Reproduction Orange Blossom Headpiece and Wedding Bouquet

These past few days have found me waiting for corset steel to get here so I can start on a wedding corset.  I have not, however, been idle while awaiting my package...I have been working on the waxed orange blossom items for the wedding trousseau!  It has been a nice "sit down" project to do as I have been recovering from allergies-turned horrid cold.  A lot of cutting, taping, wrapping, painting and dipping in bees wax took place.  I ended up using all but 3 of the orange blossoms that I recently wrote about, in the bouquet that was made a few days ago. I had to make more blossoms, pips, and I decided to go ahead and make some leaves.  This time around, I did the blossoms a wee bit different.  Instead of painting the insides (pistil) of the flowers a pale yellow, I left them white with a pale green tip.  I really, really love how these new ones turned out.  They are much less yellow than the original ones!  I made enough for the headpiece, flowers for the bodice of my dress, boutonniere for Greg and a corsage for my sweet Mama!  I also decided to purchase some larger round balls to wax because the inspiration headpiece had things that resembled them... 

The Headpiece!

I had been looking at many headpieces both online and studying the photographs in my collection when I came across this fabulous headpiece (click on the image to take you to Ruby Lane for all the views).  I loved the shape and the fact that flowers, buds, small and large pips and leaves were used.  I also liked the lighter color of green.  This prompted me to make some lighter green leaves. 

The veil is just my silk tulle added for that bridal look.

Oh yes...these flowers are much better!

It's interesting that the people who made the Victorian ones used paper and wire to hold the headpiece together.  They weigh much less than mine which uses florist's tape and heavier wire.

I wish there was a way to make them smell like real orange blossoms, one of my favorite fragrances.  These smell like bees wax!

If you look real close, you can see that I did cover the florist's tape with thick cotton thread.  Not only does it look a wee bit more "authentic" this way, it keeps the tape from sticking to my hair!  Hahahahahahaha!!!

More Inspiration

The following photographs are from eBay.  The 1890s brides' headpieces are very similar to mine.  I plan on making the veil have the puffs and fluffs like theirs. The bouquets are also inspiration for mine.  They are a tight nosegay surrounded with either lace or doily trim. 

The Bouquet

I wanted to make sure that the bouquet worked well for the year of my dress which will be 1897ish.  Happily I found the above images that helped me quite a bit.  I looked for doilies that could possibly work, but none of them made me happy.  I found some beautiful and doily looking antique lace in my stash and so used that.  I spent the better part of an hour making the poster board bouquet holder to put the flowers in.   Two bouquets with paper holders can be found Here and Here.  (Again, click on the image and it will lead you to Ruby Lane where more images can be seen.)  Both of these bouquets have paper doily like trim.  Another one from The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston sports a paper holder.  I used this one for inspiration for the wrapping of the flower stems

My bouquet has waxed orange blossoms, buds, pips, waxed vintage lily of the valley and silk ranunculus that I found at Gordman's.  

Paper holder and ribbon wrapped stems.

One of the photographs above shows one of the bouquets with a long looped bow, so I made one for my bouquet.

 Below is an antique bouquet found on eBay.  This one has the paper holder but with real lace and not paper.  I wonder if the lace would have been starched?

This one has the wires from the flowers merely tied with a silk bow.

Now I just need the dress, and the corset, and the corset cover and the chemise and the drawers.  I have two beautiful extant petticoats that I will be wearing to finish off the underwear.

Now to continue waiting for the steel to get here.  I purchased some vintage ivory fabric at an antique store last week for the corset.  It is very lovely and I think will make a beautiful corset!

I hope you have a most fabulous weekend my friends!

Be Blessed!

g

Breathing New Life Into Vintage Flowers....

Since I am on a hiatus from sewing until mid to late January and going absolutely crazy because of it, I thought I would go through my stashes of various things that I use in my sewing and hat making to clean, sort, toss and inventory.  Today, I decided to breathe new life into some of my vintage millinery flowers.  These came to me all smashed up and sad looking, but with a little steam and patience, these sad little flowers can once again be the lovely creations they were when they were new! 

