It's a hat!

Oh my goodness, look: it's a hat!

I started cutting out the paper pattern yesterday, thinking that I would slowly do a little more, bit by bit, every so often.

I seem to have been on a roll: I made a template to cut those eight shapes out a bit quicker (it was) - and all of a sudden I had pretty much all the pieces.  I used my go-to muslin fabric: I got five meters of this material years ago for £2 a meter.  Haven't done anything with it except use it for muslins.  Oh well, that's one way of getting some use out of it.

So then I sat down and sewed them together - assembly line style, just like in quilting when you sew the patchwork elements together without leaving long tails.  That part was really quick work.

I changed the shape of the visor a bit, I didn't like that beak shape.  I have never liked it, can't see myself ever wearing it either.

I have some iron-on interacing which was great to use.  It is so stiff it's almost like plastic.  I bought it to reinforce a very droopy shoulder on my white jacket that has seen zero progress for months.  Shame.  At least I'm sewing other things.  That makes me very happy.

I still needed to cut out the lining.  I found a thinner blue fabric that is also nicely stiff and went really well with this softer coat material.  I had drawn the shapes onto the fabric with one of those wheelie chalk dispenser - first time I used it.  It was a bit stiff and I hadn't expected there to be little spikes that left dots in the surface below.  Thank goodness I used it on top of my self healing mat.  I would have been gutted if I had damaged my desk.

And while I was watching a news programme online, I found that I actually cut all the eight shapes, as if by magic.  I surprised myself there.

So today I could get stuck in: assembling the lining, cutting the two strips for the band, and then attaching all together.  That was a pain.  The hat shape was a bit too big, which was good, but I had to squash it in in places.

The visor would only bend in one direction while I wanted to use it the other way round but can't.

Next time I'll cut two much bigger pieces of fabric that I can then use on either side.  As it was I didn't catch the edge of the underside all the way around so I had to sew that down with some dense zigzag/buttonhole stitch. I'll consider that an added design feature.

The only thing is, and I know this is kind of  a biggie, - I don't actually like how this hat looks when I wear it.  It is just way too big.  It drowns me.

Because I am not keen on the Orphan Annie look, I might make this again another time, smaller and less tall.   Maybe in a black fabric, something like that?

What projects have you made that went really well but you found you weren't going to wear them?