Ren-Faire

My family likes to go to Ren-Faires there was one today.  So one of my children went as a pirate, one a dark fae/devil and one as a fox (with armor go figure).

We went late in the day after my middle daughter got off of work so we didn't get to do all the things we usually do  That being said we did a lot of stuff still and wore ourselves out.

Two of the costumes we put together in about 5 minutes the other took about 10 mins the joys of having a mom who makes costumes for a living.

Can you tell one of my kids is a ham.

We watched the jousting and the fire eaters talked to the mermaids and so on all the regular things you do at a ren-faire like eat funnel cake at the end of the day we sat down under some trees to rest from the sun and took some photos.

We took our puppy with us to the faire so he can get use to people he was a pirate for a little bit but really didn't like the hat and pouted.

Internship McGrew Studios leather work, knights, horses

The words in this post are directly copied from my mentors post and I want to give her all the credit for it, Jen McGrew.  During this past summer I did an internship at McGrew studios Jen and Hraefn are amazing artist and pulled together a large group of us to get this project done. This is not a paid for add I am proud I got to work with this amazing group of artist. Please enjoy the photos.  I enjoyed patterning, stitching, glueing up , grommeting, brainstorming, lacing, dressing, fitting, and everything else I helped with on this.   This was very much a group effort of amazing people I would love to work with all of them again.

Wendy "Sunshine" Harbaugh

If you contact Jen and Hraefn (raven) studio please tell them hi from me.

that is Jen being silly love her to pieces

Below are all Jen's words not mine

"We made custom costumes for Young Living’s jousters, horses and squires in this fantastic project. This is the DGY (David Gary Young) Jousting Team of Young Living Farm in Mona, Utah, and they are amazing. The open, lattice-like costumes for the horses are called caparisons and their face shields are called chamfrons. We’ve created these with leather cut-work and inlay, embellished with decorative metal pieces, rivets and crystals. We built the horse gear using chrome-tanned leathers backed with synthetic Rhino Cloth for extra weight, durability and resistance to wear and mildew. Each horse echoes its jouster’s colors and sometimes his or her coat of arms, as in the case of Jacob Young’s dragons in black and red. The word caparison originates from the 1585–95 Middle French caparasson (now caparaçon) and the Old Spanish caparazón, akin to capa or cape. We made the jousters’ sleeveless surcotes from black bison hide. Each of these tunics laces up the sides and has specialty leather inlay as well as hardware and rivets in either gold or silver. Our design/build team for this was a BIG one- our shop’s usual staff plus additional stitchers and craftspeople jobbing in. A great project and so fun to make such fantastic looks for DGY. Great development by our team: Jennifer McGrew Hraefn Wulfson Diane Thompson Madeline Mann Alex Buie Carolyn Richardson Liam Buie Wendy Harbaugh Andrea Fabrega Isaac Doubek Anastasia Najarian Elijah Najarian Nathan Dobbin Konley Shanahan Dresden Williams Eliza Williams Cate Allen Nick Burke Magen Mitchell Uptown Embroidery Heather Skola Aubrey Kuefner Todd Baker Monica Ramirez DGY’s armor in these photos is by Valentine Armouries in Las Vegas, NV. Visit the Young Living farm events page for more info about jousting dates. Our thanks to HeadnHome for the leather cavalier hats. These are beautifully made and you were wonderful to work with:) Our thanks to Liz Davies, Young Living‘s Director of Farm Events and the whole DGY group. Our team loved working with yours. We look forward to more creative design as your production grows. Thank you to Robert Hirschi and David A. Boyd for your photos here:)"

leather fun and wire work

 

My children and I around mother's day went to a ren-fair.  At the ren fair my girls bought some leather items from one of their favorite vendors.

 

China bought some leather I had wanted for years.  I am glad she will have fun with it.
I love how this is put together and that it is easily adjusted.

The leather ears were bought by Starr.  She bought a few sets and let her sister wear them.

 

 rose and thorn
801-916-1352
www.roseandthornarmory.com
This is not a paid add we just love this company and wanted to share where we got the items from encase someone else is interested. 

At this same ren fair Starr commissioned a hair piece as my mothers day gift.  It was the first time the gentleman making the items had ever done wire work.  He did pretty good he needed a few more twists to hold things together.  So after we got home I wrapped his work with the smaller wire you see in the photos to give it strength as it had some integrity issues.  This is about the size of a womans hand so it is lather large

My children want to do this type of metal work.  So we have some tools to do it when we get a chance to sit down and play to learn a new skill.  Which we have not had the time for yet. So we have 3 anvils and some chasing tools.

little bits of scraps make flowers

 One week ago my daughter went to one of our family friends weddings where she caught the bouquet.  The dress she wore to the wedding which you see at the right and above was 5 inches too long before that event.  So quickly I cut off the hem and she did a hand rolled hem on it so she could wear it to the event. 

 Last night I cut the hem into little circles 30 of them . Then folded those in half and did a gathering stitch on the raw edge side stringing 5 of these together to make a flower.  I had enough fabric from the hem to make 6 of these flowers.  I  then sewed them to her upper left shoulder of the dress and removed the bow from center front and stitched it into the middle of the flower cluster.  I also went through my buttons and picked out rhinestone buttons from three generations of our family from both sides  an sewed them to the center of the flowers to add a little sparkle.

 Recently I did A similar style detail on a dress for play Anything Goes.  In this dress I sewed the entire dress all 5 layers of skirt and all bias. and ruffle sleeves and lots of flowers on it.

 Here you can see what the flowers look like up close

 prior to flowers and rhinestones being added.

  This is the lovely Mandee Shaffer who use to be one of my bosses who draped this dress for me to make.  She is now the Manager of the West Valley Hale costume shop here she is being silly and just wearing a costume for an upcoming play.  I so miss working with her one of my most favorite people in all the world.