I don’t think I intended this to be a scary costume, but that mask is pretty terrifying.
Every hero needs one, right? Even if I’m only the champion of spending all my weekends buried in fabric and thread clippings.
Here’s where it begins: I grew up in a craft-obsessed city, among a family of relentless creatives. My folks are writers, designers, illustrators, crafters, and makers of all stripes. On any given day, most of the horizontal surfaces in the house would be strewn with creative paraphernalia: beads and jewelry findings, colored pencils, stacks of origami paper. My parents both sewed, too—maybe not every day, but given the right excuse they produced marvels.
It feels appropriate to be writing this the week of Halloween, because growing up it was probably the most-anticipated holiday of the year. My sister and I always scorned run-of-the-mill witches and ghosts; instead we demanded wildlife, characters from books, and creatures of our own imagining, and our parents obliged. There was the year I thumped around with a flashlight in my purple taffeta firefly tail. There was my owl costume with embroidered feathers down the front and fleecy wings encrusted with hand-sewn sequins. There was my sister’s utterly spectacular “weather girl” cape, painstakingly appliquéd with clouds and lightning, and my satin sorceress cloak with a floating cloud of glitter tulle.