The costume (minus the roots) was debuted at Seattle's Fremont Fair (first three photos). Some adjustments were made before the opening at the Matrix Coffeehouse in Chehalis, WA (the last three photos: the tree, the fairy and the angel). Matrix Coffeehouse performance photos are by Wayne VanWeerthuizen.
The Building of the Costume
I spent a year working on the tree costume in my spare time. The dress was a sewing project which I completed with a lot of help from Mom. I made the leaf hands by tracing a large maple leaf on paper, then using that as a pattern to cut the fabric, which I sewed by hand onto a pair of green gloves, attaching pipe cleaners to the fingers to enable them to move the fabric for a rippling effect. For the branches, I built an armature on top of an old bicycle helmet and covered it with paper mache. Then I glued fabric and moss on top of that and inserted silk maple leaf branches inside the hollow branch tubes. The roots were built on a pair of "water shoes". I cut some of the rubber away at the bottom to make the toes more flexible, then I covered pieces of vacuum cleaner hose & cones of wire with brown fabric, which I then attached to the big toe and pinkie of each foot. Finally I covered each foot with a brown sock to hide the remaining toes.
