Fairy flower circlet and headband
I’m still here, still sewing just slowed down a bit over Christmas.
This is the flower circlet headdress I made for one of my nieces, to go with the pink ruffled skirt.
I started off with a wire base and covered it with some ribbon (glued on) leaving a trail of ribbon on each end to tie on her head.
I made some tulle roses from scrap left over from the skirt and glued these on the base, then pulled apart some artificial silk flowers and glued the petals in the gaps.
Here I am trying to model it while taking a photo!
I also made a headband for her to wear when a dress-up one would be inappropriate, like school. I used a plain plastic band from the $2 shop and glued on a pink ribbon, then a tulle flower and yo-yo made from the skirt fabric. The ribbon is a little crooked as you can see, next time I think I’ll wrap the ribbon around the band rather than try to get it straight!
Fairy Wand
No fairy outfit would be complete without a wand. I made this one to go with the blue/turquoise wings and skirt.
I used an old knitting needle for the stick and covered it with a strip of knit fabric and some ribbon, gluing here and there with a hot glue gun to hold in place.
The fluffy bit at the top is made from tulle cut into circles, which are then folded in half, folded into quarters and then folded again, then stitched together to make a ball shape.
I made a flower shape from a piece of wire and attached it with the hot glue gun, then added the blue flower trim to finish it off.
This is the first of the three fairy/princess outfits to be completed! Yay!
I’m still working on headpieces for the other two, hopefully will be finished soon. In fact this whole project has taken me a lot longer than I expected, which is quite frustrating as I had other projects planned to give to people for Christmas and probably won’t get them all done. Next up are some dress-ups for my boys, at least all the kids will have something hand made by me.
New Fairy Skirt
We’ve been very busy this week, today was the first I have been able to get any sewing done. I was very pleased to get this fairy skirt finished this morning. It’s to go with the fairy wings in my last post.
I have used lots of layers of different fabrics cut into triangle or square shapes, overlapping at the waist, with a few lengths of ribbon to finish it off.
The main fabric is from an old silk skirt from my mum. I love it when Mum’s have clean outs!
The pale blue bits are from the lining of the skirt and the deep blue and turquoise tulle is the same as I used for the wings.
I have used some light turquoise/blue fine cotton to line it.
I didn’t want any gaps in the lining, but still wanted the shape and fullness of the outer layer, so what I did was cut two large squares, cut holes in the middle like I did for my first fairy skirt, then cut up the middle of each. I then joined the two together (the circle bits) to make one very full skirt layer with eight points. If you look carefully you can see one of the two seams where I joined them together.
This was the first time I tried this technique and I really like how it turned out. In fact I wish I done the same thing to the outer layer!
Will have to do some more skirts that way in the future.
Fairy wings
I’m so excited. I have just made my first successful pair of fairy wings!
Here is my little boy kindly modeling them for me, and yes he actually wanted to wear them.
In my research on how to make fairy wings I found mostly tutorials on the wire coat hanger technique, you know, you get the coat hangers (or just wire shapes) cover them with pantyhose and join them together. But of course I had to be different.
I wanted something a bit lighter and not so awkward so I decide to use layered tulle.
I used four layers, two turquoise and two dark blue, cut into a wing shape and then gathered up the middle. The two colours were overlapped slightly when I stacked them to show a variation of colour at the edges.
To cover up the stitching I sewed on some blue cord/braid over the top. I put shapes in the middle of the tulle and stitched around the edges through all the layers.
I also threaded some fishing wire through the wings in a loopy pattern for stiffness. To cover this up, on the back where you see most of the wings I sewed braid over the top of the wire and on the front I used some silver dimensional fabric paint.
For the straps I covered some elastic with fabric and hand stitched them in place on the front.
I had lots of fun making these. If I was going to make them quicker I think I would cut the wing shapes smaller and use more layers of tulle. Then there won’t be the need to add anything to stiffen them out.
Basic fairy skirt tutorial
I made a basic fairy skirt to wear to a theme party about three years ago and enjoyed wearing it so much that I wished I had made one sooner instead of waiting for a occasion to wear one. Every day should be a fairy skirt day!
I would like to share the technique I used. It’s a fairly quick and simple way of making a dress up skirt for children – or yourself – if you don’t like shop bought ones.
You will need at least two layers of fabric cut into squares, roughly one metre squared will give you a length approximately to the knee on an adult. You can make the squares larger or smaller depending on how long you want the skirt to be and how wide your fabric is.
I used four layers, first – purple satin lining (goes on the bottom), second-mauve nylon organza, third-purple net/tulle, and fourth (top)-mauve organza with a sparkly star print.
You can use whatever type of fabric you want,but I would recommend using something non-see through on the bottom.
Layer the fabric on on your table or floor alternating between “square” position and “diamond”.
Now you will need to cut a hole in the centre big enough to go over the hips.
Hip measurement plus ease divided by 6.28 will give you the radius measurement to draw a circle with a compass, eg. hip measurement of 94cm plus 3 cm ease (97cm) divided by 6.28 equals 15.45cm, get a compass and set it to 15.45cm, draw a circle, and the circumference should be about 97cm.
Use the circle as at template to centre over the squares/diamonds and cut hole. Ok, back up a bit. Before you lay your squares out, fold each one in half, then in half again to find the centre. You can then use the dot from the compass in the middle of your template to line up with the corner that is the centre of the square and cut through four layers, using a quarter of the template. Or you can fold/cut your template into quarters and place on top edge to edge, then cut. Do this for each layer. If you are very brave, or have a fancy cutting tool you could do all the layers together. Pins are allowed – just don’t hit them with scissors, they don’t like it.
Make a casing for elastic by cutting a strip of fabric as long as the circumference of the circle plus 2cm seam allowance, approx 6cm wide, and stitch together. Cut elastic to fit waist measurement and join up, fold casing in half right sides out and attach to skirt with elastic inside.
This can be tricky, you can attach casing first if you want, leaving an opening for elastic and then thread the elastic through. Personally, I think that way is even more tricky, its up to you 
You could also just use some matching ribbing or knit fabric for a waistband, as long as it doesn’t stretch too much after sewing on to the skirt. We wouldn’t want our fairy to have her skirt falling down!
Now add a pretty top, some wings and a wand and off you go.
