Blue Velvet

"What next?"

I asked myself that question a number of times. It was Andrea who suggested my next course of (costume) action.

"Since you have the armor already, what about Faramir's coronation outfit?"

Hmmmm....

For some reason, the other Aragorn outfits (the Black Gate and the coronation regalia) never really clicked with me the same way the original Ranger outfit did. I guess I have a soft spot for the slightly disheveled and grimy ...

Hmmmm....

I decided to do two outfits - the Houses of Healing outfit and the coronation outfit. Mainly because they were quite similar, atlthough the coronation outfit was a bit fancier. Doing the Faramir outfits was also going to give Andrea a chance to try some different techniques on the embroidery and sewing machines - mainly sewing with two needles at once!

We discussed the fabrics for this venture - silk dupioni for the sleeves, cotton velvet and silk velvet for the tunics and silk velvet for the mantle. As for the other details, I knew Andrea would produce something spectacular. And she did. Twice.

Again, the Alleycatscratch costume site was one of the best resources for researching the outfits. That, and the Extended Edition DVDs ...

The Houses of Healing Outfit

For this creation, Andrea used a sapphire blue dupioni silk for the sleeves and a lighter blue silk for the body - since the body portion is basically hidden by the tunic. The sleeves were double-stitched with gold thread and the cotton velvet tunic had some delicate gold embroidery around the mandarin collar. I used my plain black Boromir boots and got a embossed leather belt from Chip at Leatherlore.

Again, I can't quite believe the detail and the craftsmanship that I got from Andrea. Everything was perfect and comfortable. I wore this to a "office" Halloween party this year - the general rule was that if you had meetings or had to leave the floor, the outfit had to come OFF. Luckily for me, the tunic was long enough that I could just pull my pants legs over the boots when I had appointments.