Cinderella Part I

Necklace

No pattern
Materials from: The Bead Shop and Mail Order Beads

Bag

Pattern: High Tea Clutch from Charlie's Aunt
Fabric: Cotton velvet, and satin from Mason's

For possibly the first time ever, I am about to show you something non-clothing that I've made! It is a rarity, but actually I really enjoyed making both these items so I think I should consider widening my repertoire more frequently!


The cause for this sudden change is that some of us at work, myself included, are attending a gala dinner this week. When I first found out about it I thought, of course, what a great opportunity to make a 'posh' frock; something I wouldn't normally get the chance to wear in my every day life of not being a princess. This frock will feature in a different post later on, but for now I wanted to share with you the accessories to go with her!

I wanted to get a new necklace - a statement piece, to really complement my dress. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted until I saw it on Etsy. A totally beautiful and really different necklace. Jubilant, I decided to order one. It was around £30, so a treat, but not too bad. And then I realised it was coming from a long way away and they couldn't guarantee delivery in time. So I enquired about expedited delivery which was going to cost £40! A tear in my eye, I stepped away from the only necklace in the world I now wanted.

After some fairly hefty dramatics around the house I decided I would try making my own. If it was a disaster then so be it, but at least I would have tried. I discovered exactly what I wanted on a couple of different websites here and here, although my order in reality came from the same place. Weird, huh?

Whilst it was a bit fiddly, this was a pretty simple necklace to make. I glued the flowers to the filigree plates, slid the beads on to headpins, bent some stuff, opened and removed chains, and closed chains again. And voila! A pretty much identical necklace to the one I originally wanted for a fraction of the price, and I learned some new skills. Mad skills.

I read somewhere that the rules for a gala dinner for a lady are: long dresses, heels (flat shoes are "frowned upon") and a clutch bag. Anything with a handle is terribly gauche. I remembered Elena making a beautiful clutch for a friend and decided to use the same pattern.

I bought some beautiful deep navy cotton velvet for the outer, and lined it with leftover dress fabric (slight spoiler for the dress!).

The pattern is the High Tea Clutch and it's a corker of a pattern. Beautifully designed with fabulous detail, such as the front pleats. It's a really well written pattern, so easy to follow, and even scary things like inserting a magnetic clasp were made to seem like a piece of pie. I now want everything in my life to have a magnetic clasp.

It was rather hard to photograph this bag well. It looks like it's covered in lint, and whilst that is obviously the case, it really doesn't look like that in real life, thankfully!