Drowning Smurfs...

Giggle Three
(you all are probably getting tired of the dye job stories.. hehehe)

This of course is the continuing discussion of silly things that came up when creating costumes. If you are a friend of mine on a social network you have seen a picture of the whole troupe in these beautiful "peacock" color costumes and every bit of them were made by us! We are so Talented. But I digress.

Trying to come up with something simple, girly and bellydance'ish we zeroed in on wrap pants. There is only one seam right in the middle and the rest is hemming. Fairly simple and we had fabric we could dye in any color already. After deciding on the purple velvet for the ghwazee coats the pants had to be bright to contrast and still be one of the "peacock" colors. The name of the dye we used was Sapphire, but my friend insisted it was Smurf Blue. I didn't care. It was bright, pretty and would get pants on us. (Dancing w/out pants would have made some of the men happy but Not the other dancers.) Thus the bright blue dye on the raw silk pants that gave such an amazing contrast.

One of the fun things that happens when you dye anything, be it fabric or hair, is that you Always end up with some on yourself. I have learned to wear clothing that I don't mind being multi-colored. We try to remember to put on gloves but sometimes they tear. Of course, most of the time the problem is that you are in a rush to get things done and at some point forget to don the gloves. When it comes to me, I just don't care enough to worry about what my hands will look like. (My husband will attest to this as it was true when working on my Mazda years ago as well.) On this round of dyeing I actually didn't get my hands on much so I just had blue nails and some spotting. My friend managed to turn her fingers blue almost to the second knuckle. I was a little jealous, I kind of like getting "dirty" when doing art. Next time I was going to do more.

My friend, who had commissioned work to finish for her business, had more blue things to dye the next day. I noticed on her status update that her fingers looked like she had been drowning smurfs! The image that came to my mind of course is that big cauldron that Gargamel had with smurfs in it trying to get out. The whole time my friend is laughing and pushing them down into the pot. Because THAT is how they all became BLUE!! So really she wasn't drowning smurfs but dyeing them to match our outfits!

(It gets much stranger.)

The following week, we were dyeing the small pieces of our costuming. This included the Peacock Camo armpit covers and the Grilled Peacock veil I wore as a butt cover. (Covering is important to us.) And yes this time I get color on me. I really did put a glove on, but it split right at the bottom. Did I notice? Yes. Did I care. Not one bit. I started out being careful about where I put my hand. As we started having fun really mashing in the color I stopped paying attention. Later on I looked at the "peacock" coloring on the heel of my hand and began to think. If having blue tipped fingers meant you were drowning smurfs then what did peacock coloring on the heel of your hand mean?

Smooshed Peacock!

"I am very sorry sir, but your pet peacock was buzzing in my ear while I was talking. Before I could think about it I just swatted it down and smooshed it."

Wait. Peacocks are too big to just swat down. Hmmm. What if it was a peacock mosquito? No. Female mosquitos are the ones that bite and only Male peacocks are colorful. (Told ya it would get really strange.) Would a hummingbird sized peacock be small enough? YES!

"I was chatting with a friend when a peacock hummingbird came a little too close and mistaking it for a pesky bug I swatted it. I felt really badly when I realized my mistake and am now marked with the colors of my crime."

This lunacy I have only shared now, with you. Don't you all feel special?

This was the point when I realized... I needed sleep.