Trimming the Beautiful Bridal Hats - Simplicity 8364 and 8365

In the previous blog post I showed the steps for making the tear dropped shaped hat. This time I will show how I made the trimmings for both hats.

The petals for the flower are made from circles that are folded in half and hand gathered around the raw edge. When the gathers are pulled the a cupped petal is formed.

String 5 of them together and you get a daisy like flower. A big beautiful button in the center will finish it and cover up all the raw edges.

It is hard to find just the right feather sometimes. This black feather I got for the purple hat was too big and to stiff! To make it work, I cut it shorter from the bottom and then used the dull side of my scissors blade to GENTLY curl the barbs (or hairs) of the feather. If you use the sharp side of the blade or pull too hard they will tear off.

Now the feather gracefully arches over the hat instead of sticking straight up.

The feather for the white hat was good as is ... so you never know!

The other hat is really just a bubble of millenary netting. You need to by the 18" wide kind, which is a little harder to find. You can get it at Amazon click these links for Black, Off-White and White

Again, I used 1/8" ribbon through as many of the holes in the net near the edge as I can. Then for this hat it gets pulled into a tiny circle and sewn to an oval of felt. There are pattern pieces for the shape of the net and that oval pieces of felt.

Under the roses are six leaves made from two different fabrics artfully arranged!

There is one large rose and two small ones. In the center of each is a circle of beads on a wire. Leave longs tails on this bead embellishment. It can always be trimmed later, but if it is too short, that's more difficult.

Start the coil of gathered fabric with the bead in the center. Let the long tails just stick out the back.

I just bent the extra wire into a circle and sewed it securely to the bottom of each rose so no sharp ends protrude.

This is one finished small rose.

The large rose is made up of two different fabrics. Do the same as the small rose, but coil both fabrics at the same time.

Finished large rose.

And here is how I arranged them on the felt base piece.

The bridal version is made the same way.

Now, you don't have to trim your hat EXACTLY how I did mine. I am required to make things as straight forward as possible so it is easy to understand. But, really, you can do whatever you thinks looks right.

Send me a photo if you make this .... I would love it see other versions.

scheweandrea@yahoo.com