A trip to Nymbol’s Secret Garden

The weather was looking good so we took the ferry to Whidbey Island and made our way to Langley, Washington to check out Nymbol’s Secret Garden. Our good friends, Bill and Samantha Cass, have created a really unique concept, and we were all excited to see it person. Creating fairy costumes for Nymbol's Secret Garden is the whole reason I started Rumpled Silks in the first place. I shouldn’t leave out the Cass kids -- Tabitha and Isadora – both accomplished artists themselves. Izzy has great hand skills already (only 7 years old!) and Tabitha creates gorgeous jewelry and magic wands, both of which are hot items at the store.

I hesitate to call it a shop, because it’s so much more than that. It’s also workspace for artists, complete with workshops and classes, plus it's a "playspace" for kids of all ages, with theme parties available in flavors like "pirate", "wizard", "cowboy" and "fairy".

The shop is split down the middle – “objects of desire” on one side, and a giant work table with art supplies on the other side. Since I’d brought an unfinished project with me (the Flame Fairy tutu), I settled down at the worktable with a pile of sequins and tulle. It was fun and inspiring to work amid all the other beautiful things, and I loved the fact that everyone was sitting at the table together working on their own stuff. Sam and Izzy were making little clay skulls to decorate for Halloween, Tabitha was decorating willow wands, and Bill was planning and plotting a new friend for Nymbol (the impish puppet mascot behind this whole operation).

Not to sound corny, but there really is something for everyone. The hubby loved the metal sculptures made from old tools (check out the butterfly made from an old wrench in my slideshow), and we had to come home with a pair of child-sized fairy wings for my little pixie (you can see just how much she enjoyed them in the slideshow as well).

Anyway, if you’re looking for something unique, or just want to hang out with some really cool people, head to Nymbol’s Secret Garden. You never know -- maybe some of the creative juices flowing there will rub off on you, too!

Have fun today!

Melinda

Flame Fairy Tutu

Izzy in Flame Fairy tutu
Originally uploaded by mc-s

Love the colors on this one. Wish I could have gotten the sequins to show up a little better in this photo. There are black sequins dotting the red tulle.

I actually finished this tutu in the workshop at Nymbol’s Secret Garden. It was fun to be there as people were stopping by to check out my other stuff at the shop. Izzy had fun test driving the tutu around Langley. I liked seeing one of my creations on a real kid instead of a sewing dummy. My little munchkin is too small to wear most of the things I make.

For the boys (and warrior girls) .... the Gryphon Tabard

So far my projects have been pretty “girlie”, with the possible exception of the galaxy cape. I could have seen that going home with some young wizard – though in the end, it went home with a lovely young sorceress in training. But when I saw this crazy blue and gold skirt at the local thrift store, I immediately thought of knights and swordplay. It ended up being my first “boy” project, though I’m all for girls with swords – and boys in tutus for that matter, if that’s what they want to wear.



Anyway, back to the project. The original skirt was definitely homemade, though whoever made it did a nice job (unlike whoever put together the velvet skirt I used for the galaxy cape --uhhh). I took it apart and started lining up the pattern for the best fit on a small-sized tabard. I thought I might be able to squeeze two tabards from the one skirt, but alas – the pattern was too big and the old seams left too many holes that I had to work around. I’ll be using the skirt leftovers as heraldry on another tabard for certain – it’s too nice to waste.



I spent WAY too long deciding on a symbol to place on the front of the tabard. In the end, I settled on a griffin – a symbol of courage and strength in medieval heraldry. I love the look of the red griffin along with the red dagging on the hem and sleeves. The “chain mail” arms came from a great little piece of fabric I found in a remnant bin, and the braided trim is a leftover from another project. So with the exception of the red felt, every bit of this tabard is reused/recycled materials.



The “Gryphon tabard” is available at Nymbol’s Secret Garden on Whidbey Island in Langley, Washington. If you are interested in this tabard, or any other projects, you can contact me via email for more details. And I’m always happy to share what I know, so if you’re interested in more information on any of the techniques I’ve used, I’d love to hear from you.

