With the underthings and classic white dress for my Regency wardrobe done, I can focus on expanding my wardrobe with accessories! Several years ago I bought maybe a yard or so of a silk-like polyester in a lovely shade of blue. I've already made an embroidered Regency reticule out of it, so I decided to make a matching bonnet!
I opted to get the Zenobia Regency bonnet pattern and kit from Timely Tresses, since this is my first foray into millinery, and chose brim 1 with the 8-piece crown. The kit comes with everything you need to make the bonnet except for thread, fashion fabric, and trim.
I started by prepping the brim as the instructions say - cutting the brim out of buckram, attaching the millinery wire to the brim, and then covering the edge with crinoline tape. Attaching the wire was a bit of a struggle! The edges of the buckram kept catching on my sleeves and the wire was jumping all over the place. Thankfully that was the hardest part of the whole process.
I decided to interline both sides of the brim with the netting that came with the kit by using a running stitch to attach the net to one side at a time.
Binder clips came in handy on this project! Buckram is stiff and hard to pin into, so I used the clips to "pin" the crinoline tape in place, then the netting, and later the brim fashion fabric, which I'll get to in a moment.
The brim then gets traced onto the brim fabric and cut out with a half-inch seam allowance, which I sort of eyeballed. The outer edge of the brim gets sewn together, then you turn it inside out (and you should probably press it, but I didn't) and put the brim inside. I used the binder clips again to hold the fabric in place securely so I could baste the inner edge of the brim closed tightly.
With the brim prep done, I cut out the crown pieces from my fashion fabric and the linen lining from the kit. I chose the 8-piece crown, so I pinned two pieces together, sewed those four "pairs" together, then sewed two pairs together which left me with halves that could be sewn together. A complicated explanation of a simple process.
Those seams then get pressed open and you can sew in the center circle. That took a bit of fiddling, but I got it done and pressed the seam. Then the seam allowance at the outer edge of the crown (on both the outer and lining fabric) is supposed to be pressed in but I didn't do that. After that you can insert the lining. The instructions say to use a slip stitch but I decided on a whip stitch instead and found that the curved millinery needle included in the kit helped with stitching into the brim fabric without having to warp the buckram and wire in the brim.
I actually added a step before I attached the lining! I had some leftovers of the white cord I used on the embroidered reticule that perfectly well along the seam of the brim and crown, so I attached that before the lining so I could hide my stitches and the ends of the cord. The cord was actually a few inches too long, so I coiled it up at one end and am using it to hold the feather in place and hide the end of the feather.
Once I went back and attached the lining I could finish the decorating. I had two yards of 1" wide white silk ribbon that I had left over from the straps of my 1920s combinations. Based on some fashion plates (like these from May 1800, September 1800, 1801, 1804, 1808, September 1808, and the one shown here from 1803) I decided to attach the ribbon toward the back of the bonnet, tack it down at the ends of the brim, and leave the ends loose to tie either below the chin or wrapped back up to tie on top of the head.
And then I was done!
Making a bonnet was way easier than I expected and I'm in love with the results! I do wish the pattern instructions had included more tips (like when to use the curved needle or how best to attach the circle in the crown), but I was able to figure it out. There weren't really any new skills needed for this, any difficulty just came from how fiddly some steps were.
But if you give a girl a matching bonnet and reticule, she might want a bodice to go with it, so stay tuned ;)
Stay warm. Stay safe. Stay healthy.
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