Theia

Anel Heyman

New Zealand

• Vegan Fabric Feather Project by Rachel Warrillow

When I saw the tutorial of making vegan feathers, I was fascinated by how this was created and wanted to give it a go. I loved the idea that this could be a feather that would potentially last forever, but even more, that this is a cruelty free way of adding what appears to look like feathers, to a headpiece, without using real feathers. I started by drawing some designs based around feathers. After about 6 different drawings, I was happy with my decision on what I wanted to create. The idea was to make it look like the feathers were blowing gently around the face, from one direction. I also wanted it to have a dreamy, angelic look, hence why I selected the sparkle sinamay.

Making a wire headband was the first step in creating this design. I then drew 3 patterns in different sizes, laid them out on the sinamay to cut out and see what size I'll end up with when the feather is complete. That determined where I would place each size and how many. I then had to cut some wire pieces in different lengths and started placing them in different spots to see how it works around the face. Once I was happy with the placement, I bent the end of the wire and secured it onto the headband by wrapping it tightly with thread and sealing it off with a bit of glue. At this point the feathers were just clipped onto the wire.

I then wrapped the whole headband with a sparkly knitting wool to cover the wire and the joins, and then I secured the feathers to each assigned wire by sandwiching the wire into the fold created in the sinamay and adding a touch of glue.

Et voila!

• Ivory Sparkle Sinamay
• 14g Wire
• 19g Wire
• Cotton thread
• Knitting wool
• 450 Glue
• Colouring markers

• Creating paper patterns for 3 different sizes of feathers
• Cutting and shaping each feather
• Measuring and fraying each feather
• Folding & ironing sinamay
• Curving the feather using a steam iron
• Measuring, cutting and bending appropriate wire lengths
• Colouring wire & securing them to the handmade wire headband
• Wrapping wire with wool
• Sandwiching the end of each wire into the fold created in the sinamay
• Laying out the design to ensure each feather has a specific place
• Checking balance and placement as I worked