As well as simple starting and finishing stitches, millinery students need to know how to wire and bind a sinamay edge by hand.

If you want to improve your sinamay sewing skills before working on a project, then create a practice piece. You can do this by ironing two layers of stiffened sinamay together, using the iron’s steam setting to fuse them, and then cutting a curve along one edge. If you are using unstiffened sinamay, then spray the pieces with spray starch before ironing to achieve the same effect.

For wiring a sinamay edge, you will also need a short length of wire to attach to the curve and bias binding to finish the edge.

This tutorial was written by HATalk Founder Ann Morse-Brown and was originally published in her book, Make Fascinators.