Mini Top Hats

So, my friend requested this "tutorial", so I decided to post it here for everyone to see. Whoever everyone is. This is for mini top hats. They're a little larger than the ones you see on lolita outfits.
You'll need some sort of awesome fabric, I used velvet, paper to do your pattern on, stiff double sided interfacing, some bias tape or ribbon, hot glue gun, or a strong hand and thread.


1.The center of my brim measured 4" in diameter. Brim measured 2 1/2". The diameter of the entire brim on mine was 8 1/2". The top of my hat measures 5". Now for the "stove" of the hat, I cut out four trapezoids and taped them together. Mine were 4 1/2" high 4" wide at the top and 3" wide at the bottom.

2. I placed everything out on the interfacing so I knew how much I would need. Then I ironed my fabric on to both sides of the interfacing.

3. I pinned my makeshift pattern on the newly iron fabric interfacing and cut out all the pieces.

4. Now here comes the parts where you may be able to improvise. Well all of it you can. If you find easier ways, please let me know. I used bias tape of a contrasting color to line all of the edges to make them neater. My basic style sewing machine didnt seem to have any problems taking the thickness.

5. I stitched together the ends of the "stove". I used cutesy little x's. Next, I glued the larger circle to the wider part of the stove and attach the smaller part of the stove to the brim opening.


For the most part, you're done. My room mate and I glued just about everything we could find to the darn things. Leaves, flowers, springs, bells and tulle. Heh heh.

Next up. My first time with donuts! Paula Deen has this awesome sweet potato donuts recipe. They were very very yummy the first night. Link to awesome.

Naked close up



Okay, I know what it
looks like, but it was
very yummy. Promise.




What else? Erm. Well. Till things get awesome....

So. What else do I blog about? My baking has come to a sputtering halt, life has made sure of that. I could review albums but I lack the street cred. (I found myself "rocking" out to a Miley Cyrus song. I know. Special hell. Shunned by indie snobs) hmm. Vinyl toys? Nerdy updates? Well dammit. I'll keep thinking.....

"You know that black river water is as black as sin.."

Bleargh. Nothing new!! Sewing, sewing, sewing. Worrying about Dragon Con. Cleaning the house and doing laundry. Turns out I have ten pillows and one trout shaped body pillow on my bed though....ha ha I hadn't noticed there were that many. Pillow fort time. Pizzazz is done, so soon I'll have my "progress" pictures up of this year's costumes. We will see....
...till then.

Put your suitcase down and leave your shoes, gently by the door, in a puddle with your blues

It sure has been a while. Ill be honest... My suicide girls blog has been receiving most of my loving. Hmmm... Lately, everything has been pretty hectic, so there hasn't been much creative cooking or baking. I only have a about a month before Dragon*Con, so I've been working on costumes. I think this year will be a pretty easy one. Last year, I made a dress out of Monopoly money, a Professor Umbridge, a wench and a Mrs. Lovetts costume. This year, I'm going to be Pizzazz, the lead singer from the Misfits from Jem and the Holograms, Umbridge, and I believe a burlesque character and a wench or gypsy. It's just time for me to put the final outfits together and see what I'm digging. I did make two mini top hats. One for my room mate and one for me.


There wasn't any real strategy to constructing them.
Mostly trial and error and the good ol 2rPi. Ha ha.
I used very stiff, double-sided interfacing and some left over velvet. Of course, if anyone cares to give it a try, let me know, and Ill post a detailed tutorial on how I did it.


Hmm... What other news do I have?
Derby season is soon to come to an end, but we're trying to schedule
some scrimmages between now and February.
We've been doing amazing.
Our team has been working so hard towards communicating and working together. It's paying off. A little picture of a ref and I talking inbetween periods. That's Wille B. Faire. I'm usually inside line, so not many diginfied in action pictures have been taken.

For my birthday, my friends pooled together and gave me a bun ton
of Webber Street Studio tattoos gift certificates.
I just recently used
them. Ha ha. I don't have a wonderful picture yet,
but here's a preview. The picture doesn't do it justice.
The colors are bright and beautiful. It was inspired by a
Susan Crawford piece. She does some very cool mixed
media pieces.

Alright, I'll just dump a few random bits in here... New Superchunk album is ahhhhmmmaaaazzziiinnngggg. Jon Favreau still makes my heart twitterpated. I love roller derby, I hate my job and our house is finally looking like a semi-normal house again. Now I have a blooger app on my iphone, let's see if that helps me update just a bit more.

No one's making us do what we're supposed to so lie here in my arms.

