When I made the burgundy doublet I had visions of a matching hat to go with it. However, I barely had enough material to make the doublet, and certainly not an additional hat. So I kept my eyes open for some more fabric in a similar shade. When I stumbled across this fabric last year I knew that I was on the right track. Today I was in the mood for a quick and easy project, so I decided to knock out the hat.
The fabric was tricky to work with for 2 reasons. First of all, I repurposed it from some sort of table runner, which meant that the edges had all been hemmed. However, the hemming took off about 3 inches from each side. That's a lot of fabric to lose, so I spent the better part of 40 minutes pulling out stitches. The second trick to this fabric is that it was extremely thin and slippery. I'm used to working with cottons, but those are much easier to handle. Cutting out the three pieces wasn't so bad, but keeping just one lined up with the interfacing was tricky. By time I ironed it down my circle had distorted into an oval. I also quickly realized that interfacing a second piece would only make things worse when neither matched the other.
From there assembly went so smoothly that I didn't have time to stop for pictures. To finish the hat I opted to add some bias tape around the seam inside the hat and seal away the raw edges. I thought that I had a package of plain bias tape in my stash, however, all I could find was a short length of light green tape. By happenstance it was about 2 inches longer than what I needed for this project, so I'm glad it found a good project.
The stitching and gathering aren't perfect, but from a reasonable distance that's not noticeable. On the mannequin you can see the bias contrast, but it disappears on heads with hair. It's nice to accomplish the occasional speed project.
Hat worn by my mannequin
Interior of hat
Remaining scrap of bias tape.
Completed: March 2023
Challenge: n/a
Material: 1/2 yard Polyester
Pattern: Margo Anderson Round Hat
Year: 1600s-ish
Notions: Thread, fusible interfacing, bias tape
How historically accurate is it? Not very. It's a decent shape from a distance, but the materials are too floppy and shiny to pass for anything authentic. It's more theatrical than historical.
Hours to complete: 2 hours sewing, plus 40v minutes prepping the fabric (pulling out stitches and ironing).
First worn: TBD, probably a Renaissance Faire
Total cost: well I bought 5 yards of this fabric as part of a grab bag last year, so the fabric probably ran me about $3. That means I used about 30 cents worth of fabric, and everything else was in the stash.