Trish Hirschkorn – Canada

Untouched

Description

Nature is in a constant state of equilibrium. Nature’s flora and fauna have a delicate, complex balance of life and death, allowing diversification and continuation of species. In recent times, the consequences of human behavior have challenged this equilibrium resulting in increasing numbers of endangered species, loss of habitat, and repercussions that we are only now beginning to realize.

This hat is entitled Untouched. Nature in a state of equilibrium. Often when I am in nature, I wonder if I am the first person to put her foot on this place. From the Earth tones of the felt, the rooted ripples of a forest floor. The open state of a pine cone, having released its seed. The pine cone with a horse tail, depicting the necessity of flora and fauna for equilibrium.

Chiffon silk is fused with raw merino wool to make the felt. Ropes of wool are felted then fulled into the underside of the hood to sculpt the roots of trees on a forest floor, lying under layers of dead matter, leaves and needles. The pine cone is modeled after the white pine tree’s cone. Its scales are each wired so that the cone can be open or closed. Horse hair is bound to the stem of the cone, and the wire from the cone wrapped in the silk that is used to create the felt. The underside of the hat is lined with the same silk fabric, but with a different effect, as it hasn’t been shrunken by the felting process.

I try to spend time each day in nature, in the woods or water. I will often stop to observe microcosms of bark, moss, insects. It never ceases to amaze me, the things we “don’t see” and how they contribute to the overall equilibrium of our environment. This hat is my statement on the beauty of the nature and the equilibrium we seem to take for granted.

Materials

• Chiffon silk
• Merino wool
• Millinery wire & thin gauge wire
• Horse Hair (81cm hanks x 5)
• Fosshape
• Wonder Under
• Millinery Elastic
• Grosgrain
• Label (covered in picture)
• Glue (to keep the wire embedded in the cone’s scales)
• Rayon wire wrapping thread

Techniques

• Nuno felt with merino wool and silk to make the hood. Felting by the Beth Beede method creating a thin, refined felt.
• Felting cording separately then fulling (rolling/beating) it into the unfinished hood when only half felted, so that no sewing is needed to depict roots.
• Fosshape steamed for the button block base.
• Wonder Under fused to the silk then blocked over the button block to create the the lining.
• Each pine cone scale was cut, wired, then stitched and wrapped to represent the white pine’s cone. These can be positioned individually.
• Horse hair sewn and wrapped into cone base, then braided. Stitched to millinery wire which is also wrapped in silk used to create the felt.
• Silk yardage wraps the horse hair.
• Elastic added to hat, grosgrain and label added to underside of hat.
• Horse hair straightened using flat iron.