Wednesday, April 10, 2013

The Making of Beret/Tam-style Hat H45 ...









First of all I would like to mention that making that hat had taken priority over the photo quality throughout the work process, please do excuse some of the slightly blurry images.


The Gilboa Beret is technically not a beret. It is made up of 10 individually shaped pieces (i.e. each piece is of a different shape), where as a beret is made of just one piece and is usually felt or wool.

Below a summary of the processes involved in the making of H45:


Inspired by art nouveau design, this particular design requires each segment to be layers. It will include pin-tucks that twine around the ceneterpiece, as shown below in the sketch.



The previously made pencil sketch is finalised in ink and prepared for transfer onto the left (reverse) side of the main fabric, in this case a beautiful piece of cotton velvet.



 Velvet is tricky to work on as it keeps trying to 'run away' because of its short 'hair' surface. This is how the transferred design looks like on the reverse side.






Each individual segment for this design is made up of two layers. Here visible is the right side of the first layer, with basting in different colours for guidance when joining the layers and later pin-tucking.




Both first and second layer basted and ready to be combined.



As described in the previous picture, except x 10 ...



The layers are being basted together, ready for sewing.



All layers have been sewn together and are ready for the pin-tucking.
What you see here are very roughly shaped segments, they will be cut into their correct shape much later.
(Each segment is numbered as each is going to be cut into its unique shape)


Much later ... all the pin-tucks have been stitched with 'invisible' thread. This is the most time consuming part, and lastly all the individual threads have to be cleaned up on the reverse side.


 Now each segment is ready to be cut into shape. The basting left visible is for cutting guidance.

The hat is slowly taking on shape ...

So far so good, now for the decor ...

.... feathers, passementerie (here a antique piece of French passementerie) and sequins are placed on the hat ...

... finally all the chosen decor is being sewn on ...


Next the lining has be to made (also consisting of 10 segments).

Then the pieces are all joined together and the result is ....








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