Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Flower centers

Flower centers and leaves (about half way finished).  I make the centers with pom poms on wire, covered in silk, then wrapped with floral tape.  I sometimes wrap floral stamens into the tape and decorate with German glass glitter.  All the little details really make a difference in the final product!

The leaves are made of velvet.  I iron the velvet, which flattens it out and gives it a really nice sheen.   Wires are glued down to each leaf.  After that the veins are ironed in with the flower irons.  This time around I'm making 13 flowers at once.  Crazy :)




Friday, March 4, 2011

Flower Making

Getting ready to make a big batch of 13 roses.  Each basic rose contains 16 individual petals.  A large "blooming rose" has 40 petals!  Next step is iron and starch the petals, and glue the wire on to the velvet leaves!



Thursday, March 3, 2011

Dances of Vice - The Alice in Wonderland Spring Ball

Here is a really amazing video from last year's Dances of Vice spring ball. I sent some hats to NYC to accompany Blasphemina's Closet's spring collection. I wish there were parties like this in Seattle!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Recently I've picked up some new tools.  The first is a set of flower irons.  For quite a while, I've been on the hunt for a good source of silk flowers.  With the exception of a few vintage and antique blooms, it was generally impossible to find what I wanted.  Something as simple as a black rose can be totally elusive!  With these irons I can make any flower I want in almost any fabric.  Silks and velvets are my favorites!

Here are my first attempts:  Roses in dupioni silk.

I also picked up some new fascinator blocks, so I can play around even more with fancy cocktail hats.  So far they are easy to use.  I've blocked some buckram, but they are suitable for other materials as well.  Can't wait to finish up the first few hats made from these!



Monday, February 21, 2011

Working!

Working on some new headpieces for the shop, and for the Portland Vampire Masquerade Ball at the Melody Ballroom on March 26th!


Sunday, February 20, 2011


Love these photos by Ang Delmastro of my octopus tentacle hat!

Thursday, February 3, 2011



Testing an image post!

Photo by Fairshadow Photography.

Dress by Blasphemina's Closet.