Friday, June 22, 2012

18th century straw hat

One of my favorite parts of my 18th century costume wash hat! It's a style I love, with the low crown and wide brim turned up in the back. I made mine using one of the blanks from JAS Townsend, and though I don't I made it period correct, I was super happy with how easily I modified and embellished it.


The first thing I did was cut down the width, which was excessive even in comparison to my hair ;) I did this slowly and carefully, by using a razor blade to cut away the stitching keeping the rows together and working around the circle till I had reduced the circumference to a more reasonable measure. Then I just used E6000 glue to hold the raw edge down and from fraying, dries clear and adheres to just about everything really well.



Next I set the back curve up of the brim. This took a little fussing to get the right amount of curve, not too much and not too little ;) to hold the curve I used twist ties!! I know a terrible cheat, but by chance I had in those tan colored twist ties and pushed one through the brim near the middle and another closer to the crown and just twisted them together to hold the curve up. This was actually nifty as it was adjustable :)



Then just the ribbon band around the crown with ties to hold the hat on behind my hair and a little bow and cockade ish decoration to hide the twist ties :)


The whole thing had almost no sewing, just a bit for the ribbons. And it was fun to put together and even more fun to wear :)


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