Just call me "Mosca"

Somewhere between the ages of 4 and 8, I was really into fairies and other fantasy creatures, and playing dress up was one of my favorite activities. Aside from many of my improvised make-believe outfits, I would regularly wear costume fairy wings. As the youngest of 4 with a considerable age difference, I often sought the attention of my older siblings (read: annoying little sister). With a wardrobe that consistently included wings, it wasn't long before my brother Chris began calling me "Mosca", which means "fly" in Spanish.
Some combination of the nickname and an eventual interest in Star Wars meant that at some point I lost the nylon wings,  but I recently decided to create a new set of wings to add to my current costume options.
One of my nieces is totally into Tinkerbell and now likes to wear her own wings. Of course, that meant that one of the last times I was home I had to catch up on all the latest Tinkerbell movies and that got me into Tinkerbell and fairies all over again as well.
A couple of months ago I found a pattern to crochet a decoration onto a pair of hoop earrings. Unfortunately, the type of yarn I wanted to use didn't quite work with the pattern, so I dropped the project, but the pattern itself spurred the idea that I could crochet onto wire and different materials to create unique textile patterns. 

An easy way to make costume wings is by bending a wire hanger and stretching a pair of nylons over the frame, which is what my sister did to make my niece's fairy wings. But I got to thinking and realized there was probably a way to make the same wire hanger frame but crochet the wing design itself instead of stretching nylon or other fabric over the frame.

When I hung out with Brian and his dad at their lake house, I got started on my new project while they were working on other things one day. I took a couple of wire hangers and bent them into the shape I wanted for my wings, and then crocheted a series of chain stitches all the way around the frame by just using the wire as the previous row of stitches.
Once the entire frame was covered in yarn, I had to get a bit more creative to get the design I ultimately desired. The second  and third rows varied with the types of stitches I used. For sections I wanted to be narrow and have the colors closer together, I just used a single chain stitch, but when I got to the wing tips where I wanted more space between stitches, I used a series of stitches increasing in size. Typically this meant going from single chain stitch to a half-double chain stitch, double chain stitch, treble chain stitch, and then reversed the order to get the stitches closer together again.

I was pretty devoted to the project while at the lake house -- even taking it out while we were fishing -- because I wanted to wear them for Halloween. However, when my grandpa passed away a few days later, I immediately flew home, and the project was abandoned for good reason.
When I got out here to Utah, I still didn't pick them back up for a while, but the other day I finally put the finishing touches on them. To wear them, I attached yarn straps with a double fisherman's knot on both straps so that they are adjustable.

Unfortunately, I didn't take complete notes on the pattern I ended up creating, so I can't exactly share it. Maybe if I have time I'll try to write out the whole thing, or better yet, I'll make more! Given that I haven't been crocheting for long and I was able to pretty much make this up as I went along, I'm sure other folks can come up with some amazing patterns and create beautiful projects (hopefully with this as a bit of inspiration). For now, I'll just be playing dress-up out here in red rock country whenever I can.