2018 HATalk Competition Entry
Amy Sutton
Amy Sutton – United Kingdom
The Threads of Reality
Category: Traditional
Description
My hat is called The Threads of Reality.
I interpreted the brief “Fusion’ as follows;
My Hat represents galaxy of stars, gasses and dust fused together. My concept stemmed from thoughts about elementary particles and how we are all formed of a fusion of this matter. I was strongly influenced by “The Book of Dust’, the latest book by Philip Pullman, where he covers the concept of elementary particles.
This had me thinking that everything in the world around us, along with our physical being is a fusion of particles, our very existence and reality is created by fusion. Even our consciousness is a tapestry of thoughts and memories fused together.
Materials
- wool felt capline black
- felting wool
- glass beads 2.6 mm
- plastic pearl beads 4mm
- metal beads silver and bronze 2.6mm
- brim wire
- petersham ribbon
- cotton bias binding
- textured cotton black lining
- cotton and nylon thread
Techniques
- I hand blocked the felt capline, using a hat block, steamer, pins and a felt stiffener
- I hand needle felted the swirls of colour and added shade. I did this using a felting needle and felting wool.
- I added wire to the brim of the hat
- I hand beaded accents of colour onto the hat using glass, metal and plastic beads as above. I used nylon jewellery thread for this.
- I hand pleated the lining and hand sewed it into the hat using cotton.
- I hand sewed the byas binding over the edge of the brim of the hat to cover the wire.
- Lastly I added pearl beads to the edge of the hat.