Derby Hats and my DIY

Hi all,

A few weeks ago I went to the 142nd Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby. It was a lot of fun!! I had as much fun people watching as I did betting on horses. While this is a sporting event, 80% of the women there could have easily been in church. The men didn't slack off in their summer suits either. I actually think the men out shined the women!! Everyone knows that the hats are the focus at the Derby, oops, I  mean after the horses of course, so I was really on the look out for great hats. But what about my hat....

I didn't have time to really focus on creating a hat for the Derby so I  recreated a fun hat that I had back in the 90s. I thought I  had snapped a pic of the hat while I  was in Detroit, (my mom has the same hat but wrong color) but I  think I accidentally erased it.

Anyway, with only a couple of hours to devote to this, I got busy. I brought this plain flat wide brim hat (thanks to my mom) back from my moms stash of clothes and accessories  .

  I cut the crown off of the hat, then bound the edges of the brim, and the cut edges of the hat with a package of pink double wide bias tape. I was in such a hurry, I didn't take pictures while making the hat! After binding the edges and hot gluing the crown to the hat, I glued silk flowers and leaves inside the cut off crown of the hat.

The last step was to get some " bend" in the brim. The brim was just flat and that wouldn't work for me. I wasn't sure how to get that and then it came to me. I remembered back to my days of  basket weaving and the effects of water on reeds. Water makes the reed very pliable, so I put water on the part of the brim that I wanted to "bend" down towards my face and just bent it as far as I wanted it to bend. It worked, the brim stayed in that position.

Here I am on my way to the 142nd Kentucky Derby wearing my hat!! I was very happy with it as I can wear it again during the summer.

I was on the look out for over the top, big fabulous hats, hats you probably couldn't wear anywhere else but the Kentucky Derby!

Here are a few pics of hats that caught my eye at the Derby...

This one was my favorite hat....

                                                               Front

                                                        Back

                                                    His horse head hat was fun!

                                                 Another horse head hat!

                              Never saw the front of this hat, but the back was...different!

                                            This was my favorite fascinator!!

                 My guy wore my favorite Man's Hat!! He added the pink band for the Derby's recognition of Breast Cancer Survivors! Yes, that's my Mint Julep he's holding!! LOL

I know , there's no hat in this pic but I loved that he matched this suit to his Chuck Taylor All Stars. I actually saw at least 2 guys in this suit, but I loved the Converse Match!

 Wait there's More...

Before I could finish and post this, I was off to the 141st Preakness Race. Yep, I am going to go to all 3 of the Triple Crown Races this year! So I needed another hat for the Preakness as the colors for the Preakness are yellow and black. Even though I love big, wide brim hats, I decided to make a fascinator for the Preakness.

Not going to make this post too long so here are just a few pics of hats from the Preakness...

                                                   These 3 ladies had on some great hats!

                                                    This fascinator was unique!


This is the fascinator I made...

Watching the board for the final results of a photo finish... Nope, my horse didn't win!!


Well, I have to say both of these events were an experience, and I totally enjoyed them.  Off to the Belmont in a couple of weeks.

Vintage Cane Chairs 2nd Encore...

Hi all,

Again it's been a long time since I wrote a post but a lot has been happening. If you remember, my last post was about the Encore that I gave to a cane backed sofa. If you missed it you can read about it here. 

Before her Encore!

After her Encore

Well, she was such a hit that her owner wanted chairs to go with her. And what do you know, I happened to have 2 vintage cane chairs in my shed, just sitting there. I wasn't able to use them in this house, so they were going to get their second Encore!

 

 These pics show the orginal chairs fresh from the yard sale and a thrift store and their First Encore!

After looking at these and almost all of the chairs that I have reupholstered, I noticed a trend. I really like to use two different fabrics on chairs. 

Dining room chairs

Zebra chair and stool.

Well, I got started on the Second Encore by stripping these chairs down and cleaning them. Next, was to paint them using the same paint that was used on the sofa.

New foam was added and then came new fabric!

Using her inspration page as a guide,we found a great fabric for these chairs.

 After searching a number of Joann stores, I hit the jackpot and found 3 yards of fabric.

This fabric was just perfect as you could also use the reverse side and you had a cream background with  navy dots. You know what I did, yep, I used both sides on both chairs.

I love how they turned out!  What do you think? Do you like the 2 fabric look or not?