So I spent Sunday at Ups & Downs, a workshop on recovering parasols sponsored by the Greater Bay Area Costumer’s Guild. Lynne, the teacher and fabulous workshop coordinator for GBACG, taught a wonderful class that answered many of my questions about parasol history and almost all of my questions about recovering!
Never one to start small, I decided to make my class parasol into a striped 1870s extravaganza to go with this project (which I’m thinking is going to be definitely an afternoon dress, with an evening bodice if I have the fabric/time/interest). I was impressed at how painstaking and yet easy this project was! My lining isn’t perfect (it’s a bit too big), but I’m planning to sew it down to the cover so I’ll ease it in a bit. There will be lots and lots of ruches to match whatever I end up doing on the dress — at the edge of the parasol, at the top of the parasol, and covering the slide-y thing inside. I now need to look for a handle that I like!
Note vicious cat beast lurking in the first picture…
