My Version of the Fabulous Ruth's Tea Suit

Ok, so I really like this outfit. However, after years of wearing skin tight, molded, heavily boned Victorian dresses, this is a bit weird feeling. I don't feel like I have a steel rod rammed up my spinal column and it is very comfortable. Oh yes, and I can totally breathe! hahahaha....I am wearing it without my corset because it isn't complete as of yet, but I wanted to try it on to see how it looked! And of course my hair isn't right...I have pig tails in, but again, had to try it on! I think I am going to like this era!!!

Adjusting the Color of a Flower...

No, you can't use your TV remote. But, it is almost as simple! The poppies on Ruth's hat have a blackish center, but the poppies I found (at JoAnn Fabric Store...yeah!!!) were very yellow. Yes, I did try very hard to find the exact poppies and I did....lovely antique ones made of real silk with the black centers...all I needed was 10 dollars per flower....let's see, I have 7 flowers on the hat, so if I had purchased those poppies, I would have been out 70.00!! Seriously? I mean I like to use vintage pieces when I can, but that is a little, NO...a lot, ridiculous!!! So, after purchasing JoAnn's poppies at buy one get one half price, I went home and invaded my husband's paint stash....finding a can of black spray paint. I took apart the flowers and very lightly painted the stigma and style black (woot woot!! Science here!). Then I used my scrapbooking ink pad to color the center part of the petals. I discovered that if I turned the petals upside down and pressed it to the ink pad, the ink went on very nicely (I tried using a sponge to apply the ink, but it went on too lightly.) I then used the sponge to blend in the ink so it looked more "natural". After the ink and paint dried, I reassembled the flower! Voila!

More pictures of the coloring process can be seen here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75182632@N04/sets/72157629030708103/

Poppy Hat Complete!

Well, finally I have all the poppies for the wonderfully obnoxious hat that Ruth wore with her tea dress. I need to make some adjustments to it, like pop the top up a smidge more and lower the one poppy down so it's not proudly sticking up and waving gleefully! hahahahaha....But overall I am pretty pleased with it!

Making One Hat from Two!

Sometimes I get tired of perusing thrift shops and ebay and etsy for the perfect hat base that I "need" for a loose re-creation. In these cases I canalization existing hats. Case in point, the hat I want to wear with Ruth's Butter Yellow Tea Suit. I think that this hat is so beyond fabulous! A very demure, lovely, quiet butter yellow ribbon, sitting very primly atop a chapeaux is the perfect foil to very obnoxious red/orange poppies! How stunning and unexpected! After spending way too much time and gas trying to find a natural straw hat to use for this project, I decided to take two small vintage open weave straw hats and turn them into a large Teens hat. Here are the steps if you want to give it a try!
1. Take the hat apart. This involved getting the strips of straw apart...seam ripper and scissors came in handy.
2. Decide to leave the crown of the larger hat in tact to act as the crown for the new hat
3. After getting the strips of straw separated, I soaked them in warm water for about 10 minutes. This made them pliable and got the sizing (solution applied to straw during the forming process to hold the hat's shape) out.
4. Hang strips over shower door to allow excess water to drip off
5. Form crown of hat...soak in warm water and, in this case, formed over an antique fruit crock.
6. In an oven set at 170 degrees, crown is allowed to dry out quickly (I have zero patience when I make a hat...I want it done now!)
7. When crown is ready, the sewing on of the straw strips and forming of the brim begins. With this straw, I set the strips UNDER the existing strips about 1/4 inch and sewed it on until the brim was 4.5" all the way around.
8. Set still damp hat in the oven again to dry!

That's it! Pretty simple, just a bit time consuming! Next step, hit Hobby Lobby for the obnoxious poppies!!!

Ruth's Butter Yellow Tea Suit

Ok, so I know that everyone raves on and on about Rose DeWitt-Bukater's outfits, and yes they are fabulous. The Boarding Suit, The Jump Dress, The Flying Dress, The Swim Dress, The Luncheon Dress. They are all wonderful and the color combinations are so different and not the norm. But, have you ever stopped to look at her mom's dresses? I don't know if it is that I am old enough to be Rose's mom, or that I like to do my own thing and not follow the crowd...but I simply just LOVE Ruth DeWitt-Bukater's wardrobe! Yes, we see her now a-days in our rights for women and feminist world as being the worst possible mom in the world. But consider the world and age she grew up in. A world where men ruled the roost and women did not have rights. Period. So yes, she was pushing her daughter towards an advantageous marriage with a maggot, but in her own way, she was trying to gain comfort and stability (albeit monetarily and with a man who viewed his wife as an ornament to show off his wealth) for a daughter who did not hold to the same ideals. So, in that way, I do respect her...Just wish that she could have found a nicer guy for Rose...but then again I didn't write the screen play!
Anyhoo, when Ruth is having tea with the Countess of Rothes and another lady, she is wearing a suit that reached right through the tv screen and slapped me very unceremoniously across the face and screamed, "MAKE ME!!!" So, being the obedient seamstress, I am gathering fabrics, ribbons, shoes and millinery accouterments to fulfill my OCCD affliction! (OCCD=Obsessive Compulsive Costuming Disorder...a term lovingly applied to costumers by the Carolina Belle Fannie Kickinshoot...) Here is what I have assembled so far...
Butter Yellow Cotton with slubs
Butter Yellow faux dupioni embroidered with leaves and fun swirls
Butter Yellow ribbon for hat
Ivory shoes...because I haven't been able to find any yellow yet...