Recovering an 1860s parasol (continued)

Instead of recovering it with plain black silk, I decided to use a plaid. This beautiful piece of brown, gold, cream and black silk taffeta was purchased from The Dressmaker's Shop. If you haven't shopped at Kimberly Lynch's online store, I highly recommend it. She has lovely fabrics suitable for period pieces, for reasonable prices. The bottom of each top piece for each section was scalloped. I used a pair of vintage scalloping shears to recreate this.

The new cover, all sections stitched together. Once all the sections were stitched, I finished the bottom edge with a narrow rolled hem (machine stitched).

The first step in recovering the parasol is pushing the finial through the center of the cover and drawing the fabric tightly to the little space under the finial. I used buttonhole thread to do this and went around the finial several times before knotting it off. Next, the tip of each section is stretched tightly to meet the tip of each rib. The rib tips are little metal pieces with a hole through which to draw the thread and a bit of the fabric. I worked the cover onto the frame by moving from side to side, in order to keep the cover taught. This is similar to what is done in millinery. When the tips were secured, I stitched the cover to each rib just below its hinge.

The finished cover, with original beading added.











Ready for summer! This was much easier than I had thought. Now I'm ready to tackle a larger, Edwardian parasol!

Recovering an 1860s parasol

Last summer I purchased an 1860s parasol (I think it dates to the post-American Civil War period); the handle, which is beautifully carved wood is in beautiful condition, but the black silk cover was shredded. I was kind of nervous about being able to recreate the cover. After lots of mental planning, last weekend I started work on it. First, I removed the original silk cover, and picked apart one of the sections. The entire cover had been sewn by hand. Each section was made of two pieces, which were joined before all of the sections were stitched together. The join was covered with a narrow strip of tiny black glass beads. Here is one of the original sections and the paper pattern made from it.

Using the pattern, I recreated the cover in muslin to check the fit. Happily, it fit well! I didn't expect to get it right on the first try, but here it is.

This is the bottom of the handle. There are two little wooden balls that roll around inside the carving!