Revenge of the Swamp Witch

Once upon a time, there lived a witch in the swamps. She spent her time casting spells between the mud, dirt and water, wreaking havoc all over the place. Her frightening appearance- floating scarves, skirts and kimonos- burned itself into the collective memory of the people and remained there for centuries after the witch's death...

One day, a foolish young girl decided to use this image, and dress up as the Swamp Witch for something as trivial as a Halloween party, despite of the warnings her friends uttered. Because, as the story goes, the Swamp Witch's spirit was said to posess the bodies of the wild dogs roaming the swamp and the forests around it, and she did not like it when people would mock her name!

The Foolish Young Girl persisted, and assembled a costume inspired by the tales about the Swamp Witch. Most items were already present in her wardrobe, but she did have to get crafty to get her hands on some of them! She cut a stencil of the Witch's sign (as it was left on people's doors in the old days, striking fear into the hearts of the villagers) and applied it to a lowly store-bought top, using gold fabric paint.

Obviously, the kimono was the most important part of the outfit. The Foolish Young Girl found a piece of gifted lace in her pile of fabrics and went chopping. After simply sewing together a few rectangles and attaching some fringe, she had something that truly invoked the spirit of the Swamp Witch. Her friends were impressed, but begged her not to get too close to the forest, since the tales of the Witch had made a lasting impression on their minds. But the Foolish Young Girl ignored their warnings and went ahead.

This is the last picture the search team found on her camera when they recovered it:

Oh Paris, you've really done something to me

Look who found some time to take pictures, edit them and write a post! I even had to take a short trip to Paris for these. Really. No, actually we were going there anyway to see the Welcome to Night Vale live show (AWESOME). We were in the city for about three days and had loads of luck with the weather, so I decided to take some pictures of a new dress during a visit to the Père Lachaise cemetery!

This is essentially a lengthened version of the Magena fringe jumper by Named Patterns. No spectacular hacking here: I just lengthened and slightly flared the pattern pieces, and omitted the hem band. It seems the Sew Convert had the same idea! I love her version.

This was my first time working with a Named pattern, and I'm impressed. The design is simple but interesting and opens up a whole lot of possibilities. The instructions are short but clear (mind: there's a lot less hand-holding than with other indie patterns! The instructions for this jumper fit on one A4 page) and the drafting was excellent.

I used a combination of two different fabrics for this. The main body is made out of a sparkly silver mistery knit I bought at Stoffenspektakel in Antwerp, the sleeves are made from a black modal knit I got from Mondepot. The black might be a bit too lightweight for this, especially compared to the glitter, but I don't really mind this... The main eyecatcher is the fringe of course, which has really won me over. I'm already planning another fringed project!

I cut the length a fair bit shorter than I'd usually go for to balance out the bagginess. This is a far cry from my usual fitted waist/full skirt silhouette, but I loved this for strolling around (and eating lots of food)

See? I can even do a graveyard dance in it. To be honest I felt a little awkward doing a 'fashiony' shoot in a location like this, especially since the cemetery is still in active use, but on the other hand we saw loads of tourists stomping on other graves to get a good picture of Jim Morrison's, so I guess it's not so bad? Damn, I'd be pissed if people walked all over my grave all the time just because I'm next to someone famous.

It had been a long time since I was in Paris, and I had a blast. We only had a few days so we decided to make the most of it and just see as much cool things as we could (within reason). We even saw the Eiffel Tower!

 We also visited a few really nice exhibitions (Hokusai and an Art Brut exhibit) but I was most thrilled about the Natural History museum! It's a beautiful building and the Paleonthology department is amazeballs. It's two floors stuffed to the brim with skeletons and seems to have been left unchanged for ages (I loved the ancient signs).

 

I've finished some knitting recently so I hope to photograph that as well now it's getting colder! Get ready for the sight of my first sweater...

PS: For those wondering about the title of this post.