A 1780s hat and a chemise-a-la-reine refashion
One of the perks of my job is sitting in on classes from our amazing guest teachers: this year I made a 1780s hat in our millinery class.
One of the perks of my job is sitting in on classes from our amazing guest teachers: this year I made a 1780s hat in our millinery class.
So, Monday I told you about beginning Aline’s bonnet, and getting all the basic construction done. Â Here are the finishing details. After cutting the brim down a lot, I bound it with blue and white tartan bias ribbon (from Nana, her stash is the gift that gives and gives!) that I folded into bias tape. I like the way it works with Aline’s skirt fabric, without matching exactly. Â And it’s hard to find two tartans that work with each other! I sewed a piece of florists wire under the the bias tape around the upper brim of the bonnet, to help it hold the tight curve of Aline’s bonnet and my inspiration bonnet. Â First I zig-zagged on the wire, and then bound it with the bias tape. Â The tension of pulling the wire through the machine actually curved it into the perfect curve. The brim didn’t hug the face enough once it was bound, so I ended up taking in little pleats where the brim meets the back of the hat and tacking them down …
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. Â 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. Â 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, …