Powertex Hats

When we were at the workshop last weekend and looking around the shop and the displays, Chris saw this wizard / witches hat and I said I'd have a go at making one and do a step by step so she could see how it was made.

So firstly I needed a base to work from. I scrunched a piece of tinfoil into a sort of hat shape.

I wanted to make another shape too to see what the difference would be, so I drew around a small plate and cut it in half.

And then made a cone shape from it.

Covered the two pieces with cling film as I wanted to be able to take them out when I'd finished, and as powertex doesn't stick to plastic, cling film is the best thing to use.

Next I cut a couple of pieces of cotton material, a piece of t-shirt in an oblong type shape with a curve and the cotton piece of dress on the right was more or less a square shape as again, I wanted to try different things ie shapes and fabrics.

And this is how they ended up after the fabrics had been immersed in black powertex liquid and wrapped around the cone shapes. The left is the piece of blue cotton and the right the piece of grey t-shirt.

After I'd set them aside to dry for an hour or two I got some bits and bobs of lace, cotton fibers, cotton scrim, powercotton, string and more t-shirt fabric and roughly placed them as above.

After the additional pieces have been powertex'd and placed on the original fabric.

And the same thing for the second one. 

Then they both went into the airing cupboard to dry over night. 

This morning I took them out of the airing  cupboard and was also able to take the 'filling' out as they had completely dried and kept their hat shape.

They are now stood on their own and as you can see, the sun popped out too.

I put a first coat of colour on the one on the right and I just wanted to show you the difference between the two and how the colour brings out the textures.

Both have now been coloured.

View from the top which shows all the different layers of fabrics.

And finally after a few colours and a build up of layers of colour they are finished.

They are approx 3.5" x 4.5".