 ©Kay Stephens Most people don't realize there are fairy clans and then there are solitary fairies, the kind that prefer to troop about by themselves and not partake in any society, be it fairy or man. This one likes to spend her days by a lone apple tree in the Maine field.  ©Kay Stephens She has her wee books and a dew drop of champagne a the fluted flower cup and that's all she needs.  ©Kay Stephens  ©Kay Stephens APRIL* By John Galsworthy Starry-eyed is April morn, Rain bells glitter on the thorn. Birds are tuning down the lane Patter song of fallen rain. Spring can grieve, but Spring can be Very life of minstrelsy! -excerpt from Moods, Songs and Doggerels. Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons in the anthology Through Fairy Halls of My Bookhouse (Olive Beaupre Miller, Chicago The Bookhouse for Children Publishers, 1920) This spring maiden serves the Queen in her dress and care. She is adorned in dried tulips with birch bodice, a lichen cummerbund and a tulip rose for decoration.
 In the moonlight in the field, the old woman thought she'd seen a hare popping up and down, its long ears a tell tale giveaway and she loaded her rifle and shot at it. The scream that followed made her blood run cold and she put down the rifle to look for it. When she got to the exact spot where she'd shot it, nothing was in the matted grass but a few spots of blood. Behind her a tiny voice said, "Ye'll be sorra now." What she thought was a hare, was one of the Others in a soft gown of cattail she'd mistaken for fur and old woman knew she'd done something very, very wrong.   ©Kay Stephens Story inspired by The Witch Hare in The Book of Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland (W.B. Yeats, reprinted 2004)
 ©Kay Stephens Now, I know I've been swept. I shouldn't have been out on a May Eve. If you'll recall my earlier tale of finding myself at a fort at dawn, and meeting the Sentinel, who promised to let me go back home, you'll know now, that I'm still wandering. I've been carried away. The Good People have no time down here (and I'm not sure whether I'm up or down, this place is like a dream I can't wake from). But sure enough, I followed the Sentinel's instructions down a steep rampart in a river gorge and came across another tiny woman at the base of a small waterfall. I asked her "Who are you?"  ©Kay Stephens "I am one of three of my troop who watch the stream," she answered plainly with no telling fear of me. As a reporter in my real (my former?) life, I ask questions. The first one naturally that came to me was: "But why?" "By your presence," she answered, "'Tis to be merriment tonight and I am catching a fish. Go along now, you will only get in my way." And naturally, I went, not liking our abrupt exchange, but not wishing to irk her further. First, I looked downstream.  ©Kay Stephens There was another one, hidden in the mossy rocks. But I did not go to meet her and I nodded my goodbye to the Fairy of the Stream and began climbing up the slippery embankment littered with duff. I was so lost, but there is no way out of this world, so along I went.
Story to be continued. She is a love fairy and carries the red rose with her at all times. But love can cut both ways as anyone who has ever experienced heartbreak knows. The Leanhaun sidhe is a Gaelic muse, a solitary fairy, who seeks men to love, and live off of, for the more they are in her power, the more they waste away. The last gift they give her is their writing and poetry. She is immortal and death does not destroy her power. She is ever seeking for the next man to inspire and claim.  ©Kay Stephens The bodice is made from birch and the skirt is a dried rose accented with panels of lichen.  ©Kay Stephens Red is the color of fairy magic. The back of the dress displays the intricate layers of dried rose.  ©Kay Stephens I've made miniature dresses as gifts for my friends as little tokens. I've given them to remind someone to hold on to hope, to celebrate someone's birthday, and to bring a moment of joy. Now, I've made them specifically to give as a bridal shower or wedding gift.  ©Kay Stephens These one-of-a-kind dresses have been made specifically to give to someone in your life who is about to get married.  ©Kay Stephens The bodice is constructed with carefully chosen wording (taken from a wedding ceremony) with one line prominent: "Knowing that day would lead to this one." The skirt is made from tulle and silk rose petals and decorated with miniature pearls. Each comes with its own custom hanger.
This other design also lends itself to a beautiful wedding or bridal gift. This particular one-of-a-kind dress is made from an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem.  ©Kay Stephens It has a tulle and silk petal skirt with fairy feather wings and comes with its own handcrafted hanger. I can also make these designs from the Kahil Gibran's classic poems and writing.  ©Kay Stephens I listen to music and almost become meditative when I make these. If you are interested in one for yourself or a friend, please contact me. I can ship them.
Neuromancer, the 1984 novel by William Gibson is considered the bible of cyberpunk. It is a detective noir story set in a dystopian future. Henry Dorsett Case is a burned out computer hacker who accesses Cyberspace, "a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts." Even though the concept of the Internet existed when Gibson wrote the novel, it is speculated that the book directly influenced how the web was developed.  ©Kay Stephens PART ONE CHIBA CITY BLUES 1 "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. `It's not like I'm using,' Case heard someone say, as he shouldered his way through the crowd around the door of the Chat. `It's like my body's developed this massive drug deficiency.' It was a Sprawl voice and a Sprawl joke. The Chatsubo was a bar for professional expatriates; you could drink there for a week and never hear two words in Japanese."-William Gibson, Neuromancer  ©Kay Stephens I've made three of these dresses so far and this is the original. I found an old falling apart copy, nearly ripped in half and decided to repurpose the book. The bodice is from the pages of Neuromancer and the skirt is made from dyed cupcake and coffee filters and layered with poplar leaves. The steampunk vest is from handmade paper. I hope these dresses inspire you to read this groundbreaking book as well as these other books in our current dystopian authoritarian oligarchy. A one-of-a-kind Neuromancer dress is for sale on our Etsy page.
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Tonic of the Woods
the inspiration behind the creations Photos, stories and concept ©Kay Stephens
Look up the story behind a fairy dress by clicking on the name below
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