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!

check!

Another thing done! I went to my hair trial today and I loved it. And after showing you those two pictures this morning, I searched around online and ended up showing her two totally different images. Of course. So inspiration was a combination of low bun in the back and poof in the front:

source

I have a TON of hair. Even with massive thinning the first thing any hair stylist tells me is that I've got thick hair. They say it in a semi-horrified voice. So she started by trying to replicate style #1 above. It ended up something like this:


poof! So much poof. And hair. I've got a lot of hair people.

Neither of us liked it, and the weight of it was weird felt like it was going to pull it out, so she took it all down and we moved on. What she came up with was this:



I loved it. Everyone in the salon loved it (there were about five other women checking it out). It's comfortable and feels securely stuck to my head. Also I look like I have about half as much hair as in the previous style. Some pictures my sister took just now (a few hours later).



I'll be wearing it with the veil for the ceremony and pictures before, and then taking the veil off and just wearing the fascinator for the reception.

Also, I need to work on actually smiling in pictures and taking front facing pictures for the wedding!

And on a non-wedding related note, here is my sister and my puppy for added cuteness.

hair trial

We're back up at my parent's house this weekend, in part to help work on the yard, but also because I have my long awaited hair trial today.

I've been kind of dreading the hair trial. I don't totally know what I want done with my hair. And I have a lot of it. It's thick and wavy and extra-prone to tangles. My normal hair stylist jokes that I could have dreads in days (and it's true). Also I sort of forgot to ever schedule an appointment with my regular hair stylist to get my bangs trimmed so they are currently longer than I'd like.

I'd like them to be sort of like this picture of the lovely miss zooey.
But possible slightly more refined in the back (just so it sticks).
Wish me luck!