The Fabric of Time

My newest slat bonnet, entered in the Historical Sew Fortnightly The perfect 19th century slat bonnet continues to elude me. I have made four so far, and am trying to come up with a pattern that has just the right proportions and looks nice. There has been much trial-and-error. My first few slat bonnets all have the same problem: the brim does not extend far enough down the side of the face. When wearing them, I discovered that the curtain will fly upward if the top edge of the curtain is higher than the chin. It seems that it works best when the brim ends exactly at the jawline. Also, the curtain should be long enough to lay on the shoulders, or at least touch the shoulders. Here are some pictures of my first three slat bonnets:   All of these bonnets are different. I have experimented with shapes and sizes of the pieces, and have at least discovered what works best for the brim and curtain. I plan to write a future blog post concerning construction details.