...and I still hate embroidery
Planning on attending the Duchess of Devonshire tea, I wanted to make some "day wear" accessories for my polonaise. I decided on a cap and a fichu.
Fichu:
I decided to scale-up the pattern for a fichu from Period costume for stage and screen:
The flower design was combined from several motifs I found in one of my embroidery books. Ok, I really don't like embroidery...so it's still a bit of a mystery to me why I did this in the first place, much less how I finished. Maybe it was because I distracted myself by watching a lot of The Mentalist (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1196946/) I traced the motif onto the fabric with a pencil, then embroidered with white pearl cotton. In addition to the flower motif, there are smaller stars floating about.
The fabric is a 100% cotton Voile I found (amazingly) at CVS. The lace is antique from my stash. All hand sewn while confined to a car to and from LA.
Cap:
I wanted to have another way of styling my hair without all the curling and ratting, so I picked a cap Inspired by this one: http://www.koshka-the-cat.com/green_gold.html. Rather than buy a pattern, I decided to put all those patterning classes to work and drafted one. (Google search and oddly etsy were very helpful in providing up close detail shots of caps)
Silly sisters examples:http://www.sillysisters.com/headwear.htm
I made my own cap out of a 100% cotton organza. I liked that it was sheer, but still stiff enough to puff out from all the gathers. The finished cap was 100% hand sewn (Mostly on BART and MUNI) and the edge embellished with a 1/4 inch antique lace.
I unfortunately forgot to take some detail pictures of the finished cap (So look for those later) but you can sort of see it in this picture here ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/paris1905/4418739949/ ) from the Duchess of Devonshire Tea (Picture by Sally Norton) I also wore the fichu and some antique lace gloves I got from my mother. If I remember correctly, they are the gloves she got married in! Also in the picture I am wearing the fichu (Which sadly you couldn't see the embroidery) and my hair pad.
...and what is this? A new corset/project in development...?
