The Costume

Or “garb” as it’s called in RenFair speak. Well it’s based upon the original costume that AJ bought for me about 5 years ago at the AZ RenFest. I was told last year that the color, a deep red-almost-burgundy was too close to “royal” colors so I couldn’t wear the skirt, but I could wear the Bodice with a different skirt.

So I found some pretty emerald green fabric and some shiny gold fabric and made another skirt from the green and a “panel” from the gold. Well, the green skirt didn’t exactly hold up well to multiple washings, all the shiny pattern that was there disappeared. So I re-dyed the skirt again to deal with the fading and it gained some of it’s “shiny” back, but the pattern is gone.

I made another skirt from the gold shiny fabric this year to “add to” my garb. I also made a completely new chemise as the one I used last year really didn’t survive well. I had some trouble attaching the sleeves and my Aunt Carolyn helped me fix them when they came up to visit this weekend. She also helped me with a new Bodice that I’m attempting to construct… but it won’t be done for this year… I ain’t a good enuf seamstress!!

In AZ we dressed for hot weather, even though the Fest is in Feb and March… here in NC I figured I need to dress more for rainy/cold so layers are the plan. My AZ chemise was shirt-length, so my new chemise is full length. The layers are also why I made the 2nd skirt… instead of a panel, I’ll wear one of the skirts as an under skirt and one as an over skirt. I did get some pretty brocade for the Bodice attempt, and there was extra so I’m going to make a brocade panel as well, for “hot” days.

I’ll use my big hat that I got 3 years ago… we have to wear a hat. Everything else is pretty much the same as last year… some additional jewels I’ve picked up, etc. I need to fix my fans as well, 2 of them broke last year.