7. January 2011 by tscott.

I’ve been making little cocktail hats for the past year.  I’ve been making them using cottons, denims and felt bases.

I wanted to make some using sinamay, but I found the sinamay bases to be a little expensive (between $8 and $10 for one small base.)  I wanted to make my own, so I purchased some sinamay from Hatsupply and embarked on my journey.  

Searching on the internet, there are not a whole lot of tutorials on using sinamay, so winged it.  The sinamay I was using was stiffened, so I soaked it for a few minutes in hot water to make it more pliable and was able to easily pull it on to my form.  For the trim, I considered using satin, but didn’t want the hassle of making bias ribbon so I cut the sinamay, ironed it and baste stitched it to the edges after sewing wire to the edges.

There is a website that has ebooks on making hats.  After creating my base, I wasn’t sure if I was missing something so I broke down and purchased the Feather Creations ebook that instructed on making a sinamay base.  After downloading and reading, I found that what I did, was pretty much what I did to make my base.  So my instincts were correct and I wasted $19.  Lesson learned..go with my instincts.  

Below is the base I created.  It’s still baste stitched because I despise working with invisible thread, so I have permanently sewed it on yet.  I’ll post a tutorial on how I made my base soon.

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7. January 2011 by tscott.

This is my first tutorial!!  I sold these bobby pins at my last craft fair and they sold really well.  A friend of mine have been purchasing these from the swap meet and wanted to make her own.  I tried to describe the process to her over the phone, but it didn’t go off so well, so this tutorial is for her (and anyone else who finds it useful).

What you need:

• One bobby pin
• Approx. 6 inches of 26 gauge wire
• One glass pearl

Before you begin make sure you file down the sharp ends of the cut wire.

• Slide the pearl to the middle of the wire
• Bend the wire down on both sides of the pearl

• Slide one end of the wire onto the loop of the bobby pin

• Bend the other end of the wire and stick it through the opposite end of the bobby pin loop.

•   The pearl now sits on top of the bobby pin.

• Take one end of the wire and begin wrapping the wire below the pearl.

• Take the other end and wrap below the pearl.  The wrapped pearl bobby pin is finished.

I have made these with beads and freshwater pearls.  I prefer to use 26 gauge wire because I’ve found it is the easiest to work with, but I have used 22 gauge and 28 gauge.  If you don’t have strong hands, you’ll need pliers to grab the end of the 22 gauge wire to wrap. In the tutorial, I also use bobby pins.  You can use hairpins, but I’ve found that these bend too much while working with them.The bobby pins in the picture below were made with glass beads and 22 gauge wire.

The bobby pins pictured below were made with freshwater pearls and 28 gauge wire. Notice these are wrapped a little different than the tutorial.  This type of wrapping works better with higher gauge wire.

Hope you found this helpful.

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