Ancient History

Can it be possible?

I was rooting through my old photos and I have found a 'thing' I haven't shared yet.

I made it for a City and Guilds project, and that was in 1996.

How remiss of me.

There is a bit of everything on it. It was made form an Ikea carrier bag in the days when the big brown ones were free and made of very sturdy paper.

Its a hat for Perseus. In the myth he had a magic hat of invisibility. I thought if I made it look like the sky, or more particularly the weather, he would become camouflaged and that was as near as I could make it to invisible.

So I added raindrops, sunshine and showers. There just happened to be a 'Sunshine and Showers' theme to the 'Fashion and Embroidery Show' competition that year so it was killing two birds...with one hat.

I painted the brown paper and added little things to it, including 'words of invisibility', then I covered it with tea bag paper and other tissue, and printed and painted motifs onto the top surface. Strictly speaking it wasn't paint but food colouring, some of it mixed with acrylic pearl medium. 

Thats where the irridescence comes from. Even now, 13 years later, it still retains its colour.

I stitched spirals and stars on water soluble fabric, added some tiny pearl beads and mirrorfoil behind cut areas, some shisha and some hand stitch. Some of the spirals were slit and re positioned, and moved to add shape and structure.

Then I constructed some beads from the paper and covered some wire with stitch..

and constructed the hat in the shape of an African Chiefs hat I had seen in the Museum of Mankind.

The sunshiney bits were on the outside and on the top and the showery bits were inside the flaps.

And the Competition?

Entries had to be 2d and framed.

So I didn't bother.