How to make a small cockade with a short length of ribbon that will make a big impact.
I needed something simple to decorate this Edwardian hat. I made the hat so I could use this Edwardian Era willow ostrich plume and this vintage ombre ribbon. A large cockade with the ribbon seemed a no brainer but once I added the cockade to the hat, I notice that the up-sweep side of the hat really needed something. I had a short length of ribbon left after some trial and error I came up with this. You can see more pictures of Aimee, the hat and cockade here.
You can use any type of ribbon, any width, wired or un wired the important thing is that the ribbon has some bias stretch. It does not need to have lots of stretch just some. I’ve use cotton or rayon millinery grosgrain, wired silk ribbon and fabric ribbon with a sewn edge.
Your final cockade will look a little different depending on the type of ribbon. It you have a ribbon that take a hard crease it will look more like the example below but if it a softer ribbon that does not keep a crease then it will look more like the example above. I do like how ombre ribbon cockades turn out a little more than solid ribbons. Below are two slightly different methods. First with wide ribbon ~3-4″ (as the one above) and then with narrower ribbon ~1.5-2″ ribbon.
Triangle Cockade with wide ribbon
This cockade will be as wide as your ribbon (point to point) and will stand up 1/2 your ribbon’s width. You will need the length of the width of ribbon for each triangular flap in the cockade. So, if your ribbon is 4″ wide and you want 7 triangular flaps then you will need 4″X7″ of ribbon or, 28″.
- Press the first 1/4″ up.
2) Fold the pressed edge over even with the right side, press.
3) Fold the right point over to the left. The red clip over to the left side, clip the bottom layer. Press.
4) Flip the ribbon over and flip the triangle up. Notice the red clip is now on the right and the blue on the left. Press.
5) Fold the ribbon along the long diagonal from the red clip to the other side of the ribbon. Rotate 180°. Press.
6) Fold the new triangle you just made under the previous triangles and re clip.
7) Repeat from step 4 except this time the point and ribbon are facing you. Press.
8) is the same as step 5). Press.
9) is the same as 6). Press.
10) keep repeating the steps 4-6 until you have as many triangles as you want. Any where from 7-10.
Sew the points on each side together as tightly as possible, first one side then the other. They should automatically fan out and look like the one pictures above on my Edwardian hat. For each flap the double folds should be on one side and the single on the other.
If you are concerned that you are not making the folds correctly open it up, it should look like this. Each square of the ribbon should have two long diagonal folds and one straight of grain fold on each side.
Triangle Cockade with narrower ribbon
With this cockade it will be twice the width of the ribbon and in the center it will be as high as one width of the ribbon. Every set of long triangle folds takes 4 times the width of the ribbon so if you make 8 sets you need 4×8=32 times the ribbon width. So for a 2″ wide ribbon you need 1.8 yards, for safety say 2 yards. This cockade will be almost the same size as the other one done with 4″ ribbon. 2″ high and 4″ wide but, take twice as much ribbon in length.
Press the first 1/4′ of the ribbon up.
Fold the pressed edge over to the right edge and press.
Rotate 90° to the right and fold the ribbon up along the diagonal. Press.
Make another diagonal fold and flip the whole thing over, press.
Tuck the unfolded ribbon under the first small triangle.
Fold the 2 halves together to form two long triangles with the unfolded ribbon coming out from between them. Clip them together.
Continue making these diagonal folds to make long triangles. Every two long triangles needs to have the straight edges of the ribbon between them.
This is what it should look like inside a set. You can see one dark edge of the ribbon butts up against another dark edge.
This is what it should look like between sets, the light edge of the ribbon runs down the full length of the cockade.
Complete your 8 sets or 16 long triangles.
Cut the ribbon.
Clip the stack at the right angle points.
Sew the narrow points on each side together as tightly as possible.
It will fan out like this when you have sewn the points.
It is different from the first cockade because the long triangles of the sets are not connected.
Using clips overlay the right angle points of each set about 1/8-14″.
This creates a open drop shape on one side with the overlap on the other. With a matching thread sew the overlaps together.
This is how it looks from the overlapped side. Notice all the overlaps are right over left. You could vary that if you want. Half one way, half the other or vary every other one.
From the drop shape side.
From the top.