Mad as a hatter.

Last week I jumped into the strange new world of Millinery work (hat making).  I have to make a horned headpiece for the 13th fairy.  I started with the horns, which I made out of millinery wire. I wound the wire around a cone of surger thread to get a nice round shape.

I then taped the ends closed with masking tape.  I figured I needed 3-4 different sized circles to make the horns taper just right. (The big coil is the millinery wire).

Once I had all the circles I needed, I removed the masking tape and wired the loops together with a fine wire. I then guessed at how long a piece of wire I would need to go up and around to form the shape of the horn.  Once that was cut, I started to wire the circles to it.

Jump forward to having all the circles on (here is where I decided I wanted 4 loops instead of three).

Checking my horn vs my head form.  Not quite all wired yet, but soon.

Part two involves hat weight buckram!  Which comes by the meter and is incredibly stiff.

Until you get it wet.  Once wet, you can form it to any shape. You form it by tugging and pulling it into shape. I later added an elastic to keep it down and then T pinned it into place. The tugging and pulling process took about ohh 10 minutes. The long wait is for it to dry.

Jump to the next day! The buckram is dry and hard as a rock! Time to trim off the excess and mark the horn placement.

And here are the finished horn bases. They took me 4 hours to make!  I added an extra little  V of wire at the very top to give fullness and shape to the top of the horns.

I will be fitting it on my models head, attaching the horns and covering later!  Stay tuned!