Idyllic Chick

The aforementioned wing prototypes I made last year turned out beautifully. I was thrilled. I had shaped some heavy, yet malleable wire into a loop, basted Kelly's selected wing fabric onto this frame, then zigzagged the fabric to the frame with my sewing machine. I kept the stitch length to a minimum and did not use a presser foot at all. Then I trimmed off the fabric and used Fray-Not around the edges to keep it all from unraveling. Like I said, they were gorgeous. All I needed to do for our real wings would be to simply do this on a larger scale. Oh, I was wrong. So very, very wrong. Once I got my wire frame made for my real wings, I carefully basted the fabric to the frame just as I had on the prototype. I sat down at my sewing machine, then I stood up. There was no room for me to sit once I placed the wing under the needle. I started to sew, and things really got messy. There was no possible way I was going to be able to maneuver and manipulate these frames into my sewing machine. I was quite upset that after doing all of my homework I’d have to start from square one again.

After scanning the Internet for instructions on how to make a nice, professional looking set of fairy wings, I was coming up bone dry. I found lots of advice on making wings out of pantyhose and coat hangers, but I wanted lots of curves and dips

in my wings. Pantyhose weren’t going to cut it. But after some trial and much error, I figured it out, and it ain't so bad. So here you are in hopes that Google picks this up on this: How to make fairie wings, how to make fairy wings, how to make faerie wings.

While surfing for ideas on how to make these suckers, I came upon many sites that I used for inspiration. The best one I found is FaerieGrove. Beautiful, beautiful wings! I simply wanted to make mine myself instead of purchasing them. So I got some inspiration in my head, and covered the dining room table with a sheet of wrapping paper. With some help from C, I sketched one wing in pencil. After finalizing the idea, I went over the sketch with a Sharpie.

I then contoured the wire along the shape of the pattern. As I said earlier, the wire I used for the frame was fairly thick, yet malleable. I was able to shape it easily with my hands, using a little help from a pair of needle nose pliers when it came to the sharper turns. I used a bit of Scotch tape to help hold things in place. Instead of using a traditional harness with which to wear my wings, I had plans of constructing the 'harness' right into my costume. For this reason I made a kind of spring on the inside edge of the wing frame. I left lots of extra wire at the end so that the wings would be more stable. I did all of this twice so that my fairie wouldn't be left flying in circles.

Then I laid my fabric over the wing frame. I chose a synthetic, glossy, shimmery, sheer fabric. I did not yet trim the cloth, as my trials from last year told me that this is a big no-no. I only cut the material to be slightly larger than the area covered by the wing frame. Then I lifted a section of the fabric, laid down a bead of glue along the top of the frame, and pressed and smoothed the cloth onto the frame. The glue I used is Fabri-Tac, made by Beacon Adhesives. I picked it up at Jo-Ann's, and it works like a charm. It does tend to get a little brittle after drying, and some of it will dry white if it is laid on too heavy. But it dries very quickly, and is nice to work with. I kept a paper towel handy to wipe excess goop off of the tip. It was good to have a kitchen towel handy as well to wipe drying glue off of my fingers. I worked my way around the entire length of the frame, lifting the fabric, running a bead of glue, then pressing and smoothing the fabric onto the frame.

After the fabric was completely glued to one side of the frame, I trimmed the cloth to about 3/8 of an inc h away from the frame. I flipped the frame over so that the fabric was under the frame. Remember the extra wire I left at the side of the frame for stabilization? At this point I hand sewed it tightly against the wire running along next to it, including the fabric in the seam. Very stable now, and flows more seamlessly.

I then ran a bead of glue a few inches along what was now the top of the frame, and wrapped the fabric around to the top, pressing and smoothing. Glue, wrap, press, smooth. Wipe fingers on towel. Repeat. It's a bit tedious, but it leaves a very professional appearance.

Once all that was good and dry, I finished the edge off with some thin bias tape. Wonderful stuff, that bias tape. It works easily around corners which was quite a boon for me. This time I laid the bead of glue along the outside edge of the frame. I opened the bias tape pressed the middle of it along the glue. Then quickly pressed the sides of the tape against the sides of the wings. Once I had the bias tape all the way around the wing, I went back and glued it down in places where it wasn't secure against the wing. I did this on both sides of the wing. That was a lot of gluing, but because the glue tends to get brittle after it dries, I wanted to make sure the frame and fabric would part ne'er again.

As you can see from the frame photo, there is a large dip in my wings that makes them more of a two-part thing. I wanted to put lacing between these two sections of wing. I vaguely thought of using eyelets in the lacing holes, as they would be bold and kind of hard core, but I had a pretty bad eyelet experience while helping Susan make my wedding dress. I decided that if I couldn't find black eyelets easily and locally, then I'd skip that idea. I couldn't find them, and found a wonderful alternate plan on line: incense. I placed the tip of a lighted stick of incense where I wanted the holes. The incense burned a perfect circle, cauterizing the edges at the same time. Yay! I laced some leather lacing through the holes.

I'll be wearing a corset as part of my fairie costume, and I planned on sewing a casing to the inside of the back of the corset into which I could slip the 'spring' part of the wing frame. But I thought the wings would be too wobbly. I ended up making the casing out of wide Velcro. The Velcro is the shiny part in this picture. It holds the wings *very* securely, and they are able to be taken out while I'm wearing the costume with a little effort. I don't want to have to learn to pee wearing a pair of fairie wings!

Once I tried the whole she-bang on, C noticed that the wings were top-heavy and drooping out to the sides. I had expected this to happen and had consulted Susan on the potential problem earlier. She advised that I make more incense holes along the inner edges of the wings, and lace them together as I had on the accent portion. That worked nicely, and kept the corsety, laced-up theme going.

Sorry I don't have fabulous pics of the wings yet. I'll take some when I try on the whole costume next weekend or so.