Lily

I had a dream of a jewel encrusted flower head-dress. Jumping out of bed the next morning I searched for a while for the flower I'd dreamed of. It was a lily.

When I had a think about it, I didn't want to cover the whole thing in sparkles - because this beautiful, simple flower should be BIG. But look at those lovely spots on it, those should be picked out in tiny gem stones.

I love silk flowers, but sometimes I want to play with different fabrics. I found myself drawn to some canvas. I felt that the texture of it was similar to how I'd expect the flower to feel. It looks sturdier than silk. I also liked the idea of the flower being a luxury item made out of a more traditional fabric.

As canvas won't hold a shape all that well, I made the petals out of buckram and wired them to give them structure and those fantastic curves.

The stamen are made from wire wrapped in tulle. Here they are in progress (the one on the left is completed, the other two need to be finished:

Now to the petals. I love the colour in the pink one above, but wanted to make it in blue. I painted the individual petals to make them darker in the middle and lighter towards the edges. I'm really happy with the result.

Now it was just a matter of assembling the whole thing, following the shapes of the petals I'd made. This was fiddly but the canvas was giving just the effect I was after. I added the gemstones at this point to.

Now to assemble the petals and the stamens to make the flower.

Being canvas, this is quite heavy for a headpiece so would need some pretty hardcore way of fixing it to the head. I opted for a hand made headband combined with a comb. Here's the headband, made to keep the flower secure:

It looks a bit weird, but the shape on there holds the stem of the flower firm so it can't rotate. Here's the finished piece and a lovely close-up.

I'll get some better photos later, I'm just so excited I needed to share this. It's surprisingly comfy to wear and feels really glamorous. I wish I were going to Ascot!