The Early Years

My earliest costuming projects were mostly for the renaissance festival.  I went to my first one when I was 8 and in 2000 Louisiana started it's own.  I've never gone to one out of costume and over the years I began making my own pieces.  Since my skills were still pretty fresh this mostly consisted of skirts.

This skirt was originally paired with a green one underneath.  The top was hitched up in the front so you could see the underskirt.  I also had a while chemise and tan bodice with trim that matched this overskirt.  The pattern was made up of pine trees, stars and suns.  The coins are sewn where they are because I didn't have enough to sew around the hem.

The chemise was made by a friends mom and I was just borrowing it for the day.  The corset came from www.crimsongypsy.com and is exceptionally well made.  I still have it and it hardly shows any of it's wear and tear (I bought it in 2006).
Around the same time that I bought the corset I started pulling together a gypsy ensemble.  I made a full circle skirt, shown in the two pictures above, made from cotton.  It alternated unbleached white panels with a creamy yellow and red striped design (not shown).  I made it before I understood some basics about making skirts and the waist is extremely big.  It closes with a draw string.  That's my sister btw.

This was from the year that I worked at the archery booth.  It was bitterly cold (it even snowed that year) and we all had to wear a lot of layers.  I made a capelet from a crazy orange fabric with gold stripes that my sister found and it was lined with a similarly colored fleece that was cut from a 5 dollar Walmart blanket.  I did not make my Jayne hat.  It was bought at D*Con.