Saturday, July 3, 2010

Teardrop Cocktail Hats

OR....

"How Angie made friends with her hot glue gun."

One of the dance teams at our studio needed something fun for their hair. The number is "Who Could Ask For Anything More" (If I recall correctly.) and the costumes are red and black, very kind of 30's jazzy.


Tada!

The hat forms are made from buckram. Normally, the best way to shape buckram is to steam it, form it over a block (or a styrofoam head...) and then cut out the shape you want. Then the edges are wired, and THEN you can finally cover it.

This method is sticky, messy, and LONG.
Times eight hats.
No thank you.


These ones are made with some shaping created by darts and seams. 30 minutes vs. 3 hours.


Once the forms were made, I stretched the sequined fabric over each form and basted it in place all the way around the sides. The edges were finished off with narrow bias tape binding, and then I glued some black trim underneath the edge. The trim has lots and lots of loops, which leaves as many pinning-in spots as the girls could possibly want.

Then each hat got decorated with a small spot of maribou trim, a tightly gathered "rosette" of black and gold lace, and a button with two feathers crammed through the shank. All applied with gobs and gobs of hot glue. (Not one injury, and only a couple of bad words! Woohoo!!)
The glue gun and I have reached a tentative agreement to be friends.

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