Fly-by Progress Post: HSF 18 and Head-to-Toe Hats

I had decided to participate in the Head-to-Toe Accessorizing challenge, in addition to wrapping up the year of Historical Sew Fortnightly. 

http://trystancraft.com/costume/accessorizing-head-to-toe-challenge/

 

I completed two hats or head coverings in the month of August.  The first is a black silk hat to wear with my late 1870s mourning dress and it's doubling to fill the HSF challenge #18: Re-make, Re-use & Re-fashion.  I kept putting off posting the this thing as it was a pain to try to photograph, but getting around to doing my hair up in a wig, during daylight hours when someone else is around to snap a picture just wasn't happening.  So your imagination at placing a fancy updo in place of my plastic sack covered wig stand may be required.

 

 

The Challenge: #18: Re-make, Re-use & Re-fashion: Sew something that pays homage to the historical idea of re-using, re-making and re-fashioning.

 

Fabric: Black silk velvet, black silk gauze, black habotai silk

 

Pattern: Truly Victorian 1880's Buckram Hat Frames

 

Year: 1880-ish

 

Notions: milinary wire, nylon net (basting four layers together made a passable substitute for buckram), black silk ribbon, black silk thread, and the repurposed part, black feathers (likely dyed chicken, from the looks of them) repurposed from an old feather boa that I quit using because it would stain my skin when I sweated.  And the only not black in the whole getup, a white pearl-headed pin for pinning the veil up and out of the way.

 

How historically accurate is it? Meh, I'll give it a B+.

 

Hours to complete: six

 

First worn: opportunity hasn't presented itself

 

Total cost: around about $40, but that's guessing as nothing was specifically bought FOR this project.

Made to accompany: late 1870s Mourning Gown (of which I don't have a picture in completed form.  Must be getting on with that.)

 

* * *

 

Black silk seems to be the theme for the month, as the other head covering accomplished is this snood, made of black silk velvet decorated with criss-crossed silk ribbons held in place with white faux pearls.  The headband is interlined with silk twill and the snood itself is lined in black habotai.  All of the fabrics and ribbons (save the velvet) were dyed black by me.  The ribbons were various short links of brightly colored pastels and oranges from my mother's stash from her crafting days.  I couldn't think of what to use so many short pieces of odd colors for, but overdyeing everything black worked out pretty nicely.  There is a very subtle hint of "something else" to the finished colors in the ribbons and I think that really helps add interest to the final product.

 

Luckily, the 18" diameter that I needed for the snood was

exactly how big my standing embroidery hoop is. 

 

 

The gory details:

Tutorial from RedDawn.net.

Fabric: 18"x18" square of black silk velvet, cut down to a circle after decorating.  18"x18' circle of black silk habotai.  2"x22" strip of black silk twill.

Notions: black silk 1/8" ribbons and white faux pearls.  Black silk thread.

Hours to complete: about 6, five of white was sewing down the ribbons and pearls.  After decorating, the snood goes together fairly easily, just gather circle into a head band and go.

 

I don't really have much in the way of Medieval costume, so this is more likely going to get tossed into the bin of costume accessories to get paired with whatever black fancy dress needs a hat when historical accuracy isn't high on the list.

 

Hmm... have also realized that this now makes three separate garments which have been made out of the black silk velvet that I acquired last summer, none of which are the costume that it was intended for.  Perhaps I should be getting on with that.