Hats Off To You!

My usual hat of choice in the heat is a baseball cap but sometimes something a little more girly is called for and this is where the gap is in my wardrobe.  You see, actually, I am not a hat person at all!  I do however suffer from migraines and a lack of a hat and the heat tend to be a migraines worst nightmare.

Vogue 7600, has been in my pattern collection for over a year but other more attention grabbing patterns have always got in the way of my making it.  Not this year however!  Right before Christmas my hat making went from want to actual need and I bit the bullet and dug out some suitable fabric and got to work.  I had a large piece of black light weight non stretch denim in my stash left over from a pair of jeans I made early on in my blogging.

I chose view A with the flat top and large brim.  Given my denim was a little boring I lined the hat crown with some lovely black and white floral cotton duck to add a little interest.  Okay, when worn, it wouldn't be seen but I knew it was there!  

Initially, I was keen to work with fabrics and notions I already have so proceeded to make the hat with some medium weight iron on interfacing.  I opted to add the interfacing to both sides of the brim and the crown.  Part way through though it quickly became apparent that a brim of this weight required a heavier solution, so a quick trip to Lincraft was in order.

With my now much heavier interfacing, I proceeded to undo most of the work I had already done (don't you hate that), and recreated my hat with heavier structure.  I removed a couple of centimetres of width in the brim because it sat a little low around my neck.  I then added a removable band in the same fabric as my lining, just to give the hat a little more interest.

The resulting hat is now a perfect fit.  It is still something that languishes in my wardrobe for the most part unworn, due to my hat aversion, but when I do require a girly hat, I now have just the thing and a hat I actually like!