During the 1940's felt flowers were a very popular way of decorating hats and making corsages and even jewellery as a way to cheer up wartime fashions. With rationing in full swing using up small scraps of felt to create flowers was an ideal way to add some much needed femininity to everyday life. I've made silk flowers and ribbon roses before but wanted to try out using my silk flower tools on felt as I had tried them on the felt leaves for my Autumn Leaves Hat and they worked rather well. The tools themselves do rather look like instruments of torture, and you do have to heat them up so that they mould the fabric... The ones with the balls on the end are to form a cup shape in the leaf or petal in various sizes. The hooked ones and the shield shaped one are for creating veins and folds in the fabric. To help make the shapes the sponge is placed beneath the petal/leaf and then the felt is steamed with a wet cloth and an iron and then you press the shape into the felt with the tool -the sponge allows the shape to form.
I made a lot of the flowers and leaves first and then spent quite a long time arranging them on the pillbox. I tried the in all sorts of combinations, in little groups all the way round, in two groups on opposite sides, all on the top, in a line across the top... But eventually settled for one large group on the side and top, on the right side of the hat. The flowers are finished with a black glass bead as their centre. I really like this little hat and shall definitely by making more felt flower as they are actually far easier than making flowers from silk!
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