Category — Steampunk

I started making hats last year. My first attempt was with a synthetic felt base stiffened and covered in fabric, trimmed in more fabric, for last year’s Steampunk Affaire. I used fabric from brown suit pants and modified a jacket to match.

hand made steampunk tophat

The inside was a bit messy and it wasn't easy to keep it on with only two clips.

Then I moved on to playing with wool felt so I could shape it and made this Shibuya/ Lolita fez type hat. I used a satin ribbon around the edge which didn’t sit smoothly. I made a matching removable hairclip that sits onto the little felt loveheart sewn to the side.

Pink fez hat

Inside my shibuya hat. Satin ribbon doesn't sit that smoothly alas.

Matching clip shibuya hat

And then I thought it was time to take a class, which isn’t that hard to find in Perth. I went on a waiting list to do a class with Fiona Dixon. After an epic 12 hour one day class my brain felt stuffed and I learned a lot, and finished most of the hat below. I finished it and added the simple white trim below. I look forward to making more in 2011!

Hand made sinamay straw hat

Pink sinamay hand made hat back

Thanks to Steam Ingenious for the initial tutorial on how to make a cravat which I ammended. Visit the site here to see detailed images to make the pattern. I modified the original pattern slightly and changed the way the centre is shown as you can see in my youtube tutorial above.

Pattern instructions from Steam ingenious:

The first thing you’ll need is your neck measurement. Subtract 1/2-1 inch from that measurement. One of the differences between a cravat and a normal necktie is that you tie your knot in the wide part of the tie, not the thin part. You also need to know how long you want the tie to be. Cravats are meant to be worn with a vest or waistcoat, and are only long enough to be tucked in to that. So ideally, if you have the vest you plan to wear it with, put it on and measure from your neck to the top of the vest. Add at least 3 inches to that measurement to allow you to tie it. Err on the side of length, because a cravat that doesn’t tuck is nearly useless. (Ask me how I know!)

Once you have your measurements, you want to make your paper pattern. Decide how thick you’d like the skinny part of the cravat to be. For a pretty thin neck, I used 2 inches, and for a fuller look, 3 1/2″. With your paper folded in half lengthwise, measure out a line 1/2 of your desired width from the fold. Make a line equal in length to 1/2(your neck measurement minus 1 inch). Then move up and draw a line 3 1/2 inches from your fold. Connect these two lines with a diagonal.

You’ll notice I had to add more length to the thick part of the cravat. I’d make the length of the cravat about 12 inches + 1/2(your neck measurement). Hold your pattern up to your vest, to make sure it’s long enough, but remember you need extra length to tie it. Remember to include or add a seam allowance, or this is going to be significantly thinner and shorter than you intend.

It makes more sense with pictures, watch the vid or visit the steamingenious site for more.

Have been browsing the pretty on facebook. Check out these shots from last year’s Circa Nocturna, Melbourne’s annual dark alternative fashion show. These are only my faves and there are plenty more cool creations in the folders. Click for the Facebook albums for more.

Got your ticket yet? Steampunk has been around for a few years now but Perth has yet to have an event – until now! I’m busy concocting a costume as I write this….

The great steampunk affaire. Click for link.

Polyvore = addictive

Mad macabre science in style by yourfashionau featuring wedding umbrellas

I’ve packed away my summer clothes and I’m figuring out my winter wardrobe. Steampunk fashion and general masculine vintage seems to be happening for me, in part because I own a vintage fuzzy bowler hat that I just can’t stop wearing.

Me being a little steampunk gentleman for winter

I really enjoy the more masculine styles of steampunk so I’ve made a conscious decision to increase the amount of brown in my wardrobe. But after years of a black base, I’ve found the adjustment hard to manage. Black goes with everything but brown really doesn’t.

So I reverted to the old colour wheel and had a look online at what complements browns. Blue-green, or cyan apparently.

Colour wheel. Useful when choosing an outfit

Another colour wheel

It works well like these fractals and bikini.

cractal swirls in cyan and brown

blue and cyan bikini

So I’ve kept this in mind when I found this tie in a charity shop. It also has brown in its pattern. Perfect! Less perfect was me not noticing at 8am that this distressed vest that I picked up in a charity shop has an army green trim. It happens to go perfectly with a pair of pants I own but for the purposes of this outfit isn’t quite perfect. Hopefully not that major a detail.

cyan paisley tie

I can’t also found paint colour charts like the one below to think about what I like. I find this kind of thing really helpful when I get stuck.

Colour combinations used in painting

I

Steampunk winter. Thanks Jacqueline Jane and The Loft for image.

I’ve found steampunk pretty hard to crack, but winter is certainly helping things. Minature tophat, victorian influenced top, knee high boots and brown scarf are helping things.

That tophat was absurdly cheap from ebay by the way, at about AU$5 from the UK, but I had to wait about 20 days for it.