Hoja Sombrero

Nicola Mearns

England

• HATalk Issue 159: Paseo con Sombrero – Spring Hat Walks in Barcelona and Marbella

Hoja Sombrero - My design is inspired by the Spring Hat Walk in Barcelona. I was drawn to the leaf shaped red hat in the article and its natural organic form. I imagined the vibrancy, excitement, ambiance and thought about how amazing it must be to experience such an event in Barcelona. It is a beautiful city with the most amazing buildings by Antonio Gaudi which appear to have grown organically out of the earth. I used the two ideas to form my hat design. It incorporates the organic form and the mosaics colours from the memories I have of visiting the city.

The hat consists of a blocked apostrophe base with the next layer blocked on a crown block to form leaf shaped layer. I handcrafted/free-formed the sinamay edges into the shapes based on Gaudi's undulating forms or waves and curves. The organic leaf shape was several layers of sinamay with mosaic pieces locked into the layers to create a mosaic effect, similar to Gaudi's structures in Guell Park. The main colours used salmon pink and aqua were inspired by the mosaics and buildings. I added handcrafted sinamay bias strips spirals and swirls similar to tendrils found on sweet pea plants and climbing plants. I added a few buttons on the designs to replicate the button hat in the article.

• Materials for my hat
• Sinamay Salmon Pink/peach
• Sinamay Aqua
• Sinamy off cuts various colours
• French Millinery Wire
• Buttons
• Thread
• Elastic – self dyed
• Silk for lining
• Petershams peach
• Crown block
• Apostrophe block

• Blocking an apostrophe base
• Blocking a crown block
• Making bias strips from sinamay
• Silk lining
• Adding elastic to the base
• Connecting the bases and structure
• invisible sewing stitches
• Wiring base and leaf from
• Making spirals in bias strips
• Sewing in Petersham ribbon