Some Summery Hats, for lady Zonneschuts pleasure

Hello My friends,

Finally I had an afternoon to myself that I could spend on miniatures. It is high time to add some more personal items to the dressing room of Belle Zonneschut than just pieces of furniture and art.  For Belle this little room is her personal sanctuary after all. It needs personal items! 

I have a beautiful wig (made by Annemarie Kwikkel Smit) for in the small pink wig (powdering) room attached to the dressing room. Why not add a few summery hats to help furnish it? When she goes walking in the gardens or horse riding on the Zonneschut estate she can not venture outside without a hat that fits the occasion. 

For the two hats that I have made today I have used a lovely little tutorial from Ann Wood's blog: Handmade. 

If you want to make your own hats with this simple but very effective method, please check the link by clicking her name in the previous sentence. Her tutorial is well written so there is no benefit in repeating it here step by step. I will therefor only tell you the bare essentials. There are more tips and tutorials on her site. Why not check it out? 

Just for the record: I am not asked or payed to say this. I found the tutorial by chance and like to share it with you here. Now lets get back to my attempt at hatmaking!

Anne uses cheese cloth for these litlle hats. I happened to have a torn piece of cheese cloth lying around. I had not yet gotten round to throw it away, so that was a lucky coïncidence. I mixed paint ( a mixture of white with small parts of yellow ochre, burnt umber and ivory black), with woodglue to obtain a straw like colour. The mixture strenghtens and straightens the cloth when you brush it on the cheese cloth. If you want to make white hats or dye the cloth with coulour baths, just use the glue without added paint! 

For the crown of the hat you wrap it around a ball or a pen or whatever, as long as it has the apropriate width for the hat to fit on a 1:12 head. I used the straight cap of a nail varnish bottle. And then you paint the sides of the crown down to where you want it to end. The height of the crown depends on the type of hat you want to make.

Letting the painted cheese cloth dry completely was difficult to do. simply because I did not want to wait and the air here was very humid because of some summer storms and spells we've had over here these last few days... 

So when dry to the touch but not fully hardened, I started with the next step and painted the rest of the cloth. First the top side and when that had dried sufficiently, a second layer on the bottom side. This will become the brim of the hat. Finally you cut off the excess material.

After a few hours of painting and waiting, I had something like the picture above. I have trimmed off the excess around the edges and now it was already time to decorate the hats and give them their final shape. I made two different models. 

The first is a tricorne hat. Around 1800 this was still a popular model that was worn by ladies in a smaller model than usual for men. After glueing om a piece of ribbon I pushed back the brim on three sides and fixed them with a little dollop of glue. With the remainder of the ribbon I made a small bow which I stuck on with the cut off end of a pin. The pearly pink head of the pin is perhaps a bit too big, but i like the colour together with the red and the white of the ribbon. 

The second hat is inspired by the flat bergeres made of straw. Also very fashionable in the second half of the 18th century. By the way. If you feel that it looks somewhat modern, you are not far off. These bergeres saw a resergence in the 50's by the hands of Christian Dior for example. 

Originally these hats are inspired by the simple wide brimmed hats of sheppardesses (bergères). The bergeres worn by the 18th century aristocratic ladies were a more sophistigated. This second hat has a wider brim than the tricorn and is slightly oval in shape. Being wider in the front than in the back. The crown is only half the height of the tricorn for example. A fine blue silk ribbon finishes it all off. 

Et voila! One hat for walking in the gardens, and one for a gallop through the countryside! Or sit pretty for a few hours for a portrait in pastels...

Huibrecht

P.S. the next hat should be one made of silk!