Romantic Folkwear
Ayala makes her own patterns--fairy coats, poet shirts, floorlength velvet cloaks, peasant smocks, camisoles, bustierres. She chooses wonderful fabrics that float or sway, that give an ethereal look to the wearer. People come by her booth at Saturday Market in Eugene and order custom made items to wear to their weddings. This lead Ayala to becoming ordained as a minister in the Church of the Open Forest and conducting wedding ceremonies. She speaks superbly, with a vocabulary as much grounded in the nineteenth century as the twentieth. Certainly she has had much experience as a married person from which to speak, including a very long and happy marriage with Richard.
Ayala at her sewing machine, surrounded
by her embroidery,
The back side of a fairy coat, luscious
with ribbon rosettes and streamers
Paul Alkire looks splendid in a white
Ayala made an Afghani style patchwork
Ayala demonstrates how her teal velvet
cloak |