Making of Isis Wings

Some while ago I decided to make some changes to my Bean Sídhe (Banshee) routine. Like Amethyst, Bean Sídhe needed something to spice it up (I will open up that story on next post).

 Firstly, I wanted to change silk fans to Isis wings. But were there any ready-made wings like I wanted? Not that I could find, and a custom order was out of the question because of the cost. So my options were no wings or self-made wings. Well, making one was a scary thought as I'm not much of skilled in handicrafts, but I wanted to give it a try.

I started to do my homework and went through diy guides on different websites, until I found one that was simple enough and clear with instructions. I took measurements of my dimensions and next step was to find a suitable fabric. For that I turned to our burlesque community asking advice. And luckily I did, because I was very close to choose too heavy fabric. From Etsy I finally found light gradient colored fabric that was perfect visually. Wooden sticks I found from craft shop.

Alrighty then, let's do this!

First thing was to cut fabric in half. I had then two 150 cm x 180 cm piece which both I cutted to a semi-circle so that 180 cm edge stayed straight. The instructions advised to sew the hems but I wanted to take a shortcut so instead of sewing I burned them. A bit risky business as I could have easily destroyed that beautiful fabric. Thanks to gods it worked out just fine! So now I had wings ready and next step was to sew the upper hem and make an "alley" for sticks. Sticks however were light wooden color and you could see them through. That's something I didn't like so I painted them black and it was much better visually. I then secured them in "alleys" and started to work with next phase which was a collar. For that I found piece of left over fabric from my mum's stash and it was quick to sew together. I used velcro for attachment around my neck (might change later to snaps). Last phase was to attach wings to collar and that's when I noticed that things didn't work out as in the instructions...

Instructions said to find a middle point from wing and attach it from that point to back of the collar. When doing so, the front part of the wing was too short for any bigger movements and I just couldn't figure out what I have done wrong. So annoying!! My only options was to find new attachment point so I can have enough space for large movements. Obviously it has an effect on how the wings look from behind but I can live with that. However, that failure bothered me and I seriously wondered what went wrong until I came to that conclusion that measurement instruction had to be wrong. So note to self, if you ever make Isis wings again, you need to add at least 60 cm to the width. 

Making of Isis Wing was fun project and quite easy as well. I really do like the way they turned out and that little failure doesn't bother me anymore. I will use them proudly on my Bean Sídhe routine!