The first step in straw appliqué is to prepare sheets of ironed straw so you can cut out your shapes. You can buy already ironed straws like these below. But sometimes you might want a color that only comes in the round un-split straw so, that is where the videos start. Thanks to Laura Dippold for helping me make these videos.
Splitting and ironing straws
Here is how you split and iron them flat. You will need an awl, a wooden board, a small iron set to almost to max and straw that has been soaked in hot water for 15 minutes to soften. We not be doing this in class but you need to know how it’s done.
Gluing up ironed straws into sheets
Now you can glue up your flattened ironed straws to make sheets. You will need acid free PVA glue, a glue brush, a piece of thin fabric (silk taffeta) in a similar color, a damp paper towel, some scissors and your hot iron and board. We not be doing this in class but you need to know how it’s done.
Create a pattern
For class we will begin learning how to do straw appliqué by adding a design to the crown of our Bergères. Something like this extant hat from the V&A. Place of origin: Great Britain, United Kingdom (made). Date: 1750-1770 (made).
I decided that having everyone start by appliquéing their crown would be the perfect amount of appliqué to learn the process and then decide if they wanted to continue with more appliqué or finish off decorating their Bergère with other straw techniques. As you can see on this extant hat it is decorated with some 3D straw flowers as well as the appliqué.
We are a small guild so it would not be a great idea for everyone to have the same design even if they changed out the colors. So we can hit the ground running, I want everyone to create a design of their own. Not as difficult as it might seem but,
- It should be vaguely floral ie. flowers on stems with leaves. With the stems and the outline to the flowers and leaves being straw thread.
- It should be fairly simple with the pieces being small (1/2 to 3/4 wide for petals and leaves).
- It should look period. To that end I have copied several period motifs.
Your design should fill this space. This should print out as a 5.5″ circle at 144dpi.
Here is one I made up that took the elements in this 17th C boarder (top). I enlarges some elements and made others fit the circle. I did another important thing which was to limit the # of elements. So when I make a templet for the pieces, there are only 8 unique elements. Another nice thing about this design is that each 1/4 of the circle is a repeat of the other but every other one is flipped.
This is another example of using the same pattern for many pieces. There are only three unique shapes in this entire design. The leaf and two different petal shapes it is not dull because of the colors and the placement of everything. There is a three petal flower and a four petal flower.
This is another 17th C design which almost fits a circle without change and has a good level of detail. But you might want to change out the side stem elements. They don’t seem to be anything you could change them to a flower. The elements coming out of the large flower on top might be best done with loops of the straw thread as they are fairly small.
I’m including this 18th C design because it has some nice leaves and flowers that you can copy and add to a simpler design. Remember the individual pieces should not be wider than 3/4″ but the entire flower can be bigger. The spiked leaves in the lower left would not be a good choice for leaves because they are to detailed. (Remember that each piece needs to be outlined with straw thread.)
This is another nice 18th C design. I love the 6 petal flower with the circle center because each of those petals could be the same pattern piece. The large rose is a little complicated but if you really wanted to do a single flower and one of two sets of the three piece leaves it could be done.
You might have some stencils for painting or drafting these can help you get repeat shapes but remember not to use anything really complicated. If for any reason you can’t come up with a design there will be a couple extra in class to choose from. But I really want you to come up with something unique to you.
Tracing your shapes to a templet
Cutting and applying flat straw shapes
This video shows the steps, from marking the flat straw shapes to getting them in the correct place on your crown.