A Cute Autumn Centerpiece - Part 2

In last weeks blog post I blogged about wanting to cut expenses on a project and how I made the base for the project.  To recap for new readers, I made a ball from foil and papier mache' for the head.  The base was Styrofoam packing material glued into a 4 inch clay flower pot.  A dowel connected the two pieces.  Raffia covers the entire project with more raffia added for hair.  That was the gist of the post anyway.  You can check last Sunday's blog post (2/04/18)  If you want to see step by step photos.

Today I wanted to blog about making the features and the bonnet.  The inspiration project for this had one way of doing things, but I came up with alternate means of making the objects.  I was trying to use up odds and ends that I have around the studio rather than purchasing new materials for the project.  After all, if you have something you can make do with, why spend more money?

My solution to making the eyes and mouth were to use scraps of fabric left over from other projects.  However, fabric alone was not firm enough to hold its shape well.  I solved this project by using some Stitch Witch fusible to fuse two pieces of fabric together.  I placed a piece of the Stitch Witch between the wrong sides of two pieces of fabric and fused according to the manufacturers directions.  Once the fabric had cooled, I traced the shapes onto the fabric and cut them out.  The fused fabric was stiff enough to hold its shape.

I cut out the eyes from a scrap of brown fabric and the mouth from red fabric.  It wasn't until I started making the nose that I ran into a situation.  The shape did not seem to work well for the nose.  I did not want to introduce another shape or color to the face.  I was stymied for a few minutes, and started playing around with a piece of raffia. 

Playing with the raffia led me into making the nose from raffia.  I started by tying a regular knot in the center of the piece of raffia.  After that, I tied a series of what I believe are called surgical knots.  You begin it by looping your fabric and wrapping the material as you would for a regular knot.  Then you wrap the other end of the material around as well.  When you pull on the ends, the knot tightens into a flat knot.  I kept tying these knots until I had a series of knot long enough to make a nose.  When the desired length was reached , I pulled the remaining raffia to the back and hot glued it down. Then I trimmed off any unused raffia.

Once I had the features made, it was time to hot glue them to the scarecrow head.  Before I did that though, I gave the face a good trimming.  Raffia has little pieces and shreds hanging off each piece.  The face area was very rough looking.  A little judicious trimming helped give the face a smoother appearance.  Once I had experimented with the features until I was happy with the placement, I glued them down with hot glue.

The final bonnet attempt.

Last week I had blogged about making the hair into pig tales.  That pulled all the hair forward.  When the bonnet was glued in place, it made it appear as though the scarecrow had a thick head of hair.  The raffia is a bit wispy, and when the hair was left straight it looked a little straggly.  I folded small bunches of raffia in half, tied them with a single piece of raffia and hot glued the bunches around the head.  Once the hair was put into pig tails, I gave it a trim to even it up a bit.

A working hat would have a wider brim.

Then, it was down to making the head piece.  The inspiration project used a piece of black burlap cut into a circle and glued to the head.  I had some very nice brown burlap, but there was no color contrast, and besides, it is in my project cue and I did not want to be cutting it up for this project.  I tried cutting a piece of black fabric into a circle and gluing it to the head.  It was limp, and looked like someone had just stuck a piece of rag on the head.  I tried folding it and stuffing it with some of the raffia I had cut off when trimming the head.  It really did not look very appealing.  I tried turning the circle into a beret and stuffing it to make it look as if it were made from a heavier material.  That was another non-starter.  I had to take a break for a bit and think about it.

Sometimes, if you take a break and just give yourself a little breathing room, the answer you seek will find a way into your mind.  That is what happened in this case.  I was at a quilting sit-and-sew and a lady showed me some blocks she had made of a 1930s quilt pattern called Sun Bonnet Sue.  When I came home I was flipping through and old quilting magazine and it had an article on the Sun Bonnet Sue quilt.  Another magazine had some red work done with Sun Bonnet Sue designs.  It finally filtered through to me, make a bonnet.

My first bonnet was not successful.

With an idea in mind, I started searching online for bonnet patterns and checking through my fabric stash for colors that would contrast or coordinate with my autumn palette.  I found a free pattern, but it came with absolutely no explanation on the scale of the pattern or how to fit the bonnet.  If you want to look for this type of pattern, use the search words pattern for pioneer bonnet or prairie bonnet.  After searching around on the internet, I did find some instructions with pictures for making variations on a bonnet that was somewhat similar to the pattern.  It was helpful enough that I was able to start figuring things out for the pattern I found.

I had to do a little trial and error to get the pattern the right size for the head.    The pattern looks huge and looked like it would be too large for the head.  I took a few measurements of the head and adjusted the pattern to what I thought would fit.  You have to do a lot of gathering on this type of bonnet.  By the time everything was gathered and matched up, the hat was too small for my scarecrow's head.  I made another one, but this one was too large.  In fact it fits me.  All I have to do was add the ties, and I will have my own hat.  The third one fit just right, or at least right enough.

Sometimes when I work on a project, it will trigger some old memory, buried so deeply that I am not even aware of it.  I remembered I had actually seen my grandmother make herself a hat similar to this one to wear while gardening.  I remember showing me that she used an extra piece of cloth as interfacing and told me that she sewed extra line across the brim of the hat because that helped stiffen the brim.    The brim of her hat was wider than the brim on my hat.  Her hat was an actual working hat where she wanted to keep the sun off her face.  For my scarecrow's bonnet, I wanted the bonnet to frame the face, but not hide the face so the brim is a bit narrower.  I also used some light to medium weight interfacing on the hat brim because I had some scraps of that product.  If  I were to make another hat for myself, I would probably use a heavier fusible interfacing.  I did make the extra stitch lines across the brim, and it did make it stiffer.

At the moment, my fabric stash was a little spare of fabrics in autumn colors.  Being that it was the end of January, autumn fabrics were not in stores either.  I ended up choosing the bright red left over from making my Leaf and Star quilt.  It came down to choosing between the red and a dark brown.  I think the red was definitely the better choice.  It really brightened up the piece.

Anyway, I made the bonnet, but did not make the ties.  I could have sewn on ties, and used that as a ribbon under the chin.  However, I chose to use some silk leaves (left over from another project) to make a collar, and some of the purchased flower heads as a necklace instead.  It added more color and interest to the project.

By making parts of the project myself, I was able to cut between $24.00 and $34.00 dollars out of the cost of the project.  It is really worthwhile to see if you can find a way to shave off a few dollars here and there.  I don't think that the project suffered from the changes I made.  If I try another project of this nature, I might even try to make some of my own flowers.  They won't look as authentic as the silk flowers at the craft store, but they may add some folk art charm to the project.

So that is the end of this project.  Next Sunday I will be blogging more about the long-term doll project I started in January.  Check back on Sunday afternoon for that update.