fascinator and hooded cape

Here is how I went about making Adelins fascinator.

First I took photos of me holding the feathers against her chosen side of where she would be wearing it(quite difficult to hold them all when it came to it) and took some shots for her to see. I adjusted the longer feathers up and down at different angles

 as well as placing the green in front of the black and so on until she was happy.

Above is the shot she liked the most. Then I hand-stitched into the felt backing until my fingers bled. Not kidding, I pricked myself so many times. I dont like using glue because I just feel as if it wouldnt be quite so vintage or 'hand done'. But thats just me being a little too purist in my approach. Of course you can use glue. It wouldnt hurt as much for starters. Unless its superglue, but lets stop there.

                                             warning:  bad fluoro lighting

Then came the cape. I cut a rough hood shape aiming at little red riding hood's. I nearly messed this up badly when it came to making one side the same as the other, as the front surrounding the face is cut curved. I didnt want too much stitching showing, I wanted a more stylised, fluid look. Anyway, so I pinned it on her and took more pictures trying not to cut too much off while adjusting it in between.

The main part of the cape began by draping it around her shoulders and getting the length sorted out roughly. I cut diamond shapes out of both shoulders for the shoulder seams and zig-zag stitched these together. The diamond shape came about from the excess fabric when pinned. We both loved the high neck peak at the back so decided to keep it and sew the hood around it, keeping the olde-world look of the collar. I simply zig-zag stitched the collar on raw and trimmed any seams afterwards to neaten the edges.

 I added some ostrich feathers, there were only eight left in the store so we bought them all. An odd number would have been better. I would have liked around 15 or 17. I hand-stitched the stems on and left them raw and untrimmed.

Ive probably already posted this shot but it is one of my favourites! Plus its my blog and I can do what I want.

p.s. The superglue incident was when I was getting ready for my daughters wedding and someone was doing my nails and I decided to 'help' by holding the nail tip down so she could move on to the next one. We were in a hurry. Both my hands were stuck together for about half an hour. So to me glue is painful.