Hat Luncheon Countdown Part 3: The Sinamay Takes Shape

Milliner Tracy Young of Millinery Treasures ( tracy@millinerytreasures.com) has been hard at work on my hat and she has made a lot of progress working with the sinamay.

Step 5: Shaping the sinamay.  Sinamay comes in rolls similar to bolts of fabric.  In order to block the material, Tracy cut the roll into sheets and molded it (wet) over the blocks and secured the sheets with pins and left the blocks to dry. The sinamay must be perfectly dry or it will lose it's shape.  It is time consuming because multiple layers need to be blocked and dried one at a time.    

Drying sinamay

Once the sinamay was dry Tracy removed the pieces and cut them into shape.  She then sewed wire around the edges so the hat would retain it's shape, and then covered the wire with strips of folded sinamay.  Each strip has to be measured and cut, which takes a lot of time.  

My fascinator is starting to look like one

Once the basic forms are completed it's on to the design phase.