A big thank you to Honor

Good Morning all

and what a change from Tuesday's blue skies, today sees this being written next to a window covered in rain and by the look of those clouds it could stay like that all day. Although who knows?, I don't know what it's like where you are but here in the middle of England the weather has been rather erratic lately changing very fast from downpours to sun and back again.

But enough of my English preoccupation with the weather, (why are we like that?); today I want to say an enormous thank you to a lovely lady, who I don't know all that well, we go to the same dances and chat a bit. But I have found myself overwhelmed by her generosity. Another case of someone hearing what I'm up to and saying, 'I've got some ... in the back of a cupboard do you want it?'

Well in Honor's case it was feathers, and some other bits and pieces, she had dabbled at hat making awhile back and as all crafty people seemed to amassed 'some' bits and pieces.  I obviously said yes please and the other day she brought them along to a dance we were at. At the time I couldn't really see what was involved in the stash, but now having got it all out I am so lucky to know such wonderful generous people.  Honor, if you ever want a hat for anything please just ask and I would be delighted to make you one.

There was so much stuff here, loads of different types of feathers, hat bases, combs, ribbons, beads etc. Thank you Honor.

One of my favourite are goose biot feathers.

There were several different colours of these wonderful feathers which I love as they make such a dramatic impact to a hat. To take them from looking kinda dull to wow is as simple as curling a ribbon and just the same process. The feather has been striped on one side so if you drag a pair of scissors down that side it will curl or for a more dramatic curl you can use curling tongs and another technique is to attach the top and the bottom with gives a lovely look.

And here's some in a finished plume on a lovely mini-tricorn hat I am almost finished, just need to line this one now.

Well that's all for today, more next week
Hugs and Kisses

Ally

feathers galore

Morning All

so here we are in February, and I was trying to think of some witty title involving February and Feathers, but my brain won't come up with anything this morning, so we will just have to stick with 'feathers galore'.

On Thursday I forgot to share with you how I got on with the feather curling from last week, so I thought I'd do it now.  For anyone new, I got a bag of pheasant feathers from the butcher, well not exactly, they were still attached to the bird's wing, so I had to do a bit of plucking first, and then I had a bag of pheasant feathers.

My goodness working with feathers is messy. In the end I got the vacuum cleaner next to me and sucked up the waste bits on a regular basis.  And did I sneeze? you bet I did, and for a good couple of days afterwards too.  But was it worth it?, ooh yes most definitely, really good fun, very satisfying and some lovely feathers for my hats.

 I tried a couple of methods, but settled on my curling tongs. Now they don't get much use as hair styling products. I do tend to use curlers or rag roll, if I want to style my hair, but they are useful for giving my kiss curl a bit of a lift if I'm in a hurry and don't have time for anything else.  So I was a little dubious to start with in case the feathers left any residue on the curling tongs, I still wanted to be able to use them on my hair, but it was all ok, the curling tongs seemed unaffected by the feathers.

The first stage was to strip the barb off the feather on one side, this was the messy bit. I used a craft knife to get nice and close to the feather's shaft. Then grabbing the top end of the feather in the curling tong I wrapped the feather round, with the cut edge closest to the curling tong.

 

I had some basic black feathers too from a craft shop, they did better with a blunt knife the way that you curl ribbons, but the pheasant feathers were too tough for that method and definitely needed heat, so from now on my curling tongs will spend a lot more time in the sewing room.

And here they are glued on wire ready to be attached to some hats.

And on a hat 

by the way if the hat looks a little funny, the top and the brim are not really attached together just balancing for the photos.

Well that's that, and now I got to nip to the shops before the rain starts (again), but really not complaining we have been a lot lucker that some with the weather, and I do hope that all you out there are warm and dry.

take care till next time.
ally
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