The Lovely Bonnet from Hades

This is it. Tara's lovely bonnet.

It's the first time I've worked with heavy fabric for the 'hard' stovepipe bonnet. It made the work challenging. I'm not quite happy with the angle of the brim, but the thing just wouldn't work with me. I think all in all, it's still pretty.

I used a combination of feather 'picks' from the Michael's Floral Department and pheasant feathers; which were the costliest of the supplies. The fabric I paid $4 for (40% off). The straw hats that created the foundation of hte project; $4.50 for both. The ribbon; $3.00. The medallion and the pheasant feathers were $3.99 each. The picks were $1.99 each (and I used 2).

I got a yard of home-dec fabric; which left plenty of fabric to make a nice reticule with too. The reticules are so nice and easy to make. About an hour's worth of sewing and cutting. There's plenty of room in there for a digital camera and a cell phone. :)

The fabric was heavy for the bonnet covering, I've learned to stick to silks and lighter damasks for the stovepipes. It was a dream to sew though, I have to say.

The ribbon is a bit more 'russety' than it looks in the picture. It's very complimentary.

That's it for this project. I have a few more soft pokes to make in the next couple of weeks. One or two for raffle with matching reticules... And one stovepipe for me. I got a nice tan fabric to work with. We'll see how it goes.