For my skills passport artefact I decided to create a hat which would fit into the Ascot scene in a stage production of My Fair Lady.
The Design:
I wanted the hat to be created in a historical style, giving off the feel and look of an authentic 1910s ladies hat while allowing for more modern materials and methods to suit the theatre setting, using materials which allow for a lighter weight and more robust structure to defend against wear and tear.
To create my hat I used a mixed of techniques I'd learnt in my Print and Dye & Millinery Skills passport sessions. As well as flower making techniques I had learnt at A-Level.
Creating the base hat:
The millinery skills passport sessions had taught me about creating pillbox hats, which I could use to create the crown of my hat. Also wire skills, such as joining and moulding wire which could be used to help create the brim of my hat.
To make my hat I decided I was going to create a pillbox style crown out of cardboard and brim using wire to support it. I had initially considered making the brim out of sinamay or buckram. It was suggested to me that I could use the materials from an already made hat from a charity shop to save money and is also a nice sustainable alternative. I ended up finding a large brimmed hat which I used as my base.
I began by creating the crown and stand of the hat which would be placed over the top of the existing one. To create the crown I cut out a circle for the top and a long rectangle for the stand out of cardboard and covered these in two layers of fabric. I then attached them together with an invisible slip stitch around the top of the crown.
I then moved onto the brim, I wanted my brim to have a specific shape and much more structure than the original hat I bought had, so I added millinery wire for support. I first zigzag stitched on a circle of wire around the edge of the hat and then sewed on a zigzagged wire along the middle of the brim.
The last step of creating the hat base was covering the brim. On the underneath side I used black fabric which I gathered in the middle to create a ruffled effect. I then cut out matching white fabric to the crown of the hat in the shape of the brim and sewed it on over the edge of the brim. Once I'd finished covering the hat I moulded it into the shape I wanted it.
Creating the flowers - dyeing the fabric:
During Dye sessions we learnt about about natural dyes and altering dyes used acid and alkaline such as vinegar and lemon juice.
When it came to dyeing my fabrics I wanted to select a singular colour to contrast the iconic black and white colours in my hat. I decided I wanted to use natural dyes as I love the depth of colour this gives the fabric and I felt this added to the natural element of the flowers. I decided I wanted to achieve a peach or coral colour, so I decided to use madder root to achieve this.
I experimented with a wide range of fabrics and with different dye times. One element that required quite a bit of exploration was using natural vs synthetic fabric. For my flowers I knew I wanted to use synthetic fabric, as this allows me to use heat to manipulate the fabric. However this posed a challenge as usually natural dye does not dye synthetic fibres very well.
I was very pleased with the outcome of my dye samples, the synthetic and natural fabric both picked up the colour very well, producing a lovely pinky coral colour. The synthetic fabric took nearly double the time to dye but was able to be dyed with the same about of madder root and water, and was dyed at the same temperature.
Therefore after discovering the difference in dye timings I dyed my final fabrics in two pots one with the natural fabrics and one with the synthetic to allow me to control the timing better.
Creating the flowers - forming the flowers:
At A-Level I learnt an easy method of creating fabric flowers using a candle to heat and melt synthetic fabrics. To start I created some circle guides to help me cut out the circles of fabric. I created a sample flower to experiment with different sizes and number of layers. I decided that the biggest circle was too big for the size of the hat and that the notches on the circles looked better slightly deeper.
Once I'd decided on how I wanted the flowers to look I cut out all my different sized circles in my three fabrics. I then formed the flowers by grouping together the different layers from largest to smallest ready to be sewn onto the hat.
Final Artefact:
To finish the hat I hand sewed the flowers onto the hat.
On reflection I'm really happy with the outcome of my artefact, Im really happy with my colour choices and the scale I managed to achieve which was a bit daunting at first. My final hat did change slightly from my original design, I removed the feathers as I didn't feel they were necessary. I also removed the pleating from the stand of the hat this was mainly because it become too complicated to do. I added on the gathering underneath the hat after looking at some period examples and I'm really happy I did this as I love the extra texture and depth it adds. I feel like my outcome would fit in well in a stage production of my fair lady and has achieved what I set out to make
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