Here are the sad little darlings....smashed from years of being stored in a box.

Seriously smooshed...

I started a kettle of water on to boil and held the flower over the steam about 5-6 inches above the pot...

In only a few seconds, you can already see the velvet and organza petals starting to flex and open.  There is a very interesting kind of hissing sound that emanates from the flower, but not to worry...nothing will explode!  

After about a minute, turn the flower over and you can see it open!

If the flower is having problems opening, just take the still warm petals and coax them to whatever shape you desire!!

Sad little pink flower....

Again, hold the flower about 5-6 inches over the pot in the steam....

Ta Da!!!  A lovely flower appears!!

Last one.  This one was just all smooshed to heck.  The velvet and organza petals were really messed up...

This one took a while as it didn't feel inclined to cooperate..

Here we see the petals opening up a little.  I had to work with it on the counter while it was still warm and manipulate the petals until I got it the way I wanted it to look...you will see the finished product below...

Refreshed vintage flowers!  All you need is steam and a little patience and sad little flowers can become gorgeous ones once again!  I actually did this with flowers that were already on a hat.  My huge Titanic poppy hat that I wear with the Ruth DeWitt Bukater tea dress got caught in the rain during a parade.  The flowers folded over from the wet and then dried in that shape.  When I got the hat back, I started some water to boiling and re-fluffed the poppies!  Worked like a charm!

YOUCH!!! I Got Wheat Down My Bra!!!!

And let me tell you what...it is R-U-D-E RUDE!!!!  But let me tell you why I got wheat down my bra.  For my Demeter dress I wanted to make a wheat hair piece like below....

I ordered some wonderful antique linen faux wheat from ebay but they hadn't been delivered before the day before I was to leave for Spokane.  Why was that important?  Because I was going to be wearing my Demeter dress to Maniteau Park for a photo shoot and I needed to make the hair piece to complete the outfit.  So, I did what any crazed costumer in my situation would do!  I went and picked real wheat from a harvested field!  Where I live, after the farmers harvest the fields, what is left of the wheat can be gleaned, and that is just what I did!  I went to the wheat field around the corner from my house and picked a bunch of wheat.  Now, if you decide to do this crazy thing, take scissors!!!  Never having had any knowledge of wheat besides using it in baking or eating it in bread, I did not know that it is rude!!!  There I was merrily picking my wheat when I looked down and saw blood dripping from my middle finger!  The wheat had cut me!!!  Grrrrrrrrrrrr.....luckily I didn't get any blood on my wheat stalks....

Right then....here is what I assembled for the construction of my wheat wreath.  A headband, thin brass wire,  (I used my scrapbooking wire), my wheat, poppies because that was one of Demeter's symbols, and scissors.  Oh yah...and green florist's tape.

I made small circles of wire that I taped to the ends of the headband.  These would be used to thread bobby pins through to pin in my hair so the wreath would stay put.  

Now of course I didn't take any pictures of the adding of the wheat, but I basically started with three ears of wheat (are they ears?) well, three stalks of wheat.  Extending the middle ear a good 2" inches past the end of the head band, I began wiring the wheat to the headband, staggering the wheat as I wired.  After five ears of wheat I added one of the poppies.  I wired on 14 wheat heads to the headband.  In the middle, I left about a 4" space.  This didn't need any wheat as this was where my hair would be pulled over the headband to cover the tape and because that is the look I was going for.  Then over that I added my large curled hair piece.  (Images of this will be in my next post....)

Completed hair piece...

Side...here you can see the staggered affect of the wheat.  I like how spastic it looks!!  I only had four poppies so had to space them accordingly.

Here you can really see the placement of the wheat.  Left, right, and down the middle.  Also, I had straight and curved wheat ears.  Made for a very interesting look.

Here you can see the middle of the wreath where it is just florist's tape.

