So I was peacefully minding my own business and enjoying my time remaining at the costume shop, steam-fluffing hat feathers with the gravity iron, and I saw this….
I pulled it out of the hat, because I was having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that this fellow exists. I had noticed, while steaming, that one of the feathers seemed oddly gnarly – like, literally snarled. Or knotted…
Ok. Obviously, you *can* do this. It is a great way of beefing up your rennie/cavalier hat feathers at a lower price point with other people’s discards. I just don’t understand anyone doing it *voluntarily*. Have you ever tried to knot feather-bits together? That’s just obnoxious. You do anything to a feather – sew it down, bind a stack of them, curl it, whatever – and the whole ding-dang feather wants in on the action! It’s like a thousand little fluffy tentacles suddenly come alive and all want to know, “Whatcha doin’? Can I get in on this?”
Can you even imagine going in to work one day, as some lowly apprentice, and having your boss say, “Ok, so, like, what I want you to do is take all the good bits off these mangled-but-formerly-expensive feathers over here, right, and I want you to tie them, one by one, to the ends of this drab brown thang. And, like, after you go totally bonkers, we’ll ship you off to the funny farm and I won’t have to cover you medical anymore. Bwahaha! Make sure those knots are good and tiny!”
So, yeah. It seems in-sane-ifying to me. I could be doing it wrong. If anyone has magical tips to tame feathers, I would love to hear them!
ps – the side-story that came out of the most reason feather-a-thon was the sudden realization that irons are one of the most useful tools for feathers. As soon as I can get someone to help me with photography (need both hands for technique), I’ll post about how irons are just as crucial as steam for making feathers look fuller, mas curvier, and generally more awesome than what you bought.
Whoah. That is super crazy. I’m looking forward to your feather tutorials, as I feel like I’m about to plunge off the deep end into feather-land.
The Times had an article recently about a woman in Oregon who found a handwritten note tucked into a box of Halloween decorations, imploring the reader to contact various human rights organizations about the conditions in the slave labor camp where the box was packed. As I am guessing that knotting small pieces of feathers into larger feathers falls into the category (with grudging apology to John McCain) of “jobs which Americans won’t do,” you may want to check that hat for hidden messages sewn into the lining. Delivering a thousand feather-falsifying slaves from some Asian dungeon would definitely be an, er, feather in your cap. Sorry about that last part.
*snortle* Omg! I swear, Chris, though I value human freedoms and would totally support any rebellious slave who drew the line at feather-macrame, I found no notes and, as far as I could tell, there were no mysterious patterns of multiple knots per feather-bit that could indicate a hidden message encoded in the feather itself! :)