The Grand Unveiling!

As discussed in my last post I have been working hard on the new look for my business. So, without further a do, I can now reveal the name I have chosen is........Olive and Betty! I struggled with what to change my name to for a while so looked to what inspires me to do what i do. Olive was my Nanna's name and she was one of my biggest supporters. She always encouraged my creativity and helped me a great deal through college and university. She even bought me my first sewing machine, and her beautiful black and gold Singer sewing machine sits proudly in my work room as a reminder of her. Betty was her sister, my great Aunt and she has been a huge source of inspiration for me. She loved being creative too, and loved many crafts, especially embroidery. I have inherited a lot of her bits and pieces from button, sequins, feathers and all sorts which I use in my work. I was also given her spinning wheel which I am desperate to try out one day! Both Olive and Betty have been a huge part of who I am and what I do and I owe a lot to theme. Naming my business Olive and Betty is my way of thanking them for all of their support and also a way of keeping them involved and a part of my business.

I still have some work to do with changing everything to my new name so at the moment my Etsy shop is still the same. Hopefully everything will be up and running as Olive and Betty very soon.

Time for a change.

So I have been thinking about this for a long time now but I think I'm almost ready to start with the next stage for my business. A new name! Whilst 'Sally Anne Costumes' has served me well I think it's time to get serious and smarten myself up! This name and image was something that I brought with me from university when we were asked to create our own business cards etc as part of the course. Stuck for inspiration Sally Anne Costumes was born. I feel I need a name and look that is more mature and eye catching as well as serving a purpose. As I dabble in a few areas, ie millinery, costume and corsetry I also want something doesn't put me in just one box but something that I am free to explore other avenues under. 

Anyway I have been working hard for a few months now and hopefully soon will be able to unveil my brand new look, so keep your eyes peeled!

Love Sally x

Hats, Hats and more hats!

So my hats are ticking along quite nicely at the moment. I've had a few sales, 2 of which are custom orders which I love doing. I had a lovely lady Clare come to see me the other day. She wanted a hat to go with an outfit she had picked out that she is wearing to the Cheltenham festival in a few weeks time. 

Her outfit was made from a lovely tweed fabric with a pop of purple velvet on the collar and cuffs. Originally she was looking at a cloche style hat in purple but as it happened I hat a fedora made up in a taupe wool felt with a purple felt bow around the brim. This went perfectly with the outfit so she decided to go for that instead. I love it when a customer finds something that's just right! I hope she enjoys wearing it and I look forward to seeing some pictures. 

Next I'm planning some new bridal hats ready for spring/summer. I've been making silk flowers and beading lots of pretty lace in preparation so I hope to have some photos to show very soon so stay tuned! 

Love Sally 

Autumn/Winter Collection

After enjoying every last bit of sunshine we've had over the last few months I'm now well aware that Autumn is fast approaching and it's probably time to get my self organised and plan my designs for my Autumn/ Winter hat range. As my Etsy shop is becoming more established I decided I wanted to create a range of full sized hats each season as well my fun little hatties and fascinators. 

So I set about designing my first range. I thought about the styles I wanted to concentrate on and the colours I wanted to work with. I love all the rich autumn colours and decided tweed fabric would be a great fabric to use to create some decorations for the hats. As I like to have the fabrics in front of me to play with and come up with ideas I scoured eBay to find some pieces of fabric to practise on. Tweed is very expensive to buy by the metre but luck was obviously on my side and I came across a seller who had a few bags of genuine Harris Tweed remnants in all sorts of colours and patterns. Perfect! I was so excited to receive my package in the mail and immediately tipped all the pieces onto the table in front of me and waited for inspiration to hit. After playing around for a while I made some little two layered bows from the tweed in complementing colours and thought these would look sweet perching on a beret or on the side of a fedora. 

I adore the rich orange and red tones of this bow and the pretty tartan pattern really makes me think of winter. 

I also created a cute flower which I finished in the middle with a button I covered in contrasting tweed. I used the decorations on a few of the hats I had made up and I really loved the finished look. I want to get a range fedoras and berets on my Etsy shop soon using these pretty tweed decorations. Below are a few sneak previews of the range so far.

Love and Hattiness

Sally x

A little black number.

I have been playing around for a little while now with a little midi sized bowler hat in lovely black felt. I wanted to use the cockades I have been making to decorate it and made some lovely ones from velvet ribbon. I love decorating my hats but it takes a while to get it just how I want it! After lots of fiddling around though I have finally got a hat I'm happy with.

I love this hat! I love the soft hackle feathers peeping out behind the ribbon cockades. The button is the perfect size to sit in the middle of the cockade and finishes it off perfectly.

Cute little bowler. I love the feathers!



Pretty Ribbon Cockade! The velvet ribbon creates a great pattern with the contrast of the flat reverse side of the ribbon and the fuzzy top side.



I love this little button. It works so well on this little hat!

This hat is available on my Etsy shop www.sallyannecostumes.etsy.com.

As always,
Love and Hattiness

Sally x

Ribbon Cockades

A ribbon cockade is a knot of ribbon in a circle or oval shape often used to adorn hats or lapels. They were very popular in the 18th century and were made in distinctive colours used to show the allegiance of the wearer to a particular political group, their rank or as part of a servant's livery.

I love decorating my hats with historically inspired things so I really wanted to learn how to make ribbon cockades. I found some really good instructions in old millinery books and also online tutorials such as this brilliant one by Claudine de Montigny on her blog http://claudinedemontigny.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/yet-another-cockade-tutorial-part-1.html. It took a bit of practise as they are quite fiddly, but eventually I made my first cockade! Yey! I like using petersham or velvet ribbon. Both of these are good for making cockades as being quite firm they hold the shape well while folding. There are so many lovely ribbons to use though and they all give different effects. Stripy ribbons in particular, make really interesting patterns. Also layering up cockades of different sizes create lovely decorations perfect for hats.



A couple of the ribbon cockades I have made so far.



Now I have made a few different cockades I'm hooked! They are so much fun to make. It's something I can do in the evenings in front of a good film, with the obligatory gin and tonic on hand of course! Once you get into the swing of it you can make them up pretty quickly. They look great and are giving me some great ideas for some new hats which I can't wait to try out. I am making one in black velvet at the moment which would look great on a little black felt bowler hat I'm working on. I will post some pictures when it's finished!

Love and Hattiness

Sally x

And the bride wore pink!

Phew! I've had a mad few weeks making bridesmaid dresses for my uncles wedding. I was frantically sewing at 10pm the night before but it all got done in the end! The day was lovely and I really enjoyed being a bridesmaid and being part of their special day. I made the brides dress too although being a more mature bride she didn't want a big white dress. Instead we chose a lovely patterned fabric in her favourite colour, pink! The bridesmaids dresses were a lovely lavender colour and I was really happy with the finished dresses. I will post some pics soon but here is one my flowers. The colours are beautiful and they really matched the colour scheme perfectly.

I loved my flowers. Such beautiful colours!

Even though it snowed and i lost all feeling in my feet, a wonderful day was had by all and the new bride and groom looked really happy!

Congratulations to you both! X

As always, love and hattiness!

Sally x