Sarah Macgregor-Norrie – United Kingdom

‘Starry, Starry Night’

Category: Modern

Description

Starry, Starry Night’

My piece ‘Starry, Starry Night’ interprets the theme Fusion as it is inspired by creation- the action or process of combining things to bring something into existence. In this particular piece – The Big Bang and the birth of the Cosmos.

Time, space and matter all began with the Big Bang.

In the beginning there was darkness and then, from a small singularity, (a mighty explosion), in a fraction of a second, the Universe grew from smaller than a single atom, to bigger than a galaxy and light was born. The universe as we know it began growing and expanding, it has been inflating for the last 13.8 billion years into the cosmos we know today and is still growing at a fantastic rate.

In my design ‘ Starry, Starry Night’ I was inspired by pictures of the night sky, in particular stars, the gorgeous points of light in a backdrop of darkest midnight.
The base of the hat is a hand blocked and wired gold sinamay pill box, covered with a hand manipulated midnight blue sequinned fabric. I have hand tufted navy ostrich and natural peacock feather fronds to create an explosion of feathers that represent the energy created by the Big Bang. The midnight blue birds cage veil adorned with an array of laser cut metal stars of varying size, structure and colour as well as diamanté s, sequins and beads represent the ever expanding cosmos and the sky at night.

Materials

• Gold sinamay
• Midnight blue Sequined Fabric
• Millinery wire
• Navy veiling
• Navy Ostrich feather fronds
• Natural pea cock feather fronds
• Dark blue velvet ribbon
• Fabric stiffener
• Gold laser cut stars (various sizes)
• Silver laser cut stars (various sizes)
• Black jet beads
• Midnight cut glass beads
• Marquise diamanté
• Amber diamanté
• Hat elastic
• Navy embroidery thread

Techniques

• Hat blocking- Steamer, blocking pins, pill box hat block, cling film, fabric stiffener, scissors.
• Hand tufting- stripped feather fronds, Ostrich and peacock, navy thread, scissors and needle.
• Hand Beading- Beading needles and thread.
• Laser cutting- laser cutter, Metal sheet.