Regency Drawn Bonnet... Pattern and Tutorial Part 2

Once you have all pieces cut, the construction is simple enough... if not tedious.

First, you will need the tip. Sorry (my bad) I didn't label my pattern pieces. The tip is the circular piece that is cut on the fold. You'll need that cut of linen and of some kind of sheer, stiff material. I used silk organza, but organdy would work. Using a 1/2" seam allowance sew together the tip and lining together along it's outside edge. Leave the straight edge... this is the neck edge... unsewn.

Trim off the seam allowance and turn the tip right side out, using the neck edge (the straight edge) as your access point.

If your good at whip gathers you don't need to do this, but if your like me and have a hard time keeping your whip gathers consistent and estimating the amount of fabric each stitch needs along the fabrics length, you might want to do like me and cartridge pleat instead. The outside (rounded) edge of the tip needs to be condensed into 14 7/8". If you'd like to learn about whip gathering check out Katherine's Dress Site. She's got a tutorial in there somewhere. :) Alternatively here is a tutorial on Cartridge Pleating... it's also called gaging.

The pin there is marking the center of the tip.

Now on to the tedious task of making the cording channels and running the cording. It's not hard... just time consuming, and monotonous.

I did all of this on my sewing machine... because I'm a costumer, NOT a reenactor. If your wanting a highly researched and documented project, your reading the wrong journal. I've invested quite a bit of money in my machines and I'm going to use them, and I'm not even a little bit sorry about that. My methods get the "look" and the "feel" of the costume... but aren't museum pieces. If I can get the look I'm after with the machine I will use it. If I can't I'll do it by hand. I try to do you all a solid though by saying "this could be done by hand using (blah blah blah) method." So yah, as always... grain of salt girls.

If your freaking CRAZY you can make the channels by hand. You can also do the UBER TINY rolled hems by hand as well. **blink blink** the channels are done by placing the cording down as you go, you would fold the fabric over your cord and using a running stitch sew through two layers of fabric thus creating a channel.

To prepare the Brim/Crown first roll hem the neck edge and the face edge. Use a very small rolled hem. I've given 1/4 of an inch for seam allowance this is just enough for an 1/8 rolled hem. If you don't have a tiny rolled hem foot... cut your brim out with extra seam allowance so that the hem doesn't eat up too much fabric.

The Brim/Crown is marked with 13 cording channels. To make the cording channels fold the Brim/Crown along the line and sew using 1/8 seam allowance. This will make a 1/4 channel. Make 1/4 channels on each of the 13 cording channels marked on the Brim/Crown pattern.

You can see how I marked my channels in this picture... I laid the linen over my pattern and marked my channels with pencil.

Ok... my family is begging me to do fun family stuff... they want to make a garden. So next time will be inserting the cording, attaching Tip to Brim/Crown, and attaching the tie.

Before I forget though, because I know many of you have made this kind of thing before, here is the list of the cording lengths. I'm starting at the neck edge (shortest length) and working out to the face edge. (longest length)

14 7/8
15 3/4
17 7/8
18
19 3/8
20 5/8
21 1/4
22 1/4
23 7/8
24 5/8
26 7/8
28 1/2
29 5/8





Until next time my sweets. :)