Mama's 1898 Hat and the Beginnings of Her Bodice!

Good Friday to you all!  I hope you all are having a great start to your weekend, and I hope all of my costuming friends who are currently at Costume College are having a blast!!  I soooooooo cannot wait to see all the pictures of all of your wonderful outfits!

As I am in a holding pattern with my dress, I have started on my portion of Mama's "Mother of the Bride" dress.  She is making her skirt, I am making her bodice and have completed her chapeaux!  I am so very giddy with delight with Mom's dress and the fabric that was found on eBay!  There is quite a bit left, so I may have to swipe if from her and make something for me!  Bwahahahahaha....

Below are images of her new hat.  I have had the faaaabulous feathers for years and we used them as ball/evening gown hair adornment for many events, but the call to use them for this hat was very strong.  I had found a 1950/60s hat at an antique store a while back that was covered with the exact same color blue as the fabric for Mom's dress so it was dismantled for this 1890s hat.  I also had in my stash a blue ribbon in the same color family, but a wee bit darker.  It was left over from when I made the first round of Royal Family Orders back in 2014.  (See?  My vow to become a tidy hoarder is paying off already!!)  The vintage straw hat was also in my stash and just needed a new steaming and shaping on the brim.  Voila!  Mother of the Bride hat was born!!!  

Inspiration for the hat came from several sources.  The ribbon treatment came from Charmaine Zoe's Marvelous Melange flickr account.  I loved how the ribbon was softly folded on itself over and over again.  So, I went ahead and did just that!

A reminder of the inspiration for Mom's dress.  Instead of the 5 rows of lace on the skirt, we are doing only 3.  As mom says, "If I do all 5 rows, that top row will reach my arm pits!"  hahahahahahaha!!!  Ok, here's the inside joke...Mom is only 5' 2"!  Soooooo....only 3 rows it will be!  Oh, and I did a reversal of colors on the hat, because Mom said (and I quote), "Are you going to put those stupid orange colored flowers on my hat?"  She doesn't much like orange.  Like, not at all and blue is her favorite color.  So as to please Mama, blue flowers it was!

I LOVED all the blue carnations that were on the vintage hat!  There were so very many!

Sweet ruffled, tipped up back!  That was a very long process to do, but I think it was worth it!

Those feathers make me so happy!

I love using true vintage silk flowers.  They are soft and flow-y and not hard like our modern made flowers....

The beginning of the bodice.

Mom and I went to JoAnn's yesterday to find some lovely lace to do the yoke and lower sleeves and were rewarded with just what we were looking for!

I so cannot wait to see this on my Mama!!!

This is some of the nicest lace I have ever seen at JoAnn's.  It looks very much like Chantilly lace.  It is a very soft white overlaid onto an ivory matte satin. 

For the collar, belt and bows, we found a nice bridal weight satin with a wee bit of shine!

The two dresses chatting away in my room!  I can't wait for them to be worn!!

For the torso part of Mom's bodice, I'm altering Butterick 5970 to make it less Edwardian and more 1898!

Ok, now to wait for Mom to come for a fitting tomorrow.  Let's hope all goes well!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend my friends!

Be Blessed!

g