Sunday, February 21, 2010

Reader Question: The Fascinator


Reader Question: My question for you is specifically about your fascinator flower and veil. I love it! I'd seen and saved the image months ago but could never find where it was from. Did you make it/buy it? Do you have any advice about how I could make or buy the same?

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I made my fascinator and intended to do a tutorial ages ago, but after attempts to make fascinators for a few friends I realized I couldn't recreate what I did well enough to feel comfortable sharing my methods. But, with the help of a few other tutorials, I'm going to do a quick write up of what I did here.

To start with, this tutorial seems pretty good, as does this one. If what I'm writing makes no sense, maybe try one of those?

Both are similar to what I did, in that i started with a felt base (mine was two layers glued together). I then glued my first layer of feathers down and waited for them to dry, then my second layer of feathers and let them dry.

For the flower I took apart a fake flower I liked the shape of and used it as a template to cut out new "petals" from raw silk I owned (you could just use a pre-made flower, but I liked the color/texture of the silk I had). I sewed and used a tiny bit of glue to attach the longer feathers to the center of the flower, and then sewed the stones I used (they were actually stone beads) through the center of the petals to stick them all together. I wrapped ribbon around the top of a hair comb and sewed that to the felt on the bottom of the fascinator.


The veil was actually entirely separate. For that I removed a piece of vintage veiling from one of the way too many vintage hats I own. I scrunched up one side of it until I liked the shape, sewed that together with white thread, and then attached it to my hair using bobby pins!

I did base my fascinator design on the ones made by k. autumn, so she'd be a good place to start if all of this looks totally overwhelming. One of my friends had a k. autumn fascinator and loved it. I will say it might be worth trying to do it yourself first if you are on a budget. I spent a total of about $15 making mine, and I know the pre-made ones run at least $100. Hope that helps!