A Little Lavender Witch Hat

 Ever get an idea in your head and decide you're going to do it, even though you don't really have time for it? It can't really take that long, can it? Yeah. . . That's about half my sewing projects. (Go ahead, ask me how wedding sewing is going, I dare you. Actually, it's going fine. I'm pretty much on schedule. But I'm not telling anyone about the random items I've added to my list. . . they won't take that long to make. . .)

Actual footage of me reaching toward the shiny new little project that "won't take too long".

Anyways, back in January, I made this 1790's open robe. I decided to wear it to a somewhat Hogwarts themed dinner with my family. And, since I was wearing it to such a dinner, clearly I needed a witch hat to wear with it. Thus, the night before the dinner, I decided to make that witch hat.

I pulled out some fabric scraps from the open robe and some foam I had left over from the McGonagall hat I made a few years ago.  I cut a partial circle out of each, layered them together and sewed up the back seam to make a cone. I cut out a second partial circle of my fabric and sewed it up as my lining. Next, I needed to figure out a brim.

After messing around with the cone I'd just made, I came up with an idea, rather than making a separate brim and sewing it to the cone, what if I used part of the cone as the brim? After a bit more messing around I made 7 2" cuts into the base of the cone, then set the hat down on a flat surface, letting the cuts spread open until I had a nice flat "brim". I then cut some scrap foam into triangles to fill in the cuts I made. And that was as far as I made it on the hat that night. 

The following day, after a busy morning with the fiancé, I finally got started on the hat again about 2 hours before we needed to leave for the dinner. I could get it done in time! First, I sewed all the foam triangles in place with a wide zig-zag stitch.

Then came the most fiddly part if the project. I cut scraps of fabric to cover the foam triangles, and ironed the edges inward.

I pinned the triangles over the foam and top stitched them into place.

The triangles were all stitched in place about 45 minutes before we needed to leave. Perhaps I should have stopped and gotten dressed for dinner at this point, but I was going to finish this hat!

Next up I needed to finish the edge of the brim somehow. After a quick search through my bias tape collection, nothing caught my eye for the binding. I considered making bias tape from my fabric, but quickly dismissed that idea because I just didn't have time for it. A short look through my box of twill tape revealed something entirely different. Strips of green silk shantung left over from the 1780's caraco. . . 

The silk was cut on the straight of grain, rather than the bias, so it wouldn't curve nicely around the edge of the  brim, but I could get around that by pleating the strip as I sewed it on. And the green would look very nice with the lavender!

I pleated the green silk around the edge of the hat, but it wasn't quite wide enough to turn under nicely on the under side of the brim.

So, I sewed some pale pink bias tape to the edge of the green silk.

Then I folded that to the underside of the brim, pinned, and top stitched it into place.

It was 10 minutes until time to leave, and my hat was technically done, but it really could use some trimming!

I grabbed a piece of decorative twill tape from  my stash, wrapped it around the base of the hat, tied a bow in the back, and pinned the twill tape in place to keep it from moving around.

Finally, I quickly whip stitched a comb into the back of the hat to hold it on my head, and declared the hat to be ready to wear.

And with that, I threw on my open robe ensemble, brushed out my hair, (which had been braided all day in an attempt to have wavy, poofy, hair for the evening) and put on my new hat!

The comb didn't hold the hat in place quite as well as I would have liked, so I added a couple of hat pins to really keep it secure.

One happened to be an owl, which I felt was quite fitting!

And with that, we were off to dinner!

Only a little late - but that was ok! The rest of the family was running late too.

The hat was fun, lightweight, and comfortable to wear - the perfect accessory!

Something I'm sure I'll find an excuse to wear again.

The following week I took the time to fix a couple little things on the hat so it's all ready to wear again when that time comes. There were a coupe places my top stitching didn't catch the back side of the triangles the way it should have, so I added some handsewing to keep things neat.

And I took the time to actually tack the twill tape trim into place and remove the temporary pins.

So, here it is, my last minute little witch hat! A fun little time-crunch project.

Now I have plans to make a proper 1790's bonnet to go with the open robe when witch hat's aren't required. . .

. . . But that will have to wait until after the wedding. . .

. . .maybe.