Only One Pattern Piece....

I decided to give you directions for the easiest hat that I have come up with yet.  If you want me to keep going with more complicated ones, just yell.

This is the only pattern piece that you need.  You will notice that the center hole is just a smidgen off center.  The narrower part goes to the back. 

You will cut one of these, plus a square of your material between two and three inches. I use a pencil to trace it.  The edges are going to be covered with trim and the pencil marks can be covered.

I use hardanger, congress cloth or Aida for this. They have some natural stiffness to begin with and when you add the hair spray, they are very stiff.  I can't recommend regular dress fabric.  I don't think that it would hold the shape or be stiff enough in the end.

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The form for the crown of the hat is a 3/4 diameter wooden ball that you can buy at Michael's or other craft stores.  Look in the craft wood section.

It has a small flat spot on one side and I glued that to a 1/2" dowel piece, long enough to hold.  About 3 to 4 inches.

First you wet the fabric, and smooth it over the ball.  Wrap a rubber band around it.

Then you shoo away the cat and pull down on the fabric.  First on the corners and then on the straight of goods.

It should look like the photo to the left.  No longer wrinkled.

Notice that the rubber band is almost to the bottom of the ball. 

See the hat at the side?  That one is made of congress cloth.  You only use about half of the cloth stretched on the ball, but you have to make it longer because you are going to want an area to glue the brim to.

When you have it the way that you want it, spray it and the brim piece with extra hold, unscented hairspray.  A couple of coats.

When everything is dry, take the brim piece and gently pull it down over the crown(still on the form).

When you get it where you want it, use a glue syringe or a toothpick to put some glue between the brim and the crown of the hat all the way around. You can spritz it again with hairspray if you want to.

Let it dry thoroughly!.  Then roll the rubber band down the dowel and ease the hat off by the edges of the crown. Not the brim.

When you get it off, simply turn the hat over and cut off the extra crown fabric.  Be sure that there is glue all around as you go and leave just a little of the crown material on the edge.

Now go forth and decorate it to suit your fancy.  Do trim the edge of the brim and the place where the brim meets the crown on the outside.

The hat on the left is congress cloth and I need to find a pair of small, sharp scissors and do some more trimming on the crown edge.  The one on the right is Aida cloth and was just trimmed and then rubbed with glue.

I have to go back to work now.  I finished 11 hats yesterday. 

Tessie announced, when I was finished, "Either you need to make bigger hats or you have to make my bun smaller!  I can just barely wear these and they are mighty uncomfortable!".

Here I thought that she was going to sell them and make lots of money.  Nope. 

I think that a new hairdo is much easier than remaking 11 hats.  I am off to pull Tessie's hair now. It's called getting even.  I wonder how she would look in pigtails? 

See you tomorrow...