Millinery Yo!

OK, maybe actual millinery is a bit of a stretch, but you guys! I made a HAT! Want to see?

(yeesh the mirror is grubby. I'm going to blame monkeys. Rampaging monkeys. Who use a lot of hairspray? Yep. those ones.)

So, I've been thinking about making a hat for ages (since last Dapper Hat Day actually). I decided that if I was going to give it a go I should do it NOW, so I could wear the sucker for DHD if it went well (or pitch it and never discuss it again if it went badly).

I used this pattern from Martha


And as I'm not a tiny cherubic child, I blew the pattern up to 275% then hacked it about a bit. I used a few sheets of dirt cheap recycled plastic felt. And I made a muslin first. Want to see it?

Pretty hot huh? It's kind of, fleshy coloured. And my sweetie declared "YOU made a PECKER hat!" uh huh. I kind of did. Then I put ears on it. OK. Moving swiftly on...

Once I was happy with the basic shape of the muslin I took it apart, cut out the "real" felt, then pieced that together. I didn't bother with the zigzag stitch like Ms. S suggests. My hat has an inside and an outside. When that was done I simply tucked the raw edges of the hat under and top-stitched them. The I whacked a few decorative leaves on it and called it a night.

To recap:
One free pattern (I didn't even bother to print it, just traced it off the screen - lazy like)
+
about $2 worth of felt sheets
+
an hour
=
One kind of cute cloche hat*

For any actual milliners out there who are tutting and head shaking, I know that this isn't the real deal, but I learned HEAPS just by doing this. When I remake this hat, (which I totally will, they're kind of like crack) I will be using real wool felt. And I think I'll maybe interface it with woven interfacing to stabilise it. Maybe bang some grosgrain ribbon around the bottom on the inside? Any other hints would be awesome.

*and a creepy picture of me in a pig/penis hat on the internets for all the world to see. Bargain!