Maybe it was Royal fever. Maybe my fingers were twitchy. Maybe it was too much Etsy browsing. Maybe I’m just crazy, but I decided to make a facinator for my wedding 3 days before the big day.
Now, way back in the day, I had bought some French netting from Birdcage Supply on Etsy.
(picture from Birdcage Supply – I bought this turquoise and some ivory too)
Now, as we know from some frantic posts at the end of April, I fell in love with a veil and ended up buying it to simplify my life. I figured the netting (which I spent all of $12 on, including shipping!) would just sit in my craft closet and gather dust, like so many other things. But… days before the wedding, it started calling to me. Especially the turquoise netting. I suddenly wanted a coloured veil! But I loved the two-layer ivory one I’d already bought… dilemma!
I decided to make just a puff of a headpiece – less veil and more facinator, and maybe wear it on my bachelorette day (yes, I got a bachelorette day! It was awesome! I’ll tell you about it some time!). I based my idea off these couple poufs on Etsy:
(from Flortini Designs)
(from modernromancePDX)
Now, I couldn’t find a tutorial for this sort of thing, so I studied the pictures above for a while. I knew I needed netting, a couple layers of it, and something sparkly to go in the centre. Oh, and some way to attach it to my head.
I could see folded edges in the two photos, so I decided to cut a length of the turquoise netting. The netting I bought was 9″ wide, and I cut it to around 16″ long.
Then I brought the cut ends to meet each other:
(being held down by a Sharpie for the photo)
See the loop it makes?
Then I grabbed some embroidery thread and a needle, and started weaving it through the seam, making sure to catch 3 layers of netting: the bottom, and the two edges where they overlapped. I just wove through the holes, sometimes going through the little square bits between the holes to keep everything together. When my thread was out the other side, I scrunched the netting up small and tied the two ends of the thread around the bunched up middle.
One pouf! Then I made a second one, from a slightly smaller length of netting. I layered the small on on top of the larger one and pinned them together with the brooch I found in the bottom of my jewelery box. Yes, I could have sewed them together first, and glued the brooch… but why, when it had a perfectly good pin?
As for attaching it to my head, I could have bought clips or combs and glued or sewn it on, but… it was 3 days before my wedding, late at night and I did not have time to go find more stuff that wasn’t already planned for. So I wove a couple bobby pins through the netting and called it done. I figured that whenever I would wear it, I could have someone help me position it and stick it with more bobby pins.
Do you like the ‘pouf’ look? How about coloured veils? Would you wear it? (Here’s a hint about my answer… you will see it in action once we get pro photos back!)
