What a Summer! And introducing Vivienne

Wow, what a summer, I think this may have to go down as the greatest summer in history! I’ve been so busy and seen so much and enjoyed the company of my amazingly wonderful friends. Plus the weather’s been far better than it’s been in recent years and I’ve spent the best part of most weekends outdoors. Life doesn’t get much better than this.

Apart from the fact I haven’t got as much ‘making’ done as I’d like. But there’s always winter to catch up with that.

Here’s one of the hats I have made though – Vivienne.

I bought this gorgeous dress from Monsoon for a wedding. It’s such a statement piece that it doesn’t want to be overpowered by the hat, the hat needs to feel like an extension of the dress. Then there’s the shape of the dress. A large hat would knock the silhouette right out of the window. The dress to me is elegance and style and sophistication. It needs a special something to feel right with it.

I decided on a ‘button’ fascinator (a small circular base) with a single statement quill. I didn’t want to go for feathers as I don’t feel they reflect the style of the dress quite right. I decided to keep to the same colour scheme and to cover the base in black lace. The quill was curled in a cone shape and curved slightly across the base.

I love the combination so much I’m going to wear it for another wedding next weekend (shh, don’t tell anyone!) although I may go for lower heels this time.

Fascinator Making Class at Robyn's Hen Do

This weekend I held my first fascinator party at a hen do. It was fantastic fun, both for me and for the hens.

I wanted to do something fairly quick but also following current trends. I wanted to do something to capture shape and form and not just to stick a ball of feathers onto a hair clip. I wanted to enable the hens to make something they were proud of and not something they could just pick up in any high street shop.

I settled on a combination of crin and sinamay with biot and coq feathers. I picked out two colour combinations which could be mixed and matched.

Crin is fantastic fun to work with. It's easy to sculpt into some really striking shapes yet always keeps to gentle curves which flatter the face and give a feminine touch. On seeing my demonstration, all the hens chose to make the base of their fascinator this way.

We used the sinamay and feathers to emphasise the shapes we'd made.

I was amazed at the variety of creations, with some uses of crin I'd never even dreamed of. I loved watching the characters of the hens reflected in their designs. There was big and bold, colourful and discrete, flowing shapes and controlled, tailored designs. But most of all there were fifteen smiles around the table.

The class was held in a beautiful cottage in Derbyshire. And without further ado here's some photos of what they produced. The hens are all planning to show off their masterpieces at the wedding in a few weeks so watch out for an update then.

If you are interested in holding a fascinator making party, please contact me on alison@alisonclaire.co.uk

Merry Christmas! & a Christmas Day Project

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and feels as relaxed and contented as I do.

I had a wonderful day and got loads of hat books. The best one was Fashion Hats - Design & Make by Karen Henriksen - lots of fantastic ideas, tips and techniques and all really nicely laid out. Good for someone my level who knows the background and has confidence making the hats, but hasn't done much trimming yet.

Like any child on Christmas day, I put all my lovely presents aside and played with something else - some sinamay and feathers for a hat for my mum for a wedding in January. I blocked it on Christmas eve and got the piece wired yesterday. I was playing around with sinamay and made a fairly classic looking fascinator, which I attached to a comb. It was fiddly, but went together in just a few hours.

First I made a bias strip about the width of a DVD (what can I say, I used what I had to hand) and as long as the fabric could handle. Then I used and iron to stretch it and while it was warm I formed it into soft curls. I worked the curls into a ball shape and stitched it in position. I took several of the long feathers and laid them out in a circle. I used a piece of cotton to wrap around them where they met to make a fan shape out of them and then stitched this to the back of the sinamay ball. I then stitched the black feathers into the middle individually. Finally I attached the whole thing to a hair clip and popped it on my mum. I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.