Valkyrie crown & shield

The headdress has been shaped and painted. Later I'm adding wings and an elastic band around the back so that it'll actually stay on my head. (I'll just cover it with my hair when worn.) I might also redo the bird centrepiece. It was supposed to look like a stylised raven, but I don't know how well that worked out.

The wings were drying while I packed in blind panic the night before leaving.

This is as far as I got on the wings before I had to leave for Oslo and school. I'll finish it in October, I have a week off and I think I'm going home.

The pauldron won't stay on by itself, so I had plans of a belt going over my chest, as well as a few magnets I'll fasten to the armoured bodice. I found a nice belt in my grandparent's basement. It was a bit worn, so I added some eyelets to it. If you're in Norway, stay away from the eyelets at Biltema. It's a reason why they're cheap.

These will be glued to the pauldon where the belt is fastened to it. 

Down south where I live now, I've just barely started on the Valkyrie's shield. So far I've made a paper pattern to follow. The white roll on the picture is a deerskin I got at Borre Vikingmarked - it's going on top of the wood, but before that happens, I'll have to figure out a way to soften it a little.

Oww :(

The woodwork whent swimmingly for about thirty minutes and then everything went all bloody wrong and I barely escaped getting stitches. Never whittle towards yourself. I should know this by now.

(At least a bloody shield is period correct...)

Skulduggery Pleasant & the Requiem Ball Mask

Not lipstick. Fake blood. 

Skulduggery Pleasant is coming to an end soon. I made a mask for the Requiem Ball contest on Facebook. Since the books are fairly gory (seriously, I've had nightmares!) I headed straight for special effects. 

While I wanted a blood-dripping effect, I took inspiration from Sandra Bornholm's fantastic mask. Chrix Design has made a wonderful variation and tutorial on how to use latex and tissue. 

This is how it looks like when it's not on my face.

Meet my leedle friend...

It didn't turn out exactly how I'd envisioned it, but the end result isn't half bad. These pictures were taken right in front of a window because the light was shit everywhere else, so every time someone passed by I had to duck behind the curtains. (In other words, there is a reasonable explanation as to why there is the blood on my curtains...) 

Like the genius I am, I took the pics before reading the contest rules... which stated you were not allowed to submit pictures of the mask on your face. Understandable, because a lot of fans are minors, but come on I am an adult (sorta). I did take pictures of the mask, but I forgot to submit them. So I'll take this as a learning experence. It was fun to do even if I'm still finding bloodspatters everywhere.

Elven crown

Taking pictures two minutes after getting out of bed is a genius idea.

I have no idea what it's called, but anyway, I found this table decoration... thing at Goodwill and have used it as an Elven crown at a few occasions. It's been decorated with some flowers, leaves and string to look more like a crown and less like whatever-it-is.

Victorian Valkyrie

First a little mood music...

The valkyries of Norse mythology were the choosers of the slain, deciding life and death on the battle-field. They brought the dead to Valhalla to become einherjar, or to Freya's hall Folkvangr. Because Freya wasn't only goddess of beauty and fertility, she was also a goddess of war and had the right to half of those slain in battle, and why do people forget this, Freya is badass.

During the Victorian romanticism and national romantic movements the teutonic myths were brought into the spotlight again. Thanks to Wagner, most people associate opera with fat ladies in valkyrie costumes singing impossibly high in German. And that's sorta the kind of costume I want.

Source.

Source.

Bilde @ Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera. Source.

It's interesting to see how the classic design has changed during more than a hundred years. The original Victorian design is fantasy medieval-ish with some Greek influence and has very little to do with the Viking age, so I'm going down the same road without a care for anything period correct. At the same time I'm going to use some period construction and borrow a few things from my viking wardrobe.

This is costume doodle #3 but I'm sure I'll change my mind about the design.

I forgot I was going to add decorations and started painting it a bit early. Oops. 

I've made a few things already. The iron age shoes are finished, and a little while ago I started on a pauldron in foam because I had some foam lying and I desperately needed a pause from wrestling with a pink corset. Whenever I do a project in foam and hot glue, I'm quickly reminded of my love for sewing,

The tree is supposed to be Yggdrasil, but it's based on a design of Telperion of the Silmarillion. Tolkien borrowed a lot from Norse mythology, so it's okay to borrow some things back.

And since it's not supposed to be used until Banzaicon in April,
it's keeping Iron Man company on my chandelier.

Quilting, viking shirts and nalbinding, oh my

I might be a lousy blogger, but I'm great at making stuff. Lots of stuff. That I then forget to blog about because ugh, I have to take pics of stuff and then I probably forget to post the bloody pics I've taken. So, here have everything at once. 

Somewhere during my last moving shenanigans I realised the morning robe I started in December was one of the things that just wasn't going to be finished. But since I'd quilted the whole thing by hand I couldn't get myself to throw it away. So I made a big pillowcase instead.

It's a bit ironic that the very thing I had great plans of wearing when I had somehow miraculously crawled out of bed early, has been turned into something that will probably make me want to sleep in.

I had a nap and woke up with lines from the embroidery on my face...

My stash hasn't shrunk a lot despite a move, so I've set goals to use as much of it as possible. This vintage fabric came from a curtain. I had enough for a tiny dress I've put up for sale on the Norwegian equivalent of Etsy.

The viking shirt I made from scrap fabric needed decoration, so I did some embroidery in wool. It turned out too short for me (as I said, made from scraps) and now it's on its way to a new owner in Denmark. Hope she'll like it!

I've a participant at a few viking markets this summer, and I needed something to do while I was there (and something to do while travelling there - the Norwegian railway is not among the fastest...). It resulted in these beanies, a few socks that has already been given to their owners, and some unshapely arm warmers that look weird when they're laid flat, so no pic of that.

The grey beanies are made in a ridiculously soft alpaca. I don't use beanies (long hair, static, nooo), but I'm tempted to keep one of them for myself.

Elven robe

Elves like flowers, right?

Somewhere around new year I happened to win hellofeanor's giveaway on Tumblr, and a few days ago this robe showed up at my doorstep! The costume maker has a site here, with a lovely costume gallery and tutorials worth checking out, and a tumblr here.