Oversized rose headdress

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I have finally finished this custom oversized rose headdress. This was an experimental piece, the one your customers inspire you to dare and do it by ordering something quirky. You try your best and come up with ... well, a masterpiece!

Oversized rose headdress

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A velvet rose

 Recently I have added a couple of new stunning roses to my portfolio. One of them is this large beauty.

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Silk roses

Please be kindly informed that we have moved! To read new blog posts, purchase our floral pieces and learn more about how to make flowers you are welcome to visit out new website.

Autumn is taking its toll on nature. The trees are showing their bare branches as the last leaves fall onto the cold wet ground. The grass is not as green any more. The days are short, grey and full of drizzly rain. Gardens seem to be hybernating and apart from a lonely pink nerine or a yellow spike of mahonia the eye does not see any bright colours.

Fortunately for us, handmade silk flowers are still there where the fresh ones might have gone. They please our eye and lift our spirits. Old English roses continue to flower despite the autumnal darkness.

Old English Rose brooch

I am often asked to do a rose tutorial. To be honest, roses are one of the most complicated flowers to be created out of silk and before  one attempts to try and make a complicated silk rose dozens of less complex flowers have to be made to gain enough experience, get to know the tools and properties of the silk, learn coloration techniques and flower shapes. Obviously a .pdf tutorial will not suffice in this case. Although a one-to-one session is ideal, in the modern world of technology the Skype lesson is next best. And now let's concentrate on Christmas pieces!

A pillbox hat with silk roses

Please be kindly informed that we have moved! To read new blog posts, purchase our floral pieces and learn more about how to make flowers you are welcome to visit out new website.

It is natural to use my handmade silk flowers to decorate hats and fascinators. That is why I would like to master the art of hat making and from time to time I try and create a hat which I can then embellish with my flowers.
As I am in the process of getting ready for a Wedding Fair with a vintage twist I have decided to make a wedding pillbox hat.

As you can see the hat is made of buckram frame covered with silk dupioni and finished with hat elastic. For decoration I created an English rose with a bud and foliage (several types of silk fabric) as well as goose biot feathers and a couple of diamonds of French veil.

The diameter of the pillbox hat is 15 cm.
The hat is available for purchase from my Etsy shop

I would be pleased to read your comments about the hat and the flowers.

Roses, roses, roses

Rose is the queen of the flower world or so it seems. And although I personally like a lot of rather different flowers it is very difficult to resist the fascination the rose possesses. Especially if it has a nice flower shape. Especially if it has a scent. Especially if it has a historic charm about it. This is all true about the Old English rose as it has it all: great shape, smell, heritage and diversity.
Here is the English rose in silk.
The rose is hand made from scratch of pure silk fabrics (crepe and dupioni) and hand painted using colours for silk.
 The Old English rose with an open flower shape would look beautiful as a hair accessory or a wedding dress embellishment.
 Other colour options are possible as it is hand painted
The rose can be mounted on a hair clip or a comb, made as a brooch etc.
What do you think about it? Does it look an Old English rose to you?

First ever Craft Fair to take part

Craft Fairs season was officially opened last Saturday when we took part in our first ever Craft Fair in a small village of Methwold, Norfolk. Having read a number of articles in both English and Russian on how to prepare oneself for the first fair I can say that we have done a very good job! The Fair took place in the Village Hall which turned out to be a pleasant and well-lit building. Tables were laid out in a circle letting potential craft hunters flow freely around the Hall making several rounds. Here is the picture of our display:

We also used a laptop slide show to demonstrate stages of flower making process and more flowers.
I have to admit that despite a decent footfall the public was not ready for hand made from scratch and hand painted silk flowers. We did give out some business cards, but people who stopped and got interested in the silk flowers were mainly thinking weddings and occasions. It is a pity because most of my creations were perfect for everyday wear and one does not need a special occasion or a wedding invitation to wear a silk flower brooch. I guess a lot of work needs to be done to make people see silk flowers as a very nice and stylish, extremely feminine accessory, be it a brooch, a hair clip or a headband

One pattern two roses

Here is how the assembling process influences the final shape of a flower. I made these 2 roses using the same  pattern but they look quite different. The white rose is meda out of silk tafetta which I personally found a bit stiff to work with. The pink rose has got nicely coloured pastel leaves

Wedding corsages&buttonholes

Albeit a bit late, I would like to share some pictures of the roses buttonholes&corsages I have made for me and Alex to wear on the wedding day of our relatives last Sunday. The small rose buds are made in the Japanese technique and hand painted to match our outfits for the day

So the pinky-browny-cafe one was for me and the more conventional pink-and-green was for Alex. Here they are with our outfits (and us)

And I think they looked lovely))