Oh yah!  I almost forgot.  How did that wheat got down my bra?  Well, when I was fooling around with the wreath, seeing what it would look like in my hair, I was wearing a spaghetti strap tank top.  Wheat is not a fake silk flower.  It is an organic one prone to breakage, and that breakage is victim to gravity.  From the head, things tend to fall downward, and downward from my head was my bosom which at the time was not fully protected from the evil that is wheat chaff!  So, ladies, if you plan on making one of these hair pieces, I STRONGLY suggest you wear a T-shirt or a button up shirt, or armor.  Seriously. 

Hand Made Flowers for a Hat...

In doing my research for 1920s cloches, I notices that the adornment on hats had changed along with the dress fashion.  It was considerable less and not as "fluffy".  Thus the reason for making my own leaves and flowers of the fabrics I used on my dress.  I also chose to adhere the flowers/leaves to the hat via silk pins.  This way, they can be removed if I ever make a plain ivory dress or wish to use different flowers on the hat. 

For the large dark teal flower, I just gathered the strip of folded and zig-zagged fabric, circled it into the semblance of a cabbage rose, ironed the snot out of it and then beaded it.

Fabric Flowers

Now for making the flowers for my cloche and dress.  Of course I didn't take pictures during the construction phase...I was solely intent on completing everything on time for the underwear show...so I get to try out my verbal/directional skills here!!  hahahaha!!  This should prove to be entertaining!!

Right then...for the teal flowers, I envisioned little flower buds laying here and there upon my cloche.  So, again, I started playing around with the fabric.  I cut about a 2.5" piece of the narrow teal strip and folded each end (not the fold end and zig-zagged end, but rather the raw edges...) in and basted them so that the raw edges would not show.  

Next, I brought the now basted ends together (nice side outwards...folded side inside) and hand sewed a gathering stitch from top to bottom...zig-zag side being the bottom.  To make the front of the flower lower than the back of the flower, I tightened up a bit on the gathering stitch...not a lot mind you, then tied it off.

Taking a piece of scrap green taffeta, I just free hand cut out a shape of a leaf...Imagine if you will an infinity sign with pointy ends, and you have the leaf shape.  I just tacked that onto the bottom of the flower and you have my flower!

Flower with corsage pin for the stamen.  In the future, I think I'll use that idea, but for this, I put beads on a piece of thin wire for the stamen....

Five little flower petals sewn together and beaded for my dress.

Anyway, how was that?  Did you understand my incoherent ramblings or was it as clear as mud?  hahahahaha!!!!!

Fabric Leaves

Well, it has been a while since I have posted, as I was in a mad rush to complete various items that were required for a HUGE underwear show that I was invited to give at a church here in town.  It was the most fun I have had at a show in a while...I will be sharing pictures with you later....for now, I will be sharing many of the items that I was in a hurry to complete...

First off...I felt the need to make flowers for my 1920s Ivory Silk Ruched Cloche from some of the fabrics I used on my dress.  You know so they could match!  

I guess you could say that I am not a disciple of the age old adherence to Math and measuring.  I basically just eye ball everything.  If it looks straight, it'll do.  So, for the flowers and leaves, I just ripped (for the silk) and cut (for the taffeta) strips of fabric that looked like they would work nicely!   ;-)

Because silk and taffeta make it their life's mission to ravel (or is it unravel?) I folded the strips in half lengthwise and performed zig-zag surgery upon them.

Next, (now remember I was just playing around here...) I thought that rounding the edges would be a good idea.  Turns out, my thought was a right thought.  I stitched away...

Again, remembering the raveling (or unraveling) I again zig-zagged around the raw edges...After zig-zagging, I sewed a gathering length running stitch along the zig-zag stitch.......

 and gathered it as tightly as I could without breaking the thread.

Folding the "leaf" in half, I then sewed up along the gathering stitch to create the "vein" of the leaf.

Back side of leaf after sewing the "vein"

Front of leaf.  Ha!  It turned out nicely!

Leaf pinned to hat to see how it would look.  

Next, a look at the flower petals.....and I will try to describe how I made them without the aid of construction pictures!!!