All about Hat Making

I had a wedding to go to, it was black tie dress code, I had a dress all I needed was a hat or in this case a fascinator. I wanted something smallish and that was conservative as I wasn’t going to the races but a wedding. Here is what I can up with.

First I got my dress and looked at the colours of feathers, crinoline and sinamay I had in my stash and choose the colours that went with my dress. The picture shows the materials I found. I always choose more than I will need because then I can disgard some as I create or decide to go in a different direction if I choose to.

I  got a hair comb that I was using as the base for my fascinator and some netting fabric that I cut thin bias strips off. I then wrapped the end of the comb with the netting fabric. This allowed me to sew parts of the fascinator onto the comb. The netting is wrapped along the top edge going between each of the teeth so that the top edge is completely covered. I glued the end down.

I decided to go with a mainly black base with some feathers to add some

colour. I started with some veiling material and arranged it to form a background. I then sewed it onto the comb.

I then shaped some crinoline and pinned it with a safety pin to hold its shape while I checked to see how it looked on the top of the veiling. I played around with the crinoline quite a lot and came up with with a variety of interesting shapes - it really is an amazing hat making fabric and can add that little bit of sophistication to a fascinator.

I then sewed the crinoline piece onto the hair comb.

I decided to use the cream feathers that I had in my pile these feathers were straight biots. I used the back of my scissors to add a bit of curl to them and then glued them in the spaces between the loops in the crinoline.

I distressed the ends of the crinoline  and to finish the fascinator off - I added a flower brooch.