Ostrich Feathers

So in yesterdays Haaauuuulllll! post you saw the Nandu Ostrich feathers that I got. One each in Yellow, Red, Pink and two in Black.
Well yesterday afternoon I started stripping them down to retrieve the spines to use to decorate some of my hats.

 

I started with the yellow one and began peeling the fronds back from near the base of the quill. Simply pinching a few fronds at a time firmly between my thumb and forefinger and pulling downwards towards the base of the feather.

Right up to the tip working on parts of each side at a time.

You can see how the spine is beginning to naturally curl on its own as the fronds have been stripped away.

Taking my big barrel curling tongs and whacking the temperature right up to max I gripped the tip under the gripper lever and gently and slowly eased the spine around the tongs allowing the heat to penetrate the body of the quill to soften it to stop any nasty kinks appearing.

I then trimmed it to fit the hat from the base end and placed it into the felt flower decoration on the hat and stitched it down from underneath.