The final part of my outfit…
You can’t play golf without a hat and my pale green baseball cap (although the right colour) just wasn’t going to work, so I decided I needed to make a hat. No, I have never made a hat before and don’t have a hat block to work on. This was not going to be easy!
This is a sports style hat from 1930 with a short brim. This one was an instant download PDF – I think if this had been a draft at home I think I might have stalled!
I decided to make the outside of the hat using the linen leftover from the skirt and lined with the voile leftover from the blouse.
I lost count of how many muslins I made of this. the first version was too small (and I didn’t think I had a big head!), but looking at some of the first versions, the crown was the right depth.
I just could not get the top of the hat to work, it’s still sitting too high and so I have lots of wrinkles around the top of the crown. The brim is not right, once I’d reworked the crown, I couldn’t seem to get the brim to work with the pleats, so they’re not there which would affect the shape of it, but hey, it looks quite cute folded back at the front!
The instructions for this were incredibly wordy and took a bit of following. Very unlike a vintage pattern. I ended up making the outside of the crown, attaching the lining for that. Then I made up the brim (I interfaced the outer fabric of the brim). The brim was attached and to cover up the raw edge, I attached some bias binding on the inside. And finished off with a couple of labels.
The deets
Fabric: Duck egg blue linen from The Fine Cloth Company and navy cotton voile from The Fabric Warehouse (as per previous two posts)
Notions: Thread and interfacing. Oh and a label from KATM.
Pattern: Mrs Depew Vintage 3064 1930s sports hat
Changes made: I didn’t really make many changes, but had difficulty fitting the crown, which ended up with a few changes to try to fit.
Another one/recommendations: No there won’t be another one, but definitely worth considering if you have the patience to fit the hat, or you have a hat block.
Self-drafted belt
My blouse really needed a belt and I wouldn’t have found one to match, so I had to make one. I’ve never made a belt before either, but hoped this wouldn’t be so fraught as the hat! A friend gave me a belt-making kit, but it was way too small and I decided it wouldn’t work in the way I wanted it to, so I went on the hunt for some heavyweight interfacing to use. I also needed a buckle.
In the end I found the interfacing in Spotlight. The buckle I actually bought from an antique shop in town here in Napier. I bought two, one had the central doodacky which would have meant I’d need to put eyelets in my belt. I wasn’t up to sewing with hammers (time was getting short), so I decided to use the simple buckle.
The belt was actually relatively easy. I made the free end completely square to save trying to deal with points. I used the same fabric back and front, so I can pull the fabric back through the buckle to keep it tied, since there are no holes or anything. I did consider adding snap fasteners to keep it tied, but my waist seems to fluctuate so much I decided they might look messy. The free end was just finished and folded through the buckle and stitched down. I had to finish it with a label. 🙂
The deets
Fabric: Duck egg blue linen from The Fine Cloth Company.
Notions: Buckle from Napier Antiques Centre, interfacing from Spotlight and one of my own labels.
Pattern: Self-drafted
Another one/recommendations: Happy how this worked out. As long as I can get hold of buckles, I’d be happy to make more belts. It was quick and easy to make up.
Nikki's Stitches 