This is the first one I made - for my friend Becca. I made hers first because I really like her, but it turns out she got the bad end of that deal. This one looks cute sitting on the table but wears kind of funny, with weird gaps between the flowers. I tried to make a curved band out of cardboard, but it really didn't work that well. I think that in the future I'll try using a heavy fabric held in place by strong wire. I eventually made Becca another fascinator once I got the hang of it.
I made this one for my sister. She has blond hair and beautiful bluish/greenish/grayish eyes that sort of change color depending on what she's wearing. I saw this beautiful blue-green flower at the store and just knew it was for her. This one's pretty big - it's definitely a statement fascinator - so I hope that she feels comfortable wearing it!
This was actually really easy to make. I just cut a small circle of cardboard and covered it in a scrap of blue silk I had in my fabric drawer. Then I cut a piece of tulle 100'' long by 10'' wide, folded it over, and gathered it. I sewed it onto the cardboard round, then glued and sewed the flower into place. Like most fascinators, it attaches to the hair using hair clips that I glued to the back of the cardboard round.
This is the fascinator I made for my mom. I used some alarming purple poppies I found at the craft store, on a bed of blue-purple iridescent silk that I had in my fabric drawer. I started by cutting out a cardboard round and covering it in the same cloth. Then I cut a 50'' long by 6'' wide piece of silk, gathered it, and sewed it onto the round close to the center. I then tucked the outer edges of the fabric under and glued them in place along the edge of the round, creating a lovely poof. I glued the flowers in a bunch, so that they were facing out toward the viewer from every side. When I was finished, the fascinator was big and purple and fabulous, but I felt that it was too solid, so I added a little train hanging down the back.
Here I am modeling this over-the-top fascinator with its silly train. I love it!
This is the second fascinator I made for Becca. By this time I had learned my lesson about the placement of flowers, so I laid these on their sides on a small triangle of cardboard. Once I had glued the flowers in place, I wrapped the triangle of cardboard and stems in cream-colored satin ribbon. Because this is a smaller fascinator, it couldn't support a veil, but I did want something fluffy on it. I decided to add another train, and topped it with a big satin bow.
My goal was for all the fascinators to look equally good from the front and the back, so I ended up spending a lot of time standing in front of the mirror shifting the bow by an eighth of an inch in one direction or another until I got it just right.
Last but not least, I made a fascinator for myself. I love the headband style, and I think it looks better on my short hair. I made this one out of a spray of fake flowers that I can't even identify. I bundled stems of flowers together, then laid them in a long, narrow spray and bound their ends together. Next I had to glue down the very tips of the stems so that they wouldn't flop around. After that, I made a sort of headband by gluing the leaves from the spray to one another end on end. I glued the spray of flowers to the headband of leaves, then glued a strip of thin, black elastic to the backs of the leaves. Finally, I cut a small square of tulle and used it to make a totally frivolous veil. When I tried it on, I felt like I was the one getting married!
I had no idea what a Fascinator was until this. But who's the heck are William and Kate?
ReplyDeleteJeff, you are the best! Didn't the intarwebs tell you all about them, whether you wanted to know or not?
ReplyDeleteKat tried explaining it to me, but I stopped listening half way through. Didn't they get divorced after Kate had all those babies and the TV show tanked? Why are they getting married again?
ReplyDelete