The Hat.

I know most of you girls out there dress up around Halloween, but over here, it´s different. We dress up in February, for Karneval. Especially where I live. The season starts in November, and people are working on their costumes all winter long, so I guess I´m late. Forgive me, I´m no native here. Or maybe I am? And at least I started.
 
So I´m the Mad Hatter. There´s an awesome tutorial on threadbanger on how to make it, though it´s lacking some crucial information. For the cylinder part, don´t cut the fabric rectangular, or it won´t stretch tight around your hat, no matter how hard you pull. Fortunately, there are no open questions when there´s google and tons of message boards, so I found a solution here. Basically, you work like this:

 

I still need to find some peacock feathers. Any ideas? I´d like to make this as cheap as possible. So far, I used only things I had here anyway - except for the wire for the brim, which Majka found spontaniously on her front porch. Thanks, it works perfect :) By the way, I broke three needles stitching around it, because I accidently sewed on the wire. Sigh. And I´m not happy with the clumsy hot glued  edge up there. Maybe I´ll add some lace to cover it up. I do like the signature card: 

I have my vest, too, and I´m working on making a pocketwatch and hatpins using polymer clay and old knitting needles. But I still need to gather my arsenal of threads, make some striped pants and find a jacket - that one´s tough. My husband gave me an old jacket of his, but I think it´s not sexy enough, and I´m not sure if I can make it smaller myself. 

However, when I´m finished, I´ll show you my completed costume :)

In between I´m busy cleaning and decluttering. Still taking pictures. Still sticking to all of my resolutions except for the one about the book. Well, I can´t succeed on all areas. 

I found an awesome song today: 

She´s cute, isn´t she? I like her lyrics, and her accent, and the tone of her voice, and her woolen hat. There´s another video of this song out there, but embedding has been disabled. But for you crafty girls, check out her fascinating papercrafts :) Really, the papercraft version even has a cello in there! A cello! Doesn´t that make anyone´s day?