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We Moved Thro' the Fair

A few weeks ago, I and most of my friends from college (we missed you, Kalalualeelani! Next year we'll get the whole gang together) gathered for our mostly-annual trip to the local renaissance festival. As usual, the day before, we gathered materials for costumes and fairy houses to help pay for our tickets, and stayed up not-as-late-as-usual to finish them.

A selfie of a white woman smiling mostly with her eyes, wearing a tall, twisted coral-pink turban with a band of purple-and-gold brocade over the crown of her head, and a translucent purple veil falling from the back of the turban. She has a red-violet boat-necked shirt with gold stamped flower roundels all over, and a patchwork stripe vest with green, red, and blue strips. Her thin gold necklace almost disappears against the shirt, but the gold hoop pendant shows pretty clearly.
I feel like this outfit is missing something, you know? Just not enough colors and textures...
I also continued my eternal quest for comfortable, flashy garb that protects as much of me as possible from the sun. This year: a turban and a veil! Points for flashiness and sun protection, and once I'd gotten the ends of the turban tucked in, remarkably unfussy.

A clamshell fairy house make of two straw hat crowns attached at one edge and propped open like a gaping mouth. The interior is lined in tiny shell fragments, with bright-red, purple, green, and greyish dried mosses draped down the lower hat's walls. Larger, intact shells are arranged inside the lower shell, while beaded strands dangle from the rim of the upper shell between long, green fake leaves attached to look like long teeth.
Clamshell House is shelter and guard dog all at once.
Continuing last pilgrimage's sea-going theme, we built a clamshell house of two mutilated straw hats, a lot of hot glue, and shell bits and moss. We also decided the long leaves on the top shell are teeth, with strands of clamspit hanging down. This house protects its inhabitants.

The inside of the crown of a straw hat, coated in tiny shell pieces, with red, purple, and grey swatches of dried moss draped over the walls. Intact shells are arranged at the bas like a small set of four chairs and a bed with a large orange clamshell dividing wall.
Sea fairies exude an opalescent lacquer remarkably similar to mother-of-pearl when they sleep, which rapidly coats the insides of their dwellings.
As a bonus, the copious quantities of shell we stuck on made the house heavy enough not to fly away in a soft breeze. We added a little seating area, and a shell divider to make the bedroom a bit more private.

A toy ship, shaped like a Chinese junk, with a rectangular sail made of burlap with thick, black, vertical zigzags printed on it. The hull is decorated at bow and stern with tiny shell pieces, and bright green and pink dried moss lines the edges of the deck and covers the bottom of the hull as it curves to the keel.
Fairies of a piratical bent have been known to capture sea fairies, using the lacquer for decoration and reinforcement on their vessels.
We've now done a pirate ship twice for a fairy house, and may do yet another—it's a fun challenge, and we like interpreting fairy "house" broadly.

We arrived, got our houses settled in the fairy grove, and set out to explore the faire—with flower crowns perched on our heads for extra whimsy (and so we short people were easy to find in a crowd).

A selfie of three young white women in a row, all wearing colorful flower crowns and smiling at the camera. In the background, inside a plaster-and-beam building, another young woman in a green tshirt and flower crown is leaning forward with her arm outstretched for a henna artist to paint on.
The gang, waiting for Mochuela to get her henna done.
A message board on a white-painted door with red framing, showing a variety of yellowed papers broadcasting a "lost armada," "plague notice," and "free land," among other things. The address plate says 413 Lakeview Drive, and a skull-and-crossbones plaque is pinned to the upper left corner of the brown wall the door is attached to.
The latest in town news.
A panorama of two mounted men holding barber-poled lances, one in gold and green and the other in black and white, aiming to catch a small gold-and-red hoop tossed in the air in front of a plaster-and-timber viewing platform on which the queen and her ladies, in Tudor garb, sit watching. Various attendants in Renaissance clothing stand at the sides of the list field, and a small set of stands to the left of the viewing platform are full of people in modern clothing.
Points to whoever catches the tossed ring on his lance.
Not only did we nab a shady spot from which to watch the joust, but Mochuela and I were chosen to give favors to the knight our section was cheering for.

A polaroid of a smiling young white woman, wearing a twisted coral turban, flower crown, and purple veil, with a sheer purple shirt stamped with gold floral roundels, a gold skirt, and a striped patchwork vest with green, red, and blue patches, sitting with her hands clasped on a low plank bench in the shade. A polaroid of three smiling young white women, rather overexposed, all wearing colorful flower crowns and standing around a high wooden table.
As has become usual, we made copious use of Draca's little polaroid camera (I know, I know, it's not really a polaroid, but that's what instant photos are called). And I know this is not remotely the purpose, but having a modern analogue is really helpful when digital count-the-pores-on-the-subject's-face photos get to be too much in comparison to the soft focus of a film camera in amateur hands. I like the fuzzy photos, and the overexposure (and underexposure, and what-the-hell-was-the-lighting-even-doing exposure).

A crowd of dancers whirling in pairs over a cobbled courtyard in front of a plaster-and-timber gatehouse, in various combinations of Renaissance, pirate, and modern clothing, at sunset. The gold light of the sun just touches the buildings in the far background and the heads of some of the taller, further dancers; the rest are shadowed.
Renaissance rave!
We actually missed quite a bit of the end-of-day party, getting our sugared almond (and pecan, and cashew) fix, but arrived in time for the last few songs and the dancing before the fire show outside the gates.

A curly-haired, short-bearded man crouching slightly on thin grass, whirling a two-ended staff of flames up one outstretched arm with the other, with a crowd behind him.A long-haired man breathing a plume of fire as tall again as he is into a violet-washed sky, above the heads of the crowd behind him.A curly-haired, short-bearded man turning on thin grass, whirling a two-ended staff of flames on his shoulder, moving to duck under it, with a crowd behind him.

Which was, as always, marvelous.

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