Working at The New Carnival Company; Part 2!

Today I started working on some of the big, exciting carnival costumes at Carnival HQ. The first job of the day was to spruce up an existing peacock feather backpack; mending bent feathers and tidying it up a bit using special industrial glue:

We're planning to add a few more feathers to it so that it can be worn in the Mardi Gras... if all goes to plan it will be me wearing it! This is really exciting because I will have helped design and make my own costume, something more fabulous than I've ever worn before (and I've worn some pretty fabulous stuff)!
After the peacock, I started on this little red and yellow number:

Before

Again mending loose feathers and adding a couple more in. This one had been rained on at last year's event and needs a bit more TLC; we'll be adding more red feathers when the delivery comes in. Here's a picture after I'd started mending it:

After

It still needs a little more work. I've never worked with feathers before so this was a bit challenging at first, especially with so many layers it's hard to see what you're doing under all the fluff!

After that it was time to start work on my peacock headdress. Gina had a wire frame she'd made previously that was quite peacockish:

So I started by covering the 'fan' part in paper mache (using that same special glue) and winding shiny silver braid around some of the wire parts to pretty it up:

There was originally talk of me designing my costume completely from scratch, however because of time restrictions it's much more achievable to piece something together from existing parts.
In the afternoon it was time to make a school visit to see how the kid's costumes and dance routines are coming along. The school we visited today are making lotus flower costumes and have a lotus flowery dance that we all practiced together!
After that it was back to HQ and I started to cover my headdress with blue fabric and sequins... no picture yet but I'll update when I have another chance to work on it and make it look picture-worthy. Eventually it will have sequins all over and a fabulous plume of feathers!
I'm having a lot of fun so far on my trip; it's lovely to see how excited the kids get about their dancing and costumes and to see how everyone pitches in to make this a real community event. I'm really looking forward to the day of Mardi Gras and seeing everyone dressed up!