Blue lagoon

Shamila Ramparsad

United Kingdom

HATalk Issue 13: Blooming Marvellous! Flowers made from… pantyhose!

Early March, I started to go through all 180 magazines to find my inspiration based on the HATalk Competition. I narrowed down to 18 projects as found it challenging to focus on one – many ideas sprung to mind. I then decided to sample experiment on four to five projects. Nylon flowers, cutting into a brim, fabric feathers, metallic foil trims and textured pompoms where other projects I played around with. I sourced supplies and fabrics, as well as researched other resources online to get the right feel. I have never made flowers using nylon stockings prior to the project HATalk. Admittedly there was some hit and miss or jumping from one project to another to see what would work best. I skipped past the sketchbook and design stages and thought in this instance I will see what materialises. Using a porkpie hat shape created from hand dyed electric blue pinokpok and ivory sinamay. Reflecting on making blooming Marvellous flowers using panty hose I decided to make nylon flower trims that would work with this bold blue. I then looked into flowers around water, water-lilies and Lotus flowers felt ideal. I compiled pictures of blue lotus flowers and tried to find further books on making exotic nylon flowers, lucky some resources are easy to come by online. I purchased nylon stockings in various colours and hand dyed some also along with the wires. I experimented with layering different tones to give more depth of colour and in other areas to soften tones down. I also used techniques such as using pinokpok for centre of flower similar to the technique in the magazine.

• Pinpokpok
• sinamay
• Tube crinoline
• Petersham
• Millinery wire
• Florist wire
• Nylon Stockings
• Paper clay
• Acid dyes
• Glitter
• Silk thread
• Cotton thread
• Invisible thread
• Gum Arabic
• PVA Glue
• Stiffener

• Blocking pinokpok and sinamay
• Make wire headband cover with silk thread
• Manipulate wire to create petals and leaf shapes
• Cover shapes with nylon stockings and bind
• Dying fabrics and wires, blues, yellow, and green
• Hand make pinokpok stamen and lotus centre,
• Dye and add pigments to lotus centre
• Join flower pieces together using strong threads
• Attach trimmings to hat
• Bind millinery headband with black silk thread to match hair
• Make and attach pinokpok bias binding strip for hat base
• Attach wired headband to hat
• Dye, press, curve and insert Petersham into hat