Mending a feather hat

Posted on by The Girl
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Vintage dressing often includes hats, and there are lots of examples in old films. Before I post Part 3 of How to Wear Vintage Hats, I thought I would share how I mended one of them. Often bargains are damaged, so learning how to mend vintage is a valuable skill.

This lovely Biba hat was missing a few feathers when I was entrusted with it. I managed to find a multi-pack of natural coloured feathers in a craft shop. Finding the right notions to fix things is the most difficult part!

After picking out the best colour and size, I trimmed the fluffy bits off the feathers.

I experimented with a black Sharpie pen to draw on spots to match the original. I glued the ends to slide under the feathers already fixed onto the hat.

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I think I managed pretty well matching the feathers. Can you spot the replacement feathers?

Marilyn’s chunky knit cardigan

Posted on by The Girl
Marilyn Monroe cardigan
Photo by George Barris

In 1962, George Barris took a series of photos of Marilyn Monroe on Santa Monica beach. So, technically, this isn’t from the silver screen. This shoot takes chunky cardigans into a wardrobe staple, if not a pin up status. This is very similar to the one in Starsky & Hutch too.

If you love barbeques on the beach, even in the summer you need something warm to wrap up in as the sun sets.

I’ve wanted to have one of these for a while, but nobody seems to knit it to look like the photo. The stitches seem more textured than plain knit, perhaps because it’s chunky. I couldn’t get the right look, so I experimented with some different stitches to find the right look.

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Compared to that, drawing out the Cowichan design was easy! Figuring out the colours we fun too. It was my brother who pointed out that there is a fourth colour. Look carefully at the diamonds in some of the photos, and you can pick out a dark grey.

The original – Marilyn Monroe’s Mexican cardigan
My Marilyn chunky knit cardigan

I used a similar cardigan pattern from the Seventies, although I think I ended up altering most of it to get the right look.

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Contact me if you’re interested in commissioning a vintage knit!