Finished Steampunk Hat! (aka Hat Porn)

The completed hat frame, from the bottom. Most of the brim and the crown were reinforced with some Pellon.

Starting to cover the hat with some gray satin.

Close up of some of the stitching

The crown is covered!

The underneath of the brim, covered with a pleated piece of plaid taffeta.

The back of the brim (the un-reinforced section) will be turned up when I'm done.

The covered hat!

The covered hat with the brim flipped up

Layers of trim were added to the top brim -- silver lace, black lace, black ribbon, red ribbon and some braid...

The same braid that was added the underneath of the brim to cover the edges of the satin

Please excuse the sideways photo, but here's the completed hat with lace, ribbon tails, a few fabric flowers and some feathers.

And a close up of the finished hat. The big flower has a button and a gear holding it in place

Making a Hat Frame

I've been contemplating making a new hat for my new silver and black steampunk suit (I need to think of a name for it...) so last night I sat down with some cardboard, buckram and other supplies to start working on building a hat frame.

I realize now that pictures would have been helpful...

Step one was to use my seam gauge and a marker to draw a circle that was about 11 inches in circumference onto some cardboard. Which I cut out and tried on to make sure I liked the size. Happy with it, the next step was to cut out the center, giving myself the pattern for a brim and a crown. Step three was to cut a strip of buckram about two inches wide for the side band, then to trace and cut out the brim and crown.

Then came the fun part - sewing together these pieces. I tried glue at first but it didn't want to hold so I just started stitching. The brim was clipped so it would attach to the side band better and I ran into some issues with the crown (it ended up being too big for the side band which I didn't realize until too late) but I think it went together well enough. I reinforced the brim with some heavy interfacing, but only in part because I plan to flip the back of the hat up. I also cut a circle of the same interfacing to reinforce the crown but it hasn't been stitched together yet.

Then I tried the hat on. I'm not entirely happy with the size of the brim, I think its a little large. My current plan is to do some research and then if necessary trim down the brim and re-stitch the interfacing and buckram together before starting the covering and decorating stage.