It’s been a while since Birka, but it’s been a non-stop blur for the last few months. In the prep time between Kris Kinder and Birka, I’ve been working on getting my Persian kit up to snuff as one of my many projects. (I also worked on making paint palettes and you’ve read about Thomas’ two scrolls, but that’s been less exciting.)

The big thing for me was to make sure I had headgear. I had purchased the coat from Sibilla at Bad Baroness Buttons a few years ago, and she gave me the rest of the parts (the salwar and the camiz) of it two years ago. That said, I’m really big on making sure that I’m wearing the right sort of headgear because I feel it completes the look. That said, being not made of money, I went with the non-metal version and made a taj out quilting cotton, plastic craft mesh, a handful of beads, some batting, grosgrain ribbon and a floral pick. Here’s how I did it.

One, I found this premium cotton on Jo-Ann’s website (RIP Joann) because I wanted to make a braid case (which is a project still on the back burner) and I fell in love with it. Is it period? Nope. Did I feel it went with the aesthetic I was trying to go for? Yep. I also felt it went with the fabric I already had. Also, these are leaves on branches. They aren’t laurel leaves or wreaths. They’re branches.

I picked up some plastic canvas mesh (like for needlework projects with yarn), long enough to mostly go around my head. The sheet was big enough to make at least two, depending on how big I cut it, and I might make a smaller version for later. We’ll see.

The first thing I did was determine the shape and size of the taj. As I am a large person, smaller, more delicate items frequently don’t look proportionally correct on me, so I definitely made the hat maybe a little larger than I should have, but also, it is a hat, and even some of the Safavid illuminations have decently large hats, so. Large hat it is. A lot of the tajs I saw in Safavid miniatures swoop up to a single point, and after sketching it out with a sharpie (knowing it would be covered by fabric), I started cutting out the craft mesh and refining the shape. Of note, don’t use your good scissors. Use your craft scissors.

Second thing I did was cut out the fabric. Normally, I would have laundered everything (because that’s the order of operations for most apparel), but the stiffness of the sizing in the fabric actually helped me out a lot with keeping everything smooth and ready to work with. To make sure that the taj would stay on my head, I layered a ribbon in between layers of very thin batting (which also helped to keep the front smooth and give a more hat-like appearance as well as giving the fabric something to sew into.) I also made several small cuts to help with releasing enough tension in the fabric to allow it to lay flat. This took a while, but this is why podcasts and binge watching television was invented.

I also carefully whipstitched around everything with very, very, tiny stitches. Once the front was done, I went back over behind everything and stitched down a backing fabric to better hide everything. I used a more plain purple fabric for this because it really wasn’t going to be seen. The other thing that this would help with later was doing the work with sewing in the feathers and the beads. This was sewn in using very tiny whipstitches into the fabric that had been whipstitched down. Again, it wouldn’t be shown, but it definitely made me feel better by keeping things nice and neat, and by leaving enough ease in the fabric, the flexibility of the fabric and the plastic canvas would be smooth enough when tied into a hat and thanks to the ribbon (about an inch wide) that was sandwiched in between the layers, I had a way to keep the entire thing as a hat. (also, it flattens for travel or storage, which is also really nice.)

Once all of the fabric was on, I could start adding the ornamentation. I got a handful of beads, and also raided my bead stash, finding a few real rubies and sapphires to really push the whole thing up to luxurious levels. I also took a shortcut in finding a feather, and purchased a feather floral pick, which had a strong wire and a grouping of feathers in colours I wanted. It’s not quite like a true aigrette in that it could be removed for later, but for getting the look done, it was perfect. One of the things I did was cut down the wire to the pick (please do this with caution and make sure that the wire cutters you’re using are rated for the gauge of wire you’re cutting) and then made a loop at the end with my jewellery making pliers so that I wouldn’t get poked when I wore it. I used long stitches to make sure the feathers were attached. The other thing I wanted to do was to find a way to attach a strand of pearls on the inside because I didn’t have time to complete a braidcase (also my cat was emphatically not helping on cutting that out).

Beading requires thin needles. Unfortunately, the ones I had were thin and short, but I made do with these. With the plastic canvas, I had to be very careful with how I sewed the beads in, because if I went too deep, I’d be sewing through the canvas. If I went too shallow, I ran the risk of the beads not staying put. The hardest part was stringing the seed beads on and sewing them down. That said, I was very pleased to find a pendant that would be a good focal (and if I wanted to add to it, I could, thanks to the lace-like structure of the pendant. I took the jump ring off of it and started to sew it down, and then made frames of seed beads and the rubies and sapphires around it. I was also experimenting with a technique where I used granulated gold spacers and sewed them in with a seed bead to give a daisy-like appearance. (I need to sew more of these on, but I’ve had other projects that have taken my time).

As a court baron, I also wanted my taj to do double duty, so I also found six pearl floral pins (these are looooong), added a larger pearl bead, and then stuck those into hat in between the back lining and the plastic. Saving the rubber stoppers was good, because these were a great way to attach the pearls to the hat while also making sure I wasn’t going to get poked when I wore it.

I took a little bit of wire and created loops to hang a pearl strand from, since I didn’t have a braid case done. The loops were sewn down behind the hat, and then I created a strand with little hooks that would stick into those loops so it could be removed (like, when I get my act together and get the braid case done).

The final hat came together pretty well. I still have to finish the braid case (I cut it out too short, so I get to add some more length to it), but the taj itself (modeled by my very patient cat) turned out pretty well, and the colour harmonies worked in a way I was happy with, and it fit the general aesthetic of the Purple Persian. (Normally, I’d do something that has a bit more colour, but also, it’s the Purple Persian, so.)

Wearing it with two veils (pashminas, really) that were pinned into a block-printed fabric napkin from World Market (who knew?!), and I had a fully realized Persian outfit that was comfortable and done by spending less than $50 on supplies because I had a lot of the items in my stash already. Accessories really do make the outfit.