A Year in the Making, day 296

It's been a busy weekend - I had two social events on Friday, a promo photoshoot for Steamcon and a movie viewing party on Saturday, and today was Pride Parade!

For one of Friday's gatherings I made what I call my Lemon Dream Cake:



It's always a favorite.

I finished the dress for the parade Friday night, and made a hat from scratch to match. I've made one other hat from scratch, but that was with a pattern. This time I completely winged it, with the aid of a pre-made piece I picked up ages ago at Display and Costume. I still had buckram left over from my previous project, and used scraps from the dress-making for the fabric.

I started off using a hat I reworked for my daughter for the basic shape:



I did a double thickness for the brim, for stiffness:



Traced out the crown for the opening on the brim pieces:



Cut out the circle for the crown and tabbed it:



Traced out the top of the crown - the outer border is the seam allowance. Neglected to take a picture, but this piece was tabbed too after I cut it out.



The assembled buckram framework:



The line you see around the brim is aluminum wire tacked on for stiffness, to keep the shape of the brim.



Here's the underside:



The fabric was tabbed also, and sewn on:





I made a band of the contrast fabric from the gown for around the crown:



Here's where I stopped taking pictures because I was running out of time. Some black cotton was used for lining, and the edges finished around the inside of the crown and around the rim of the brim with black bias tape, and then I finished it with daisy gimp:





And here's a shot of me in the dress and hat, and the necklace which inspired the gown, from today's Pride Parade in downtown Seattle - unfortunately I blinked.