Beyond hats: making a bonnet
A looooooong time ago, when I first made Aline’s By the Seashore ensemble, I really fretted about the hat. I tried to figure out what kind of hat it was, and how I was going to make it. And then I put it in the too-hard basket. And then I saw this adorable little bonnet thingee at the Met: And I said to myself “Hey, that’s really cute!” And then I checked out the other views of the bonnet, and I said “Hey, that looks a lot like Aline’s hat” And since it’s three years later, and I’ve acquired a lot more experience, or at least a lot more hubris, I thought, “Hey, I’ll give it a try.” I had this brilliant idea (which, for once, did turn out to be brilliant) to make a mock-up in brown paper. Simpler than sewing one, and paper is already stiff. It worked surprisingly well, and while my first mock-up wasn’t great, it really showed what I needed to tweak: I cut down the crown a lot, …