Breaking out the Roses

This is the third year of the Kentucky Derby party at Five Horses in Davis Square, so I am going to show you the hat that I made to participate in the contest this year…

Flower power

Roses for the Kentucky Derby

The hat right before judging, 2017.

I guess my next hat is a little more traditional as it had a floral theme. For some reason, I really don’t like fake flowers, but I love flowers made from other things like ribbon, paper, wood, lace… whatever. So I put my Silhouette Cameo to good use to cut out a bunch of different flower templates and got to work. The one thing I remembered from my first hat was that it was really weird to sit around all day with this overwhelming black brim floating in eyesight, so I decided to start by painting the underside of the hat a different color. I wanted to put a flower underneath the brim, so the different color would would really make that flower pop. I am a creature of monotone. I love using similar colors together, I think it adds a level of sophistication. I decided on lilac/lavender as my chosen color scheme.

Once I had the flowers on the hat, I decided that wasn’t enough. I also decided that it needed lights (of course). I have some battery operated fairy lights but I needed a way to attach the battery to the hat. I actually used one of those wrist wallet things (black of course) and put the battery packs in the pockets. I then used black tulle and slipped it through the wrist hole and then just wrapped the base of the hat and tied it. Again, I was trying not to permanently damage the hat, but this really worked out. I hadn’t thought of using tulle in the final hat design, but since I had a boat load of it from a failed attempt at making a tulle skirt, I figured, why not? It was the kind that are in fairly wide strips, so I just started layering it around the brim of the hat and weaving the fairy lights into it. I decided that the white lights, although tiny, were kind of jarring. So another trip to Michael’s to find purple-ish washi tape to cover the lights. I think it adds to the monotone feel. Again, nothing was really attached to the hat, so I decided to use hairspray, yes, hairspray to keep the tulle intact. Which worked out great until a friend wanted to try it on and when she handed it back to me, it all fell apart… luckily, right after the judging was complete.

This time, I did consider the weight of the battery pack, I didn’t consider sitting there wearing it the entire time. My neck killed the next day, plus again… the design was asymmetrical, so awkward tilted head for most of the day. But it was worth it because I reclaimed my first place status! This year, the voting was done by ballot complete with a awkward parade around the bar. (Thankfully, I didn’t see the girl from last year at all!)

The prize basket.

Cue Sweet Caroline!

And what did I win, you might ask? Well $100 in cash, 2 kick-ass seats to a Red Sox game, a bottle of wine, a bottle of Four Roses Bourbon, a couple of bar t-shirts, a nice water bottle, 2 copper cups for fancy drinks and a trucker hat, all packed up in this sweet metal cooler (with a bottle opener) that’s perfect for our backyard.