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Today was the annual horse race that stops the nation – I am not sure if there is anywhere in Australia where their workplace or school does not stop to watch the race…  To me its not only about the horses (although they are important) it is about the hats… I love to how amazing people look when they wear a hat… it is a pity they don’t choose to more often.

Early on cup day the commentators were saying that there were more hats than fascinators – although this makes sense – you need something to shade you from that strong burning Melbourne sun… fascinators may be beautiful and easy to wear but hats have that classic appeal and besides looking a bit more sophisticated they protect you from getting burnt.

Here are a few of the online photo galleries from the day so you can see how wonderful everyone looked in their headwear….

The Age newspapers - Melbourne Cup Fashion Photo Gallery

An article about the winner of the fashion the fields wearing a classic black flower fascinator.

The Herald Sun’s photo gallery sports some great hats and fascinators…

And a video C/O of The Age newspaper on early morning on Melbourne Cup Day..

And not quite Melbourne Cup day but a good photo gallery displaying hats and fascinators from Derby Day on the Age’s website….

ENJOY!

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I found this hat on Etsy and just thought I would share the inspiration. It is designed for Etsy Milliner, Boring Sidney. The Etsy site can be found here: BoringSidney :: Crazy Chip Bag Headpiece

What great recycling!

Until I went to Dita Feathers in Sydney I didn’t realise that there were so many different types of Ostrich feathers.

The male feathers are bigger than the females, the mating feathers even bigger – In fact they were huge. Then of course there are left and right hand feathers… Of course the price goes up with the size and the use of the largest feathers would increase the price of a hat by quite a lot.

I realise now how little I know about feathers and how much there is to learn. I think I will have to research feathers for a future post.

• You may wish to mark the shape into quarters – centre front to centre back and side to side.
• The elastic may be used to assist in marking a straight line around the block.
• If the design is not easy to mark freehand, use paper to draw the pattern first and transfer to 20/20. Keep the paper pattern to assist with the lining for the shape.
• Can create a small shape or a large one.
• There may be enough room for more than one cocktail shape from the mould.

Step 3: Cut out shape. You can cut any shape you desire, however, note that sharp points can be quite hard to cover.