Hat a week/month progress

I've actually managed to do a bit of hatting over the last couple of weeks, which has reminded me just how much I enjoy it. I've been making a very large brimmed cerise sinamay hat, which I've edged with black and will have black decorations. Sadly, tomorrow I've got to have a bronchoscopy and start IVs so I probably won't be able to finish it for a while.  I need the bronchoscopy to try and decide one way of the other if I am harbouring a rather nasty micro bacterium.  I had one random sample come back positive for it in early October, but I've had five reasults since that are negative.  The problem is, that if I do have it it will almost certainly stop me being considered for transplant... My doctors do now seem fairly sure that I don't have it and that the positive was just one of those things that sometimes pop up, however, to make absolutely sure I need to be thoroughly searched by broncoscopy to be declared totally bug free.   This has been a very stressful and distressing time to put it midly! The idea of not even being able to be considered for transplant rather knocked me for six.  Knowing that one day I might be able to have a really positive outcome from transplant and get some of my strength and stamina and life back, has aways helped me carry on fighting when I've been feeling rubbish and struggling with this bloody disease - which has been rather a lot recently. So to have that little glimmer of hope taken away was really, really hard.  Having had all the negative results has restored my mental eqilibrium a bit, so hopefully the bronchoscopy will go well and also come back totally negative and I can try and get back on track health wise and head wise. Fingers well and truly crossed.

Anyway, as my hatting will be a bit on hold for a while, I thought I'd post a few pictures of my making it so that I feel a bit better about my lack of sewing! The pictures were taken with my iPhone so they are not great quality (and some are a bit out of focus!) but you can see how huge it is...

About to start blocking the brim.  The Crown is done and hiding in the background.

The blocked brim.  It took nearly every milliner pin I have.

The brim with its edge wired, its a long way around this brim...

Half way round sewing on the brim binding.  Clothes pegs are so useful in millinery!

 

So now I have to decide how to decorate it.  I've made some sinamay decorations but I am still not sure quite what I want.  I didn't make it with a particular event or outfit in mind, it is more an experiment to see if I could do enormous hats as well as the mini ones I usually make. I really like the simplicity of the shape as it is so I may leave it plain for now until inspiration strikes.  With two weeks of IVs to look forward to starting tomorrow I will have plenty of time to think about it...