Crafts, hats and fabric shopping

 I was wasting time looking at online patterns and I found one for these little bucket bags.   The one on the right is made according to the pattern, with fusible fleece and some rather sloppy finishing techniques.  The one of the left, uses my own take on the pattern, with heavier fabrics and sturdy interfacing and hopefully neater finishing.   I mean, how much harder is it to put the turning opening on the side lining seam instead of on the top?   Either way, the first one is rather soft and bendy, while the second one has much more body.   They are both useful little bags though.

I've been playing around with crown buckram and millinery wire with a Victorian hat pattern.   I didn't have domet or flannel to cover the hat form so I used some scraps of bamboo quilt batting, which I couldn't iron because it had been sprayed with temporary basting spray.  Now to cover it.  I'm calling this my practice hat because I am learning a lot with it, including how to work with the buckram, what gauge wire to use and how to cover it. 

This one is a bit wonky.   The instructions call for the fashion fabric to be glued on and the seams covered with trim.  That isn't happening.  I haven't seen an extant hat with little beaded trim on all it's seams yet, so instead I will sew it down.    In all, if it is wearable, it will be a bonus hat.  If not, I've learned enough already to make the effort worthwhile.

The only place to buy fabric is a huge warehouse store.   They have a small number of 19th c reproduction prints within the volumes of quilting fabric.  Luckily, the fabric is sorted and shelved by maker, so it is fairly easy to find if you do the research first. 

I was looking for just a little bit more of the red print and couldn't find it.   It turns out that most of the reproduction prints were put on clearance.   To top it off, I had a 60% off the sale price coupon - so the fabric was $2.10 - $2.70 a yard.    I brought home 3 dress lengths, enough red to repair my red dress and a piece for a new apron.   I'll need to get just a little bit more for the apron as I will be about 1/4 yard short.   I now have enough of the red to redo the 1830's bodice and maybe even the sleeves, as I ripped one last time I wore it.  From left to right - 1860's, 1860's, 1830's, 1830's and the apron.    If I'd wanted a Regency dress, there were lots of prints to choose from.   The brown and salmon is an interesting combo.  They had it in plain light brown as well, but I really liked the rather odd mixture of the two and the darker brown.    While I am not a huge fan of green, it was one of the only non-linear period prints they had, so it will make a nice change from the rest of the stripes.