A bride in the neighborhood

It was a lovely weekend here.  I spent most of it making a bridal head piece for a neighbor. 

Here's the back story on how that activity came to be:

Last summer a neighbor hosted a neighborhood potluck block party.
It was the first time I had met a lot of my neighbors and found them to be a really great group of people.
The young "hostess" introduced me to her children and her fiance, (a really nice guy) and said they were going to get married the next summer.

We got chatting about hats (the party was outside, and hats were to be seen) and I mentioned my collection of hats.  Later on we ambled over to my house so she could see the hats.  Turned out she was one of those people who looks terrific in any style of hat...she had a "hat friendly face".

Picture the girl who plays the violin in the group Celtic Women, and you now know exactly what she looks like.

"Next summer" has now rolled around.  My neighbor is getting married next weekend, and last week she dropped by to ask if I could help her figure out something to wear on her head for the event.

Her dress is an ivory satin fitted gown, with a square neckline and somewhat broad straps.
The wedding will be up in the mountains, outside.

She is very relaxed about the event (she has been married before, but this is his first marriage) and said she wanted something "funky" for a head piece.

I took her into my hat room and after trying on various hats and bits, she decided she liked the look of the three minute rose (picture above) that I had made several years ago and how it looked atop dotted veiling.

It could be made up in ivory of course...

I sent her off to buy ribbon and order the veiling.  A couple of days later she called and said she had the ribbon and veiling.
She and another neighbor sat and watched me start in on the project.
(I quickly discovered I was very self conscious having someone watching me knot thread after licking my finger...and that I had to keep shifting my glasses on and off to see what I was doing.)

The making the twisted satin ribbon rose part was easy.
The edge trim took a couple of tries.
The stamen...well...I had to rethink how I placed it.
The veiling...veiling done birdcage style is so tricky.  She wanted it just at nose tip, and if the "billow" doesn't happen just right, a bird cage veil will brush against the nose tip and drive a bride crazy with the tickle.

I figured I would make up the head piece in two or three hours.  
(It wound up being closer to eight...or was it nine? just on the sewing time.)

So here is the final edition of the "funky" bridal head piece: 

As usual, I fretted about the hat overnight.
The original version looked like this:

She had selected several kinds of ribbon for the ruffled edge: a white sheer ribbon with white pearl edging that didn't suit as it was just too white.
She also had a white striped ribbon; I had the same ribbon in ivory so I had to give it a try.
It looked really nice, but I feared it was a bit too fussy looking for her elegant satin dress.

Plus I felt the dots and stripped and ruffles just made the piece too busy against the fluid feeling of her dress design.
And for some crazy reason I "forgot" that stamen doesn't pop up out of the flower center like that.
Now the whole time I am working on this piece I am mentally flipping between "oh this looks so home made" and "oh everyone is going to just flip when they see this and (Walter Mitty like) I will suddenly be the most in demand bridal head piece maker in America".

Now I just hope people will simply think the hat works with the dress and think that she looks lovely.

I've had two reviews so far:
Bernie thinks it looks great.

Tate LOVED it!

I had pulled out the stuff needed to photograph the hat and Tate showed up out of the blue.

Tate loves orange...my model Jane has orangish hair.
Tate is clearly smittened.

Kitty kisses for the bride!

Funny...it looks like a flower but doesn't smell like a flower...

Whoa whoa WHOA!
At that point Tate had to break up with Jane.
I tossed him out of the room.
The brief romance was over.

I won't be attending the wedding; we will be at Gail's daughter's wedding in Colorado as my neighbor's wedding occurs.
If I can, I try to get a picture and show you how she looked!