Narnian Trees

I've been working on a costume for the new Prince Caspian movie for about four months now. I'm going for an approximation of Susan Pevensie in her battle armour.

I taught myself to knit so I could make a "chain maille" facimile. I taught myself how to sew boning and linings and interfacings and zippers and stuff (note to self - sometimes the patterns that look simple are not) so I could make the red dress and a (p)leather cuirass (molded body armour). I will not, however, be learning archery, mostly because I can't actually take weaponry into the theatre.

I am obsessed. I admit it. I think I love the costume making even more than I will like the movie. Don't get me wrong, I love the Chronicles of Narnia, but that's the point -- the movie can never be as good as the book.

I made a costume (less sewing and more draping fabric) for the premiere of the last movie - The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I was a dryad... or was it naiad? I always get them confused. Wiki interruption: "Dryads are tree nymphs in Greek mythology," "the Naiads ... were a type of nymph who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks." So definitely dryad.

I grant you, I looked a bit upside down for a tree, but I got around that by saying I was the spirit of a weeping willow.

Yes, my friends, I dressed myself as a tree. Not like a grade schooler with a giant cardboard cut-out that flops forward and backward in the wind from the airconditioning vent -- no I bought yards of loose green fabric, and layered it over my brown pants and shirt like a toga. I covered it with silk leaves (I felt like a Weta Workshop person while I stitched my leaves on one at a time). And I even bobby-pinned leaves to my hair. It was great fun.

This year, I am going for a more human (and possibly repurposable) costume by dressing as Susan, but you never know, there are merpeople in Dawn Treader.