Quick (and slightly cheating) Crafty Tuesday

Well I gotta be honest and say I didn't do these last week....but I so want to contribute to Crafty Tuesday (and it's been such a  long time!)...so I thought I'd show you what I'd made for our Sunday School Nativity.

I re-introduced the idea of a nativity some 5 years ago and since then I have been building up a store of nativity supplies. I don't know what your Sunday School is like but we never know from one week to the next who will be there! As a result I figured I needed a selection of costumes for those kids who 'turned up on the day' and I set about sewing the same.
Some time ago I complained about the number of children who came supposedly dressed  as 'angels' but looking more like a Walt Disney Tinkerbell animation. The wings were one problem. Supermarkets had started turning out 'fairy' costumes with cheap wings, usually in hot pink with caribou,  but this is not my idea of an angel. To this end I started making wings. I found the pattern in an old magazine and kind of adapted it to my vision.
These wings are relatively easy to make but require a bit of patience and confidence on the machine.

Materials: 
buckram or stiff interfacing, the kind you use to make hat brims
Wadding: I used poly wadding, the type designed for quilting
Glitter glue: choose one which can be squeezed out of the tube at a constant rate
Ribbon: About a meter of 2cm wide ribbon (depending on age and size of children. I used gold.

The key thing in the construction of the wings is to get the shape right in the first instance. Cut two pieces of buckram to the shape and use the ideas from the pictures above to add lines for 'feathers' to one wing of the pair. Once you have marked the feathers, sandwich a piece of wadding between the two buckram wing shapes. Pin.  Cut the wadding to fit the wing shape. Using the machine, sew through three layers to create the feather stitching. I started with a seam stitch all the way around the outside.

Once everything is stitched in place, spray edges with gold if desired and outline feather stitching with glitter glue. Attach a ribbon (folded in half) at top centre back so that wings can be attached by crossing over in front and tying down around the arms and behind the back, or going straight around the arms and round the back.

I've got to say, in my experience, this provision of angel wings has radically altered the appearance on angels of our stage :-)
If you have any questions about the angel wings or any other craft projects, poorly described here on my blog, please leave a comment! I'd love to hear from you.

For more inspiring crafty ideas, click over to Crafty Tuesday at Carrie's blog.