Fascinators

This fascinator is unique in as much as the top part which has all the design can be removed from the band.  This makes storage easier to stop the French veiling from being messed up and keeps the dust off the flower.  Designing this fascinator with this idea in mind was challenging, but I came up with a solution.

This is a great project using leftover buckram.  I come from a frugal background because I was born in England after World War Two. In my early years most things were rationed, from food to clothing. I was also one of eight children and I was taught from the very beginning to take care of the little we had and use up everything. Very little was thrown away in my house and that stood me in good stead for being a designer.

 
Think outside the box!  Materials are not cheap and when I designed and cut out my hat pieces, I looked at the pieces of scrap buckram as a commodity. I put them in a bag and kept them until I had an idea of how to use them. The first idea came about because of a butterfly punch that caught my eye while laying in a drawer when I was looking for something else.

Using a punch. At that time I had just began to play with millinery and the first buckram I bought was the heaviest I could find at the fabric store I was in at the time and it was light wieght. Since then I have switched to a much heavier buckram for my designer hats. I decided one day to see if the lightwieght buckram would go through the punch and it did. I then glued two butterflies together to get more strength and you can see what I did with one in my ‘How to Make a Bridal Head Piece’ sharing tutorial on February 6th 2010. Just scroll down to the bottom of that blog for this idea.

Now, making a fascinator with removable decoration.
I have had this idea in my head for a few days, but so many other ideas had to be dealt with first, so I put it aside. I had pondered making fascinators to sell but storage and shipping them was my main problem. To deck out a fascinator costs money and is a fair amount of work and I kept thinking about how to store them when not in use.  I finally hit upon making the decoration removable. So today I decided to go to work on this idea.

Materials. You will need a thin 3/8″ to 1/2″ wide hair band, 2, 1 1/2″ circles of scrap buckram, 2, 2″ circles of buckram and a strip of buckram 1/2″ by 2″ long. A piece of Velcro about 1, 1/2″ long.

Think outside the box!  Use anything you have! I have equipment from my days as a volunteer art teacher in the City of South Houston. I brought low income kids to the City Community Center once a month to expose them to all forms of art. I also spent my hard earned money buying equipment to help teach and I still have it. So I thought about circles and decided to use my die cut machine and dies to cut them out. I have four, nice neat circles from one push through my machine, so I did that twice. You may be attending a school or college where they have a machine in the art department. Take your scraps and ask if you can cut some out and store them until you need them. Don’t forget to cut out hearts, squares and other shapes while you have the opportunity. Not available?  Make cardstock templates and cut them out the old fashioned way. By hand!

Step one. You will need 2 buckram circles approx; 1 1/2″ and 2, 2″ circles.  These exact sizes are not set in stone so you can decide if you want a different size.

Step two. Take one of the smaller circles and cut two slots about 5/8″ wide in the center either with a craft knife of sharp pointed scissors. Glue second circle onto that one and cut through the slots again.

Step three. Take the strip of buckram and pass through these slots leaving a loop underneath.

Step four. Push band through loop and move the circle to one side. Draw up strips each side and glue in place so that band is sitting snuggly against the circle.

Step five. Glue the strips down and cut off extra buckram.

Step seven. You will need a piece of Velcro about 1 1/2″ long.

 

Step eight. Take the prickly side of the Velcro and glue it onto the circle on the hair band and hold it in place while drying with clothes pins.

Step nine.  Take the larger two circles of buckram and glue them together. Then glue the fuzzy side of the Velcro onto this part, wrong side down.

Step ten. Cut out another circle of buckram, which I will now refer to as the saucer. The saucer is the part that your fascinator design will be mounted to and size depends on what you will put on it. I decided to keep it fairly small, but larger than the Velcro base, so I made mine 2, 3/4″ across. Sew millinery wire around the edge of the circle as without it the saucer will be too flimsy.

Step ten. Cut a circle of fabric 1/2″ larger than the saucer, the same color as the hair band or the fascinator. Glue this on one side of the saucer and turn down the 1/2″ onto the other side and glue those edges down.

Step eleven.  Sew the circle piece with the fuzzy Velcro down onto the covered side, fuzzy side face up. It is important to sew this down as the fascinator will be placed on and removed from the band many times over. Glue only may not hold up with this kind of wear and tear. Want to know what glue to use? See my blog ‘Getting Ready for Etsy’ February 2010.

Step twelve. Cut a another circle of the fabric the same size as the saucer and glue it on the other side.  This will be the top side. Glue some kind of trim around the edge that will easily turn in a circle. I used French gimp. Now the saucer is ready for the fascinator.

I hand sewed red French veiling on to the saucer.  I allowed three times the length of net, after measuring the circumference of the saucer.

Please note;  Hand sewing French veiling isn’t easy and takes time so be patient. 

I then made a red flower and hand sewed it to the finished saucer.

Want to learn how to make this flower? See my blog ‘Making Flowers’ February 2nd 2010.

I also glued some French gimp on to the underside of the of the holder on the band to finish it off.