To catch up with the first part of this post, click here.
Cloak 1: To continue the Harry Potter Halloween fun, I whipped up some cloaks. While in the pictures in my previous post Tonks was wearing a lovely coat from Necessary Evil (see here), I also sewed her a large, black cloak that’s more traditional Harry Potter style, and that can (and has been) easily repurposed for a ghost, evil sorcerer, mysterious figure, and the unfortunate family member at every Halloween event who never got a costume together.
Cloak 2: In addition to the black cloak, I also did a classic Harry Potter cloak, with a more peach-skin type fabric, and a red Gryffindor lining for the hood.
Cloak 3: And now we go Tolkien! Tolkien is my dearest literary love (sorry Harry Potter; I must admit that you are just a passing, yet pleasant, fancy), and I have made three cloaks inspired by his works as well. The first is a Bombur cloak, done in a woven, gray-blue fabric. This is probably honestly my favorite of all these cloaks; I like the naturalness of the fabric, and the versatility—it can be repurposed again and again.
Cloak 4: Aragon’s. This cloak was inspired by those worn by the characters in Peter Jackson’s version of The Lord of the Rings; although Jackson’s costume makers used a fabulous, textured fabric (delicately “made by the elves”, also good for camouflage) for the Fellowship’s cloaks, I used a slighter more dusty green, heavy woven. Very utilitarian; which, I think, is what Aragorn would desire. It was my first cloak and perhaps worst—I sewed the clasp on the wrong place and the whole thing has the tendency to try and strangle me, but we’ve gotten along well together nevertheless.
(the movie fabric)
(my cloak)
(close-up on the elvish leaf pin)
Cloak 5: This is turning out to be something of a cloak marathon! For this we must go back beyond The Lord of the Rings into the depths of the amazing work, The Silmarillion, which covers ages of the history of Middle Earth—chock-full of more epic stories and characters. Fingon (also known as Findekano) is one of these, who ends up traveling all the way to the dreaded Morgoth’s (even worse than Sauron, if you can believe it) fortress to rescue his friend, Maedhros, who has been hanging off the side, chained by his hand, for quite some time. The cloak is shorter, because Fingon needs to be unencumbered; he’s a warrior and, more specifically, an archer. The cloak is blue, which goes with the blues (and silver) of the rest of the costume, as those are the colors of Fingon’s house (he is a member of the house of Finarfin), and has a more complex clasp idea. It is closed by a twisting panel of fabric, secured by sew-on snaps, and over that I pin a brooch I made, displaying the insignia of his house.
(close-up on twist-closure and House of Finarfin brooch)
All the cloaks here (sans the Aragorn one), where made based on this pattern:
A truly excellent investment (I made the tunic too and it also rocks).