Millinery

This second year has kept us all really busy, so I'm just trying to fill you in on what's been happening. We we're given a Millinery Project earlier this year, in which we had to make 4 - 6 hats based on a theme of our choosing. I chose: 

CHILDREN'S MOVIE'S

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After a great deal of searching and decision making I finally narrowed it down 5 hats.

'Lily St Regis' from the Movie 'Annie'

'Grace Farrell' from the 1982 film 'Annie'

'Truly Scrumptious' from the movie 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'

Another 'Truly Scrumptious' hat, that I refer to as the 'Toot Sweet Hat'

A children's wedding bonnet from the film 'Nanny MacPhee'

I began with the flowery Truly Scrumptious hat,

I used buckram as the base and moulded it over the block.

I covered the crown in white silk also, but it was quite tricky getting those creases out.

I used a satin bias binding around the edge, hiding the millinery wire and cut the hole out of the centre to allow for the crown to rest.

I placed petersham into the band and attached the crown, I then stitched two side veils of chiffon at either side.

I made my own silk roses, of different shade of pink, but I also added silk paint to each individual petal to add shade, I then added the leaves. (This is the underneath view).

The finished hat, it was probably the most time consuming hat, as I made all of the flowers myself.

The next hat, the 'Grace Farrell', from the 1982 movie 'Annie'. I began with a pale blue wool hood.

I had to stitch three pleats into the front of the hood before I could begin blocking the hat. Thank goodness for
the industrial sewing machines at college because my domestic wouldn't have coped with the thickness of this

wool.

A cloche style block was needed to make this hat, I soaked the hat in boiling water and blocked it the same way as the other's. This job required some muscles, it was kind of like stretching out a woolly jumper that has shrunk in the wash! Friction burnt hands ahoy!!

All it needed was a petersham ribbon on the inside and a satin ribbon on the outside, oh and the edge hemmed up by hand!

The 'Lily St Regis' Pillbox hat was next, I started off with a parissal cone hood and blocked it in the same way I had with the other's.

Once off the block, I hand stitched the millinery wire into the hem and folded the hem over it. I placed a lining inside and stab stitched it in place, I then used a bias binding to finish/hide the turned under hem.

I then made a thick pink check ribbon by stitching several thin ones together and attached some purple veiling on top of that, for the finishing touches.

The college didn't have a block for a bonnet, so for my 'Nanny MacPhee Wedding Bonnet', I made it completely from buckram, cutting out piece's and stitching them together.

I did this for the peak, covered the parts in ice wool and stitched the pieces together. The outside I covered in white satin and the inside in a lovely cerise satin.

I made a long neck tie, one side lime green and the other cerise and attached it. I also made my own bias binding for the edging. All the other trimmings are shop bought.

The 'Toot Sweet Hat'. I made a buckram base cap, but the rest of this hat was made of organza and ric-rac. I began cutting out two full circle's of organza and made one smaller. I hemmed up the outer edge and attached white ric-rac around this edge.

I gathered the inner circle and pulled it in tightly than attached it to the base cap.

Using wired organza ribbon, that I edged in ric-rac, I looped them around and stitched it into a bow.

All I had to do was stitch the lower flounce to the bow and there was the finished hat.

I loved the Millinery project, but it involved a lot of hand sewing, my hands were red raw and covered in pin pricks by the end of it. So be warned.....