Kiss-frame coin purse

Kiss-frames or kiss-clasps have a cute name for a simple, commonly-used item. It’s that clasp most commonly used on coin purses or larger hand-held purses, where the two sides are pressed apart with a bit of a twist, and pushed back together again. The two sides fit together (like lovers perhaps…?) in an inter-connected way when the frame is closed.

completed kiss-frame coin purse

You can purchase kiss-frames in two styles, the glue-in and the sew-on style. (Read Sew Make Believe to see an example of the glue-in frame.) With the sew on style (as shown above) you finish the top edge, and then hand-sew the fabric to the frame through the series of punched holes.  This style feels very secure, and if your stitching is neat, looks very clean.

Millinery: Black felt Tricorn

Screenshot from The Brotherhood of the Wolf from the Costumer’s Guide. My inspiration photo for a full-size tricorn.

In the first millinery (hat making) class that I took, I totally fell in love with felts, and really wanted to make a full-size tricorn hat.  I already have two mini versions, and in the process of taking the class also made two 3/4 size versions (red spiderweb and teal).  When I got my hands on a lovely black felt hood, I knew that it was destined to be a lovely black wool felt tricorn.  (Especially since I had already designated the red felt hood for a lovely top hat, and already own a black top hat…)

Millinery: Spiderweb fascinator

You might remember the red tricorn mini-hat I made a while back.  This fascinator uses the same red silk and black spiderweb lace (actually some of the scraps left over from that hat!) but is distinctly different (and was a LOT faster to make!).

This fascinator started with just a simple circle of buckram, sliced to make a gentle cone. I trimmed the buckram with wire with hand stitches (like many of the other hand-made hats I’ve made recently.  Check the Millinery tag for a few more photos and instructions.) and then covered the outside with red silk, and the inside with grey wool felt (yardage this time, not part of a felt hood). Both the silk and wool were seamed to get the shape of the gentle cone.

Red and black spiderweb lace fascinator

From there I covered the red silk with the black spiderweb lace. Since lace has a slight stretch, I didn’t need to seam it to get the shape. From there I bound the edge with black grosgrain ribbon.

Millinery: Silver fur felt topper

In the advanced millinery workshop post I mentioned a black and a silver topper – this is the spotlight post for the silver/grey topper. I’ll do a separate post for the black one as well.

silver fur-felt topper

These aren’t “real” top hats for a few reasons – the band is straight, rather than the slight hourglass shape typical to top hats, and the brim is turned instead of being blocked on their own and reattached.  I liked how the silver topper was turning out so well when I was working on them that I decided to work with a black one as well (even though I already have a black top hat…)

Millinery: Green felt

Completed green felt hat

Although I took the Millinery Class a while ago, I didn’t finish everything off right away… recently I finished a few of the projects that had been left to linger, and wanted to share them here.

Green felt

The second felt I worked on in the 7th Millinery class was a green felt.  This has a much deeper ‘pile’ than the other felts, and although the colour isn’t something I’d normally wear, it just feels so nice that I really wanted to work with it.  Unfortunately the only thing I could really think of to make with it was a cloche, and after the disastrous cloche attempt with the black straw hood, I wasn’t too keen on repeating the adventure since I was quickly running out of class time.

So, instead I settled on a shaped crown with a tipper, very much like a fedora.