Have fun today!
Melinda

Galaxy Cape

Galaxy Cape
Originally uploaded by mc-s

Project update: I sent out the teaser a few weeks back about this sweet black velvet skirt I found hanging out in my local thrift store. Well, I’ve finally made some progress – behold the Galaxy cape! This is definitely kid-sized, though a smaller adult might be able pull it off, too.

The disassembly of this skirt nearly took as long as it did to make the new cape. It was very clear that it was a home-sewn project, and the person who made this thing really over-built it. I literally spent hours carefully ripping out yards and yards of zig-zag stitching so as not to damage the velvet. Try picking out tiny black stitches on black velvet sometime– it’s maddening!

Anyway, once I had a nice big piece of velvet, I was ready to rock. I sewed the star sequins in place first. If you’re ever making something that’s lined like this cape, that is definitely the way to go. Trying to sew them on after the fact without catching the lining would have been tedious and I don’t think it would have looked nearly as nice.

I was going to use red satin for the lining, but instead I choose butter yellow. I liked the way it glowed beneath the black, and also the beads I used to attach the sequins had a slight golden cast to them, so I liked picking that up in the lining. Looking at the finished product, I’m happy I didn’t use red. It would have looked more “Dracula” than “wizard”, which is what I was going for with this design. Though I do have another big piece of velvet left for another project --- hmmmm ….

Have fun today!
Melinda

Anansi Girls? Spinning a cobweb tutu

I’m always inspired by other great artists, and one of my favorite writers is Neil Gaiman. I just finished reading his novel Anansi Boys this week, which is all about the spider god Anansi and his two sons, Fat Charlie and Spider. There also happens to be a bit of a spider invasion going on at our house, so I’ve had arachnids on the brain for a week or so now. The “final strand” in my cobweb tutu design came together when I was looking through my fabric remnant pile, and re-discovered some web-patterned netting from a goth-inspired Little Miss Muffet dress I made a few years ago. The pieces were in place – now to get sewing!

I choose black, eggplant and lavender tulle for this project. The web netting really needed a layer of something light in color underneath to show off the pattern – it was lost with just black beneath it.

Once the skirt was put together, I started adding sequins to the spider webbing for sparkle. That looked pretty good, but the star of the show was missing. I needed a spider, and the plastic ones you get at Halloween would not do. I had some faceted black buttons that came off a thrift-store project skirt, so I used one for the head. I found another fancy button for the body, and made the legs out of silver seed and bugle beads. I tried sewing them directly onto the netting, which was a BIG mistake. Thank goodness I tried it out first on a scrap first. I would have cried if I ruined all my hard work on that skirt on the last step like that.

Instead of sewing, I used some super fine-gauge wire to build the legs and wire the two buttons together. After a few misfires (it was my first crack at using beads and wire like that), I had a really good looking spider.

So there you have it – a cobweb tutu just in time for All Hallow’s Eve. It will be making its way north to Nymbol’s Secret Garden very soon!

Grand Opening! Grand Opening!

My good friends, Bill and Sam Cass, are celebrating the birth of their new baby -- Nymbol's Secret Garden (they already have two beautiful and talented daughters to be proud of). The Cass clan is responsible for Rumpled Silks, really -- they asked if I would like to create some fairy fashions for their store/design studio, and that's how the whole thing started.

Anyway -- you should check it out if you're in the Whidbey Island/Seattle area. The Grand Opening is this Saturday, and I'm completely bummed out that I'm going to miss it. I hear that a real pirate queen will be there to lead the sing-a-long. It's absolutely worth the trip, and it's the only place to buy Rumpled Silks fashions! Check out the poster -- it does a better job of describing the whole vibe than I ever could:

Project Preview

Found this amazing black velvet skirt and some other great treasures on my latest thrift store crawl. Can't wait to get my sewing machine back from a much-needed tune up.