I have been making quite a few lolita outfits with white as a base color so I decided I needed a white parasol as well. Almost all umbrellas are made either black or multicolored. Sorry for the dark pictures forgot to use flash.
After investigating my previous spiderweb parasol, I decided on something a bit more useful. I also noticed that the spokes are flexible and bent easily so to get a more dome shape I could make the outer circumference of the parasol smaller than the umbrella. After playing around a bit I decided with the 8 posts I would want about 12.5 to 13 between them. I also knew that I needed each edge of a triangle to still measure the length of the spokes which was 23 inches.
So using the pythagorean theorem I was able to calculate the height of the triangle and use the measurements to cut 8 triangles from white fabric from walmart ($4). I also decided to do a band of eyelet fabric ($1) around the parasol.
In order to get a better color match between the white of the eyelet fabric and the plain white fabric I decided to just sew it on top. Then I sewed each triangle together and matched the eyelet strips.
Afterwards I used an heirloom stitch with a wing needle on the sewing machine to place two lines of stitching near the top of the parasol. The first line has eyelet holes very close together the second I manually spaced them out by counting the stitches of the machine. I like this look better but would be difficult for any larger project since it was very slow going.
Next I took about 1 in ribbon ($2) and sewed two basting stitches down the middle in order to gather it. This was a bit of a process but worth it. one spool was enough to go around once but I need another to finish off the second round. I'm thinking about using wider ribbon to sew around the bottom. So I would need two more spools of ribbon.
The base for the parasol is a $5 umbrella from walmart which I need to paint the handle white. So far this parasol might cost a total of $16 I've found one on e-bay for about $12 but there are quite a few ones for $30 or so.
So using the pythagorean theorem I was able to calculate the height of the triangle and use the measurements to cut 8 triangles from white fabric from walmart ($4). I also decided to do a band of eyelet fabric ($1) around the parasol.
In order to get a better color match between the white of the eyelet fabric and the plain white fabric I decided to just sew it on top. Then I sewed each triangle together and matched the eyelet strips.
Afterwards I used an heirloom stitch with a wing needle on the sewing machine to place two lines of stitching near the top of the parasol. The first line has eyelet holes very close together the second I manually spaced them out by counting the stitches of the machine. I like this look better but would be difficult for any larger project since it was very slow going.
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