So, between derby and work, the only free time that Ive had has been devoted to sleeping and showering. But I'll update some things that I have tried lately. The blanco pan on the left is my failed attempt at marshmallows. Turns out it's a thousand and three times easier if you have a stand up mixer. Well, more necessary. They never quite set, but man were they yummy. They were also very fun to play with and difficult to cut or manage. The obvious brownies on the right are ammmaaaazzzing. They're from the Baked cookbook. Sadly, I'm not a huge fan of chocolate, but even I find myself craving one ocassionally. Moist and fudgy brownies. Nom Nom.
For dinner recently, I made Chicken with Mustard Pan Sauce from the How To Boil Water cookbook. It's a great beginners cookbook. I'm usually terrified when baking chicken in breast form. I usually...chicken out and slice or cube everything. I'm getting better about it though! It was tangy and very tasty.





And to top off my dump pictures in a plcae post... Megan and I made home made tortilla chips. It was so much fun! Plus salsa tastes so very nummy on dinosaur and unicorn tortilla chips.

Right now, there are candied citrus peels drying in my oven. Grapefruit, lemon and oranges. I'm pretty excited to roll the little suckers in sugar. 14eleven studio is having a(nother) Grand opening. So Thursday and Friday day, I'm going to go into full time baking mode and finish up sewing projects so they can have a whole lot of things to sell and give away. Also, Harvest of Hope music festival is this weekend, so at some point I have to pack for the weekend. Josh and I are going to see Lucero in Ybor Friday night after the gallery opening. We're going to come home, sleep for a couple of hours and wake up super early to leave for the festival in St. Augustine( about a five hours drive) stay the night Saturday and leave Sunday about midnight. Poor Josh has to be at work Monday morning at six. Looking at who's playing, it should all be worth it. Lucero, Against Me!, Gaslight Anthem, Harlem Shakes to name a few. Alright enough for this update! Till next time.

"Dammit Elvis, don't he know he ain't no Johnny Cash"

So, I haven't updated in a while. It figures, since in the last post I declared I was going to get better at it. I fibbed. It's been pretty busy in our neck of the woods. Food service is actually experiencing it's season right now, so I've been busy. Megan and I had Sean visiting from Boston this past week, so we pretty much dragged him everywhere Florida would allow us in a week. Depending on my energy level later tonight I'll blog about the oreo balls and peanut butter cookies that are currently in the making. I also started full on with Roller Derby so that's taking up at least two to three days a week. All the girls I've met so far have been really nice and helpful. But I have timers ringing and laundry that isn't doing itself sadly. So till the next post....

In what space sir?! In what space!

That being said, I was trying to keep this blog strictly baking and crafting related but I've decided to break my own rules. So for anyone actually reading this...well, keep reading. Perry fella recently moved into his own place, so I made him meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato frosting and crushed frito sprinkles... He loved them. I just used a very basic meatloaf recipe and they cooked for about 40 minutes...

Friday night, a group of us went to Pasttimes Pub to see The Downshifters (pictured), Hillbilly Hellcats, and Johnny Fire. We had an amazing night full of friends, dancing, and large amounts of alcohol. I also got to take the occasional gander at the taken stand up bass player of The Downshifters, again, pictured.




Here are Perry and Dean looking gorgeous of course. And here's a name drop... They recently opened their own gallery in the Village of The Arts community in Bradenton, Fl. The name of the gallery is Studio 14eleven.
You should definitely go see what they're all about... If you're in the area, the first weekend of every month there is an artist walk. A whole neighborhood of amazing galleries.


From left to right, we have
Jill, Perry fella and myself.
Jill knows how to have fun
like nobody's busniess. She's
fantastic. And I have already
made clear that Perry fella
is the Man.



I was trying to explain
to Perry that this was
my dance space, and
he seemed care very
little.






This is Josh, one of the prettiest men I know and my best friend. He's a photographer, an indie music snob and quite possibly drunk in this picture...


And this, THIS is my favorite picture of the evening. The two prettiest men I know (Josh and Perry). Perry was trying to drink a beer out of Josh's chest.





Alright, being none of that was crafty or bake worthy here are two aprons I whipped up the other day. I'm trying to get a good amount of aprons done for Girl Perry's gallery walk for December. I was trying to get some embroidery done, but it's just too time consuming considering my schedule right now. I pinned the aprons on the wall because I didn't have any one around to be my model at the time and sadly I am without a dressform.



Here is a simple green wallpaper print ruffled apron. It looks lovely on the wall, doesn't it?


Oh how I love this apron. It's a two layered apron with two pockets.

The majority of anything I craft is soft. It's the thing I look for first when I'm buying fabric, I usually shop with my hands alone. I love finding hideous patterns and unusual colors. I'm still not entirely comfortable with ordering fabric online, but I will be trying it soon. Alright, I've got the rest of my week ahead of me and small hopes of whipping up some yummy cookies before the weekend. I'll be sure to post relatively sooner.... Goodnight!!