When we last looked at our friend The Amazing Crafthat, the crown had been cut off and the brim shaped into a lovely curve, using the spray-bottle method.
Now it's time to finish it up! The basic construction of this hat - capote, mob cap, whatever you want to call the thing - is rather simple.1 - I cut out a very large circle of my fashion fabric, in this case some of the yellow linen I had leftover from the robe, and ran a gathering stitch around the outside. I gathered up the circle to fit the opening in at the crown of the hat.
2 - For easy construction, I stitched the gathered crown to a piece of bias tape, using a zigzag stitch. I then attached the bias tape to the straw brim by first pinning it into place (just stick the pins through), then using a running stitch and strong upholstery thread to stitch it to the straw.
3 - The interior of the hat, where the straw brim met the fabric, needed finishing too, so calling on the power of the Glue of the Gods (hot glue gun!), I glued a piece of bias tape over the raw edge of the straw.
4 - Put the thing on and see how it looks! The crown was pretty floppy, and I could see that I was going to want to stuff it with some tulle to get it to stand up and puff out. With a little more forethought I would have flat-lined the linen with tulle, although I'm not sure how controllable the flop would be using that method. Try it and tell me!
5 - Trimmings! There is no right nor wrong way to trim a hat. For mine, I glue a wide green ribbon over the white bias tape, leaving the tails long in the back. I attached a rhinestone buckle at the front, and a couple large ostrich plumes, which I bent along the quill a bit to get them to curve nicely. This was all done with the Glue of the Gods.
For these photos, I stuffed the top of the hat with a plastic bag full of polyester fill that had been lovingly ripped out of a stuffed toy by my puppy (who sometimes appears on this blog!). It worked really well for puffing it up, and I can get an idea of how the tulle will work. And, of course, the hat must be worn with the wig on, or else it just doesn't look as smashing as it really is.
So a very simple, fun little evening project to really "top off" your costume! Have at it, ladies!
