A Little Silver

Happy Wednesday, the week is half gone already and the husband is back to work tomorrow. I suppose that means I should try to settle back into routine again. I might complain, but honestly I love routine. It's safe and comfortable, like a fluffy blanket of predictability. Sure it's nice to get out from underneath it for a spell, but it sure is nice to come back to.

I mentioned the two projects sitting about for my attention yesterday, another veil and a new slave bracelet design. I am currently waiting for a response on the proposed idea for the slave bracelet so I went ahead and got started on the new veil. This one is an attempt to recreate the feel of another piece, but in lace with silver veiling for a longtime twitter friend. The style of the wedding was explained to me as Old Hollywood, so rather than stick with the existing motif I had created for the other veils I went a little more Art Deco with the design using my Victoriana motif and changed up the base as well.

Before you ask, I fear the iphone has made me a lazy photographer. I found a nice little editing app for it and I keep playing with it rather than get out my real camera for pictures. Sure the quality isn't that bad and it might just be a case of 'new toy', but I keep using the borders and filters on everything. It'll get out of my system eventually and I'll be back to the reliable camera and basic images, but until then forgive me my silly borders.

Back to the veil, I'll be adding an array of crystals and placing the whole thing over some ostrich feather and a few black biot feathers...I think that's what they're called. Then it's silver veiling over a teardrop shaped hat base which I am waiting on so I will get my end assembled so I can just sew them together when it arrives. I'll get more pictures as the design develops of course and as soon as I'm a go with the slave bracelet, I'll share the design idea on that one as well. Off to it then, these things won't make themselves.

The Tatted Veil

Good Monday morning to you. My insane week will begin just as soon as the rest of my family awakes, but since that will be a while yet, I have time to share my newest piece with you. So, I shared the creation of the motif and the veil itself, well on Friday, I received in the mail the last component needed to make the piece complete, the feathers. First a quick lesson I learned about feathers during this process, there is a dramatic difference between 'craft' feathers and good ones. I had picked some up at Michael's thinking they would do. They shed and I just wasn't happy, so I ordered some from a supply shop on etsy and they were magnificent. So, what I'm saying is look for the good stuff even if it takes a while and costs a bit more, it is so worth it.

After a brief consultation with Twitter using a picture with the pieces laid out together, I started the laborious task of sewing everything together. It was suggested that I fan out the feathers from this configuration, so I pinched and sewed the strip they were on to give them a bit of a fan. I didn't even tat the flowers to the base, but sewed them as well, adding crystals to the centers as I went. In this first shot, you can't see them, but there are also stripped feathers stretching out beyond the soft Ostrich ones and those I tried to fan a bit as well. I thought about just gluing the whole thing together, but that seemed lazy and if one is going to make a high end product, one must make a concerted effort to make it as high quality as possible.

The end product was praised enough on Twitter that I felt confident to go to my favorite Milliner for advice and opinion. Lucky for me, she is kind enough to answer my questions regarding pricing and design so I think I have that sussed out. I was humbled by her responses that it was in fact well constructed. Every time I try an entirely new product with my tatting, I freak out over whether I am qualified to make the piece at all. Seriously, I used the Internet to get tutorials on birdcage veils. Then I just guessed as to which feathers might work and I tried to make them look nice enough that I would wear the piece.

I am so lucky to have experienced people around me to ask in the end or I would be stumbling in the dark. She also suggested some additional pieces to add to create an entire line of hair accessories. So as soon as I receive my white order of feathers the bridal version will appear and then pieces without the veils on clips that match and if I can figure out the best way to construct them, bobbies with the matching flowers. Clearly none of this is happening this week, but in the near future. I'll try to get listing photos of the finished veil this week so that I can list it, but with the crazy, I don't know that it will happen. Yeah, I'll let you know. Now, I'm off to celebrate the daughter's birthday.