Jarden and DIY Wings

Yay! Yesterday my first seedlings sprouted! I have one tiny seedling in the Basil jar and one tiny seedling in the Sage jar. How exciting is that?? We spent this weekend working on the new house, the back yard disaster only took about two hours to clean up. We raked up all the leaves and dead plants and cock-a-burr plants. Pulled all of the random junk out of the planting boxes, which are in excellent shape! Potential Landlord (henceforth known as Landlord!) showed me his worm farm and how to make worm tea! The compost bins still have lots of compost in them and there are garbage bags with leaves that have been sitting for about two years that will be a nice addition to the bin. We go the house completely cleaned out of things that he won't be leaving behind. Owl moved in on Saturday. Everything is falling into place!

At my local Karaoke spot we are having a costume party tonight, I'm very excited and have been working on making wings for myself. They are actually very simple to make and usually end up much cooler looking than any cookie cutter wings you will find at the costume shop. I'm reusing the same costume I wore two years ago, I made a skirt and I wore a corset top with wings, BAM instant faerie. So I'm remaking the wings and I bought some super awesome ribbon that I can add to the skirt with little effort and I will have an updated faerie costume for less than 15 dolalrs! (plus 6 wire hangers) If you like the idea, it's really very simple to make wings.

Materials:
1-2 yards of fabric (I use tool, or a variation of tool, mine is light blue and shiney!)
6 wire hangers
Needle and thread
Pliers
Ribbon or elastic
Beads, sequins, etc. (optional)
Pins (optional)

First take the hangers and straighten them out, I just use my hands to do this and leave the crinkles where it was twisted all crinkly.

Next bend one hanger into the shape of a tear-drop. Twist the ends together with your pliers. Repeat this with a second hanger, these will be the lower half of your wings.

Then take two hangers and twist them together, again with pliers. Sometimes if you have trouble with this, you can bend then to a point and do one end at a time. Bend the into the shape of a wing and then twist the other ends together. I always do the first set with the two hangers in a line, so that you can round the tip; but if you want a point on the end you can twist them together the way you did for the first two tear-drop shapes. Bend the wire so that it looks like wings and join the ends together with pliers. Repeat for the opposite side.

Once you have the wings shaped the way that you wish, lay the pieces out on top of the fabric you chose. Cut a rough outline of the wing in the fabric. Now, if you have pins you can pin the fabric in place. This makes the sewing part much easier. It is doable without pins but takes longer.

Thread your needle and decide how you want to stitch the fabric on. I usually roll the excess fabric so that it is flush with the wire and just run a loop stitch all the way around. I've seen wings that have lots of excess fabric hanging off of them that has been shredded, so it just depends on the type of wings you want. I cut my fabric so that there are corners on the tips of the wings, I stitch and roll up to that point, then snip the fabric so that there is a rolled fabric 'spike' sticking out off the edge of the wing, then keep loop stitching around the rest of the wing.

After the fabric is all stitched on, you can attatch the wings together. I always lay the bottom two tear drops the way I want them and then where the wires cross stitch X's so that they will stay together at that point. The fabric will keep them in place. After the two tear drops are together, I add the larger top wings (one at a time), using X's anywhere the wire crosses.

Pick up the wings and make sure they don't fall apart when you hold them.

Get to a mirror and decide how high up on your back you want the wings to sit. Keep in mind where the tops of your shoulders touch the wings. Now this is probably the trickiest part (besides figuring out how to get the hangers to twist around each other and stay!) You need to stitch one end of the ribbon to a place where two pieces of wire meet and you stitched them together with X's. This is the strongest point on the wings, so stitch the ribbon to that junction. Don't cut the ribbon yet.

Pick the wings back up and test the ribbon to make sure it's not going to come undone. Place the wings on your back and loop the ribbon around your shoulder and under your armpit. You should be able to adjust the hieght of the wings based on the length of the ribbon. Cut the ribbon a little bit longer than you think you will need it to be.

Cut a second piece of ribbon the same length as the first piece. Stitch the second piece of ribbon to the wings. Since the wings should be symetrical you should be able to just sew the ribbon onto the wings in the same spot on the other side.

Put the wings back on and use the ribbon to hold them onto your back. Use your fingers as reference points and feel for a good place to attatch the ribon under your arms. This is why we cut the ribbon longer than we thought we needed to. Make sure the ribbon isn't too tight, you may be wearing these wings for several hours at a time.

Try on your wings in the mirror, make sure they fit right and sit at the correst height.

Now is the fun part. If you have extra ribbon, you can cut pieces of ribbon and stitch it to the edges and insides of the wings for decoration. You can use sequins or beads to decorate the wings. I like to get glittery fabric paint and paint veins on the wings before I add any other decoration.

Once you have wings that you like you can add to them and change them up a little every time you brush off the dust and wear them. I remade mine this time with ribbon instead of elastic for the arm bands because the elastic was either too tight or stretched and allowed my wings to sag. I used this for Faerie wings but you can do the same thing for angel or devil wings. Butterfly wings or dragon wings. I used six hangers and had two parts to my wings. You can make smaller wings with fewer or smaller hangers or larger wings with more hangers. Get creative with the wings, no two wings should ever be the same!