Hattitude...

The final fit in the Grat Hat Saga!

This bit was all hand finished, and was some of the hardest part of the hat.  This was mostly because the hat is very stiff and the fabrics are thick, and in places I was stitching through glue as well!  

The top of the hat was cut in brown hessian buckram and laminated to some fusible tailor's canvas.  This was to give the top a smooth finish rather than to add more stiffness.  Then it was covered in red Barathea.  The Barathea is real Hainsworth's 100% finest wool worsted barathea as used in post British Army uniforms.  it's very fine stuff and worked a treat.

     

The Barathea is held down on the underside with Steam-A-Seam 2.  This was more sensible than trying to keep it in place with pins while the lining was stitched in, or trying to sew it to the buckram.  

   

The lining was cut with one oval of bump curtain interlining (the same as was used in Vicky's hat), and a covering of the white twill.  A 4" wide strip of the bump was cut for inside the hat, with a slightly longer and wider covering in twill.  The coverings were pinned in place and into the hat and onto the underside of the top.  They were then hand stitched in place.  

    

      

Stab stitch round the peak and a sort of whipstitch the rest of the way...  The stab stitch went through the lining, the bump, the peak tabs, the glue, the buckram brim, the blue Melton and the gold braid.  It was quite tough to do!  

It was sewn in with a slip stitch round the top.  The hat top was also slip stitched, except it looked more like a hem stitch!  that was because this stuff is so stiff: like sewing plate armour!  

   

The next thing I did was put the braid motif on the top.  I didn't have any Russia braid in the right colour, so I used some of the same narrow braid as went round the coat collar and cuffs and round the peak.  I folded it in half down the middle to use here.  

   

The stitching was done with a specially bent needle!  

   

The next thing was to pin and baste the gold piping round the top of the hat.                      

   

And then the top can be stitched to the rest of the hat!  This was quite tricky, but worked well in the end.  I used red silk thread (some Gutterman: not my favorite, but it was the correct colour!).  The stitches through the blue cloth had to be small and then were drawn up under the gold piping so they didn't show.  

   

This needle didn't get bent deliberately...                   

    

The final bit was putting the hat band in the inside.  This was some of the most awkward stitching to do, especially round the peak.

Done!  

Some close-ups of more bits of braid:

    

And the final completed hat!  

    

Thing I would do differently next time:

Make the peak a bit squarer on the front edge

Use Russia braid and machine stitch it on the crown before lining  

Wrap the fabric round the bottom of the hat sides as well as the top, for a neater, more comfortable finish 


OK, another hat done in the series of hats I don't make really...  Actually, this was at least as much fun as the others.