Wherever you lay your hat.

While the outdoors continues to draw me to explore and photograph, I am spending some time being creative at home. In a previous post I wrote about the hats we are creating and this is the one I made as a stand alone piece. I have a few others that are paired with a cuff. These hats and cuffs are handmade using traditional millinery techniques and are in silk and cotton.

These are some of the cuffs, I have hand dyed cotton lace and ribbons to match the silk ribbons. While many of my pieces are shabby chic, there are also cuffs in gothic blacks and reds, there will be bridal ones too. I can see young ladies at their graduations wearing them and elegant ladies at garden parties looking fabulous. Any occasion that calls for wearing a statement piece.

I decided to call my collection Precious Moments. Why? Because I am using recycled sari silk ribbons and each ribbon comes from a sari that has it’s own history, story and purpose for being made. Many of these gorgeous fabrics would have been worn for special occasions, some for day to day wear, yet each one has memories, each one has moments in time that were precious to the wearer. Hence my title.

I used stiff cotton which I added extra stiffness to with Powertex as buckram is quite hard to source at the moment. Millinery wire was added to the top and brim to keep the shape. Adding the wire using the zigzag setting on the machine requires absolute concentration! Broken needles are always a hazard.

The theme of this hat is a sunrise showing the dark of the night with the stars on the top gradating to the Moon and Venus with the sun rising on the crown and over the ocean on the brim. As I am used to working on more 2 dimensional pieces, this was a challenge for me… I feel I managed to create a unique hat which will grace the head of a lucky person. All my work is on one of a kind pieces, and of course using the materials that I do, no two can ever be the same. I love the uniqueness of my work as they are ideal for that illusive gift for someone who has everything.