Mad as a Hatter!

With the royal wedding coming up our little community has planned a big street party complete with bunting! We will have a bouncy castle, races, games and even a set of stocks to get dad wet with water bombs! My part is a hat making competition to encourage people to dress up for the party. I'm not sure how many will take part - there are only going to be 40 attendees and not many have shown an interest in my competition!

Any way as the judge I have been making a fabulous hat for myself, I need little excuse to get crafty and love the chance to make something wonderful. We are having our street party in the meadow with cupcakes and bunting so I figured a fancy garden party hat would be great, but ofc its never as simple as that! I wanted it to be novelty and patriotic so I designed a Tea Cup Hat :)
I've modified a wide brimmed pre-owned hat, by taking the rim off and attaching it to the very top of the hat, this will make the saucer. Its a very classy navy blue hat with cream ribbon round the base and 2 bows both of which are now under the rim below the saucer. I have made the cup part from paper-mache.
I painted it cream, adding details in navy blue around the rim and handle, I wanted the hat and cup part to look like they belong together so it needed to be done professionally and to a high standard. The finished product looked great at the end and everyone commented on it :)

Bridesmaid dresses

I've had major drama with a Chinese dress making company, which today ended with me basically demanding refund. The past 5 weeks I have been trying to order 2 adult and one child's gold/champagne bridesmaid dresses for my mothers wedding on 11th Febuary. he whole thing is pretty short notice compared to other weddings, they decided to get married in November, went to Australia on holiday for a month and only started planning it 2 weeks ago.

After the pilavour with the Chinese tailors I am left with only 2 weeks to source or make 3 dresses. I am confident I can make a fitted dress with a pattern, but 3 of them with modified sleeves and in less than 2 weeks? I hope that my tailor friend Mr Komadei can lend a hand, he has in the past guided me in challenging projects and has a selection of industrial machines to use. My special lidl machine overheats after an hours solid sewing >_>

A bit nervous about further issues, as the time window is so small. Did I mention I'm 12 weeks pregnant and throwing up every 20 minutes?? I must be crazy to even attempt this but the only other choice is some overpriced cheap nasty dresses from a local bridal shop. That will still be an option if my dressmaking has not been a success by the 5th February.

I have just ordered patterns and plan to buy fabric on Tuesday. There will be plenty of compromises as I can not afford to be fussy with fabric or supplies. I will take photos as I go and post a blog after the wedding, as I sure as hell won't have time before then!