Wednesday, November 15, 2006

How to make the hat ornament

Here are directions on making the hat ornament pictured in my previous post:

Materials:
Strong Cardboard for Brim
Fabric to cover crown and brim**
Felt for back of ornament
2 1/2 inch styrafoam ball
7-8" ribbon for hanging
~8" braid or trim to go around the crown
~14" trim to go around the brim
seed beads
wire
decorative button
bias cut ribbon for bow

**You want to choose fabric that is not too too thin, or the texture of the styrafoam will show through it. But not too thick either, since it has to be gathered up tightly. I used silk.

For the Crown of the hat:
Cut the styrafoam ball in half. (A serrated edge works best for this)
Cut your fabric into a 5 1/4" circle (to cover the styrafoam).
Take a gathering stitch around this circle, about a quarter of an inch from the edge.
Place the half-ball inside it and gather up the circle. You will have to adjust the gathers to minimize folds in the fabric near the cut edge of the ball. I then take stitches back and forth across the back of the ball to make the fabric nice and taut (see pic below). This is key to getting a good final project.


You can see I've gathered the fabric and have started going around the circle and catching those areas that need a little tightening. I do this same thing on the circle that's gathered around the cardboard brim, in the directions below.














For the Brim of the hat:

Cut your cardboard into a 4 1/2" circle.
Cut your fabric into a 6 3/4" circle (to cover the cardboard).
Take a gathering stitch around this circle, about a quarter of an inch from the edge.
Place the cardboard circle inside it and gather up the circle. You will have to adjust the gathers to minimize folds in the fabric near the edge of the circle. I then take stitches back and forth across the back of the cardboard to make the fabric nice and taut. This makes the hat look very good when done.

Assembly:
Glue the covered half-ball onto the covered circle. (I used a glue gun)
Glue or stitch trim around the edge of the brim.
Glue braid around the edge of the crown - you need to use braid wide enough to hide the gap between the brim and the crown where the two meet.
I made 2 loops of beads on wire, like a bow.
Glue on feathers, beaded loops, bias ribbon and button.
Cut the felt into a 4 1/8" circle.
Sandwich the hanging ribbon between the back of the brim and the felt circle and glue.
You are done with your gorgeous hat!
Enjoy....

P.S. I made about a dozen of these, so I made cardboard templates for all the circles I needed.

3 comments:

Susan said...

These directions are very clear. Thank you!

Gerry said...

Oh gosh, thank you so much for the tutorial. And so much more simple than I imagined. That's a good thing for me lately! LOL

Candi said...

I love your heart and your tutorial is great! Can't wait to try one!
HUGZ:)
Candi