I finally had time this past weekend to start to embellish another one of Lisa Cruse's felted hat designs, "Nellie Crush." I hadn't had time to work on any of the hats during Lisa's recent visit and embellishment workshops at Struan Farm. Too busy hostessing!
But Nellie is probably my favorite of her designs, this is a hat that I will wear for sure.
I decided to let the embellishing go where it took me, "auditioning" what might work:
First I started with a diamond shaped bakelite buckle in the same orange as the one above, but I couldn't get that to stay flat on the hat, so moved to another vintage buckle in the same color. After cross-stitching the buckle on, I sewed beads up either side, then needle felted feathers of color on either side of the buckle. This still didn't do it for me, so what was next? I then took strips of ripped taffeta fabric and folded and tacked them across the top.
I like this, particularly with a redo of the needle felting. But it's a pretty extravagant look, and I simply don't see myself wearing it as much as I like it.
So I am going back to one of my other original ideas for this Nellie, which is to take a felted remnant from the same yarn as the hat, inserted into another vintage buckle, making a bow:
I'll deconstruct what I've done and put this on. It may stay this simple, since that would be me, or I might bead and embroider a bit more once I get the bow onto the hat. Update to follow.....for me the process is as much fun at the end result, since there are so many options to explore!
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