Hat Making 101

Hello again!

On tuesday of this week, we had a guest presenter come in and give a demonstration on how to make hats! It was only a 3 hour class but we learned a lot. Millinery is a neat hobby and could become a neat accessory line to any clothing line I one day hope to produce! Hat making might be a summer project of mine....!

To start out the presenter gave each of us a wooden head to start molding our extremely stiff interfacing to. Before we could star molding, he made each of us draw the hat we wanted to make on a piece of paper so he could approve if it would work or not. I was drawing full hats, that sit completely around a persons head. Turns out we were only making little fascinator hats, like Cate Middleton wears. So I had to revamp and I decided to make a three pointed hat.

Wooden head, sponge and stiff interfacing.

Drawing?? My pencil wasn't very sharp which is why this lady looks like she does drugs.....

Once he approved our drawings, we took this extremely stiff interfacing and wet it down with a sponge to start stretching it over the wooden mannequin. From here, we had to nail little nails into the mannequin to hold the interfacing in place and then iron to stiffen it.

The nails can be seen at the base of the head.

When it was dry from ironing we were to draw the shape we wanted.

The drawn shape and taking the nails out!

After drawing and trying to make straight lines, I then cut out the interfacing.

Finished hat shape!

Cutting out the interfacing.

From here, I had to sew a bound wire around the edge of the interfacing to help the hat take and hold shape.

Sewing the wire on.

When the sewing was complete I then had to iron a thin lining around the outside of the edges to prevent fraying and sharp edges.

Turns out we were supposed to bring our own fabric...no one told us so I had to run home to get mine and only one other girl had fabric with her. I wanted to use a light blue fabric but it was too transparent and I had to glue a navy blue fabric to the hat structure first as my base color. When the glue was dry I began ironing and shaping the light blue fabric to handstitch onto the hat.

Then the class ended and we had to hurry off to work backstage at a fashion show and now I need to finish hand stitching my hat before our next hat making class. We have one more session for making hats and we will be adding the beading and feathers to complete the hat! Hat making is challenging but definitely a neat hobby that I hope to learn more about! When I have pictures, or find out when our next hat making session is, I will post more pictures!

Miss you all!

Love you!