The Olive dress has a hat

It has been awhile since I produced anything historical but today is the day!  And it has been a project that I amassed materials for a year and a half ago! ‘Bout time!

Yeah, I know.  The hat is made before the dress….sigh.

This is the inspiration:

And this is my version:

I was hoping for more of a sloping hill look.  And I thought I made it ridiculously huge but apparently not enough.

Some more smaller flowers may help…

The base isn’t quite right either.  This is what it looked like without flowers.

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Merry Christmas!

Completed project: cowl

I have a million scarves and cowls already but I live in a cold climate and the jewel tones of this wool were too divine to pass up.  (Plus the wool was on sale so was I really breaking my rule: “no new wool till I finish what I have”?)

I did it in a plain knit so it was easy on the brain an eyes and quick to make up.  The camera washed the colors out a bit.  The color at the top is closer to what is true.

I have 4 days off work this Christmas holiday so I hope to create something more historical.  I’m thinking an Edwardian hat.  Cross your fingers.

Ugly hat

From my collection:

This seems to be an older woman.  Though her face is somewhat faded, I get the impression of age because of her deep set eyes.

Her dress appears to be of a Natural Form style (late 70’s to early 80’s) with no bustle in the back.

I personally like all the frothy fabric at the neck but dislike her hat intensely.  The hat may be more impressive in color but in the grey/brown tones of the photography it is ugly. What do you think?

The photographer is George E Curtis from Niagara Falls NY.  A quick Google search shows that he did a few photographs and stereoscope cards of the falls themselves.

Christmas crap

I’m a bit Grinchy about Christmas.  This attitude comes from my line of work which involves decorating my work space so that my seniors get into the spirit of the season.  By the time I’ve put 3-5 trees (with varying degrees of functioning lights) and a crap load other things, I am not in the mood to do my tree at home.  But the hubby insists.

Once it is up, though, I’m glad I did it.

Most of my ornaments have a little sentimental story attached so I enjoy the walk down memory lane.

This year, I took some of my birthday gift cards for Micheal’s Craft store and bought new garland for the tree.  I was tired of the ancient tinsel garland that I have used for decades.

It wasn’t exactly cheap so I wouldn’t have actually paid for it myself.  But with gift cards, I could afford to splurge. Better the garland than spending the cards on more wool to add to the hoard.

Hector Blanche and Lollie

In my photograph collection, I have a postcard with three people in what look to be late 1890’s, or early 1900’s clothes.  I adore the hat and coat of the lady on the left!

The two ladies could be related.  Siblings perhaps?  The man doesn’t look like either lady (but my sons don’t look alike at all) so is he a brother? a husband?  Who knows.  We do know their names are Hector, Blanche and Lollie.  It is wonderful when photos are inscribed with legible writing!