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labricoleuseYesterday, in part one of this two-part post, I discussed the process of making a custom hat for the horror hostess “Penny Dreadful,” up to the point where the brim was prepared.
The next step was to make the crown, a fairly straightforward conical shape. Unfortunately, at this point in the process I injured my right wrist--nothing serious, but I needed to rest it and immobilize it, and definitely could not continue hand sewing.
Luckily, my colleague and frequent millinery assistant Candy McClernan was available to proceed on the project. Candy took the pattern I had drafted for the crown based on the measurements of the original hat shipped to me by the Shilling Shockers folks, and cut two iterations of the crown piece from the nylon foundation mesh. She stitched each piece into a cone shape, placed one inside the other, and secured them together with stay-stitching.
The two layers of the crown before stay-stitching, and the pattern piece.
Double-layer crown, the base of which is wired and finished with French elastic.
The reason Candy made each cone separately and then put one inside the other, rather than stitching the two pieces together and then bending them into a cone shape, is that the two layers need to ride flush together smoothly, and two layers secured together while flat will not then take the curve as one. The inner layer would bubble up between layers of stitching as it tried to cover less ground than the outer layer. This would result in a weaker crown.
Once the two cones were placed inside one another and secured, Candy wired the head size opening for stability and strength, and covered it with French elastic. Then it was time to cut and stitch the velvet fabric for the cover. Though most seams in cover fabric on hats of this construction are sewn by hand, Candy machine stitched the seam of this conical crown so that it would be as smooth and invisible as possible. Then, she stitched the crown of the hat to the brim, graded her seam allowances, and dropped a lining into the crown.
If you look at images of the original on the Shilling Shockers website, you will notice that it is trimmed with a band of the same black velvet as the cover fabric, and a large silver buckle. I was unable to locate a silver buckle of the exact dimensions of the original, but I did find a number of alternatives: silver buckles of slightly different size, a couple of vintage Bakelite buckles in green and black, and one covered in black leather. The clients decided to go with the black leather option. I also found an unusual piece of black velvet which had a snakeskin pattern embossed on it. I sent a swatch of this fabric to the clients in case they wanted a contrast for the hat band. However, upon conducting a screen test under the studio lights, the embossing proved to be too shiny and we stuck with the original velvet fabric.
The finished hat! (This background makes me smile.)
I took this picture with a lot of light and a bright flash to test our theories on grain orientation. I wanted to make sure that the velvet pile would look good under studio lights. (Ideally I'd look at it under studio lights, but had no access to such illumination so I hope my theories prove true when they filmed this hat in the studio.
Note how the band of the same velvet fabric as the rest of the hat shows up as a slight contrast, which allows the eye to perceive the band better. The pile of the fabric on the hat brim is oriented so that when you stroke your hand from front to back it “pets” smooth, and if you stroke from back to front it “pets” against the grain. Candy took this into account and oriented the pile of the crown so it feels smooth to the touch when stroked from point to base, and the pile of the band the exact opposite--smooth from base to top. In theory, this results in a hat which looks visually cohesive, but the details of which will be more visible under studio lights, meaning, the differentiation between the crown, the band, and the hat brim. My photo test appears to bear that out!
So, that concludes the saga of the Shilling Shockers commission. I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as Candy and I enjoyed working on it!
The next step was to make the crown, a fairly straightforward conical shape. Unfortunately, at this point in the process I injured my right wrist--nothing serious, but I needed to rest it and immobilize it, and definitely could not continue hand sewing.
Luckily, my colleague and frequent millinery assistant Candy McClernan was available to proceed on the project. Candy took the pattern I had drafted for the crown based on the measurements of the original hat shipped to me by the Shilling Shockers folks, and cut two iterations of the crown piece from the nylon foundation mesh. She stitched each piece into a cone shape, placed one inside the other, and secured them together with stay-stitching.
The two layers of the crown before stay-stitching, and the pattern piece.
Double-layer crown, the base of which is wired and finished with French elastic.
The reason Candy made each cone separately and then put one inside the other, rather than stitching the two pieces together and then bending them into a cone shape, is that the two layers need to ride flush together smoothly, and two layers secured together while flat will not then take the curve as one. The inner layer would bubble up between layers of stitching as it tried to cover less ground than the outer layer. This would result in a weaker crown.
Once the two cones were placed inside one another and secured, Candy wired the head size opening for stability and strength, and covered it with French elastic. Then it was time to cut and stitch the velvet fabric for the cover. Though most seams in cover fabric on hats of this construction are sewn by hand, Candy machine stitched the seam of this conical crown so that it would be as smooth and invisible as possible. Then, she stitched the crown of the hat to the brim, graded her seam allowances, and dropped a lining into the crown.
If you look at images of the original on the Shilling Shockers website, you will notice that it is trimmed with a band of the same black velvet as the cover fabric, and a large silver buckle. I was unable to locate a silver buckle of the exact dimensions of the original, but I did find a number of alternatives: silver buckles of slightly different size, a couple of vintage Bakelite buckles in green and black, and one covered in black leather. The clients decided to go with the black leather option. I also found an unusual piece of black velvet which had a snakeskin pattern embossed on it. I sent a swatch of this fabric to the clients in case they wanted a contrast for the hat band. However, upon conducting a screen test under the studio lights, the embossing proved to be too shiny and we stuck with the original velvet fabric.
The finished hat! (This background makes me smile.)
I took this picture with a lot of light and a bright flash to test our theories on grain orientation. I wanted to make sure that the velvet pile would look good under studio lights. (Ideally I'd look at it under studio lights, but had no access to such illumination so I hope my theories prove true when they filmed this hat in the studio.
Note how the band of the same velvet fabric as the rest of the hat shows up as a slight contrast, which allows the eye to perceive the band better. The pile of the fabric on the hat brim is oriented so that when you stroke your hand from front to back it “pets” smooth, and if you stroke from back to front it “pets” against the grain. Candy took this into account and oriented the pile of the crown so it feels smooth to the touch when stroked from point to base, and the pile of the band the exact opposite--smooth from base to top. In theory, this results in a hat which looks visually cohesive, but the details of which will be more visible under studio lights, meaning, the differentiation between the crown, the band, and the hat brim. My photo test appears to bear that out!
So, that concludes the saga of the Shilling Shockers commission. I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as Candy and I enjoyed working on it!
