This year modacarta has been invited to the Queen’s Plate horse race. The Queen’s Plate is part of the Canadian Triple Crown and is the oldest horse in North America to run consecutively.
An event like this is all about the hats. I decided to challenge myself and make a fascinator. A fascinator is a little hat that gets clipped to the hair and is highly decorative. It’s popular at the Kentucky Derby and Melbourne Cup. At Royal Ascot the dress code was changed in 2012 making it mandatory for female racegoers to wear hats – not fascinators. My full DIY journey was on Instagram and still viewable on my profile @modacarta.
Research
I started doing some research online and found some great ideas as well as some patterns to use for the form. The original pattern I downloaded was too big for my head so I trimmed it down until it fit perfectly.
Design
Corrugate worked best for the base. Some blogs suggested plastic yogurt containers but it was hard to work with and the decorative paper didn’t adhere well.
The best part was decorating the hat. I’m not a milliner and I don’t have a sewing machine so fabric was out. I purchased flowers, feathers, pearls, paillettes and toile because I wasn’t sure how much I would need. It was around this time that my friends asked me to make fascinators for them for the race. YIKES! Time to get working.
My friends send me their outfit colours so I could start designing. I sent them flat representations for them to approve. That stage went really smoothly and I was able to design something unique for all three of them.
Next post – see the finished hats on the lovely horse-racing ladies!
modacarta 