Feathers, frocks and gigi's.......

Feathers, frocks and a bet on a horse is what its all about today, in little ol' Melbourne. Celebrating the horse race that stops a nation.

The Melbourne Cup.

For the best part it's about getting pissed and having a day off work. But in honour of the event there really is a standstill in the heart of Melbourne at approx 3.20pm on every cup day. the gun fires, the gates fly open and the gigi's (did any one else call them that)....the horsies.... pelt forward all dressed up in there colors and shiny coats.

My dad was a bit of a bookie and used the spend the year looking forward to the big race. He'd follow the horses, jockeys and trainers in there smaller races, to see how they would fair on the day. I'm not sure it helped, cause really, he'd back the whole field at 50 cents a pop just to cover his bases, but then put the big money on his guess as the sure winners.

We'd all get the color page in the herald/sun of the jockeys jerseys and circle our favourites so that dad could go to the TAB and place our bets. My philosophy was usually 'choose the one that had a pretty name. Funny how often that tactic actually worked for me.

So this year, like many others we don't bother fighting the crowds at the big event. We have a barbie at home with family and friends and all choose a horse.
Hats Optional.

At work on Monday, they hosted a chicken and champagne luncheon for us all. Which was just lovely.
We had a hat parade with various themes to get us motivated toward making a day of it.
I chose the challenge of 'scrap to fantastic' making a hat and or outfit from scrap.

First I chose one of our old work shirts, that were given away when we had our 25 years celebration. Not really of any use with an outdated logo on it.

First I cut off the sleeves and upper back to make it a halter neck.....giving me lots of scraps to play with. My next challenge was to cover the foil transfer on the bust.
So I cut all the little scraps into scales and stitched them around the neckline for a feathery layered effect.

I re sculpted the body of it to make it more of a fitted a-line look. I then used the same scales to make a little flower and feather arrangement for the hat/fascinator.

Sadly I didn't win in my category, ......up against the bigwigs, and they totally did not get how much work went into my transformation.... But I was happy with my end result, that's all that matters.

Hope you all have a super Melbourne cup Day, go easy on the champers.....