Restoration of a Post War Parasol

About a year ago, I purchased a lovely post war Chantilly parasol.

Parasol as it stood when I bought it

The handle and finial are bone and the rest of the frame is brass.  The parasol is covered in a thin brown taffeta, lined in a cream china silk, and then covered with Chantilly lace.  The whole confection is quite lovely.

Anyway, after I bought it, the silk split so I needed to recover the parasol.  I bought some thin silk on Ebay that was only a shade darker than the original.  It's a bit thinner than the original silk, but since it would be covered by the lace, I figured it really didn't matter.

Original cover on top of the new fabric

I bought some off-white lining on Ebay, as well.  It came in white, not off-white, but I used it anyway.

Original lining next to the fabric I used to line the parasol

First, I took off the original lace, silks, as well as the handle (it comes apart in 2 pieces!) and finial.  Here are all the pieces uncovered:

I used one of the brown silk panels to make a pattern.  I used the same pattern for the cover and lining.  Then I sewed the 8 pieces together for both the brown and white fabric.  After that, I used some scalloped scrapbooking scissors (also from Ebay!) to cut scallops around the edges, just like the original.

I free handed these, and found I was much happier than when I chalked out the pattern.

The brass on the handle was quite dirty, so I mixed together some baking soda and lemon juice and rubbed it on with an old rag.  Let me tell you, that mixture is amazing!  I couldn't quite get a clear picture of it, but you can see the brightness and then the near blackness that the brass was:

After that, it was all downhill.  I simply sewed on the lining, then the cover.  Finally, I put the Chantilly on and screwed all the bone pieces back on.