Reigning from 1837 to 1901, England's Queen Victoria lent her name to the Victorian age, a period of rapid modernization and wide social divisions when people of every social class in the United States and Europe wore hats. While men's hats were more sober affairs and differed mainly in style and quality, women's hats were more varied and provided them and their families with the opportunity to display their wealth and social status. Those who could afford to do so lavishly trimmed their hats with piles of flowers, bows, ribbons, feathers and other trimmings.
Instructions
1. Turn the hat block upside down. A hat block is a hatmaker's pattern. Cut strips of the millinery wire with the wire shears. Create a cage-like framework of vertical and horizontal criss-crossed wires within the hat block. When one wire meets another, wrap it once around the established wire and then resume creating its path.
2. Take the framework out of the hat block. Add and wrap more strips of wire as needed to make the framework solid and secure.
3. Cut strips of fabric -- as wide or as thin as you desire -- to cover the exterior and the interior of the hat. Join, pin and sew the strips for the interior of the hat together and stretch them along the inside of the framework. Join, pin and sew the strips for the brim or the outer few inches of the hat together and to the interior of the hat. Stretch the fabric into place.
4. Take the milliner's needle and carefully sew the stretched exterior and interior fabric together (effectively sealing in the framework) using strategic groups of little stitches and on previous seams wherever possible.
5. Join, pin and sew -- with the hand sewing needle -- the additional strips together and stretching them to fit the framework. Start at one side, continue along the top of the hat and finish at the other side. Don't worry if the last seam is visible from the outside now, but do make sure that you decorate that section later.
6. Add copious amounts of milliner's flowers, bows, ribbons, feathers and other hat trimmings. Once you have decided where you want everything to go, carefully stitch and secure in place -- using the milliner's needle -- each individual piece of trimming to the hat.
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