The hats...finally!

So here are the two hats I made at my millinery class weeks ago. I have to admit that I am pretty happy with both of them. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted for the hat, but I am not a huge fan of fascinators so found that piece something of a struggle. In the end I was inspired by this hat by Philip Treacy.

But as I am no Isabella Blow it needed to be toned down somewhat. So, with much less feathers, and some trims I created this:

We had to make the fascinators from scratch, so using sinamay we blocked the base of the fascinator, creating the shape we wanted and then had to add all of the trims and feathers ourselves. I have no idea where I will ever wear this but it is on display in my work room and I feel pretty proud of myself when I look at it.

Here, is the hat.

This was much easier to design as I have very clear ideas about the sort of hats I wear and the styles that suit me. This hat started life as an unformed piece of felt, that vaguely looked like a hat. Again it had to be steamed and blocked, the brim took two weeks to get it into that shape. Once the crown and brim were done they needed to be sewn together, stiffened, and beautified. I even made the flower, using french silk flower tools that I now really want but can't afford :-( The only major issue with this hat is that I over stiffened it so it could now pass as a helmet, but apparently the more I wear it the more it will soften.

So those are my hats, I really enjoyed this course, and would be happy to carry on making hats, just need to figure out how to fund such an expensive hobby...