Another finished hat (finally)

Oh my, I’ve been very very bad at keeping this up to date, haven’t I!!!

Well, I’ve been very busy with the new job, and have been away almost every weekend. I’ve been writing the post about my last couple of weeks of my millinery course for about a month now, I promise to get it up in the next week (there, I said it, I have to now!)

So, it’s a completed hat post today. The purple cap from my new blocks. I’ve really been struggling with how to decorate this one as nothing seemed quite ‘right’ to me. I settled on a plaited strip of black felt across the front, which looks fantastically stylish but not really enough.

Then one day a clip I bought some time ago fell downstairs and landed next to the hat. The colours looked good so I tried attaching it and my word the hat went from good to jaw droppingly fantastic! I absolutely love it. I really adore the shape of this block – casual enough for real day-to-day wear, but structured enough to look that bit different to the baker boy caps that are everywhere. It’s quite a tough one to block as the peak rolls all the way under, so it involves a lot of shrinking, but it’s definitely worth it. I’ve already bought loads of different coloured hoods to try this on and I’m also thinking of seeing how it handles straw (not sure how to get it off the block though with that rolled edge...the felt was tough enough...)

Anyway, THREE yes get that, THREE random strangers complimented me on it today which has made me walk with my feet barely touching the ground. I'm thrilled.

And finally, I’ve decided that to fund my next millinery course (I spent considerably more on materials for the last one than I spent on the course fees themselves – it really adds up) I need to sell off some of my babies. So I’ll pop a post up as they appear on Etsy (if I can bear to be parted from them)

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.