or go for a different style. One of the nice things about sewin’ for me sister be that we be the same size, so she don’t always have to be in the house for fittins.