Through the Woodlands

Rachel Harney

Ireland

HATalk Issue 114: Behind the Scenes – The Making of a Wooden Headpiece

I was inspired by the issue 114 article's concept of making a headpiece from the material which is used to make our hat blocks - wood.

I wanted to use the concept of curving the wood - as Owen Morse-Brown did in his creation of Catherine's headpiece. However, instead of curving it, I wanted to create something which appears to be curved - but is in fact made from a series of straight rods of wood. The shape is called a 'hyperbolic paraboloid' - a mathematical construct.

I hand-treated the wooden skewers with a dark wood dye, and sewed each skewer in place with a matching thread. To keep with the woodland theme, I placed the piece on a moss-green crushed velvet button base, and used a hand-dyed petersham ribbon to finish it.

• Barbeque skewers
• Wood dye
• Thread
• Glue to temporarily hold skewers in place before stitching, and to tidy ends of thread wraps only
• Moss green crushed velvet
• Cotton interfacing
• Buckram
• Petersham ribbon
• Rit dyes – chocolate brown and black
• Satin for lining
• Hat elastic

• Blocking with buckram and velvet
• Creating hyperbolid paraboloid and thread binding
• Petersham edging
• Fully hand sewn
• Lining