Happy New Year everyone! And so starts my year of crafting! I thought that this year, the best start would be with my very first Lolita craft that I have ever done, which was making hats. Now this will not be a daily thing. Each Craft I will try to give myself a deadline of a week or two but some crafts might just end up taking longer because... well I work and people like to do this weird thing with me, "hanging out" or something... Which is weird because there is no hanging involved! :P
So, I will start with giving the list of what is needed when making your own Lolita Hat. Now I started out by just taking a black felt hat, and spray painting it gold and then decorating it, or just leaving it black. Now I put fabric on my hats (most of the time, sometimes I don't). So you can do whatever you feel comfortable with. You can either join me in customizing your hat by putting your choice of fabric on it, or you can skip that and simply add whatever trimmings you have acquired in your craft box. I like to reuse items, for example if I have a pretty necklace that I loved and it broke to the point that there was no fixing it, I may include it to one of my hat projects. You can use a really cool button, or pin that you found. Whatever you find, if you like it and you think it should go on your hat, then do it!
So lets get started on making your own hat, shall we? (But Lolita Doll 11, doesn't that defeat the purpose of you even selling hats on Etsy if you're just going to tell us how?) Hush you! You're ruining it for everyone!
Ok, now that the silly stuff is out of the way, lets go over our supply list.
You will need:
2 Mini felt doll hats, can be purchased at most craft stores. If you're looking for something a little bigger or you simply cannot find any, I would suggest ordering online from http://www.sunshinecrafts.com/ Their prices are pretty good and when I order from them it usually gets to me pretty fast. Note: if you are skipping adding fabric, then you only need 1 hat.
OK to Wash-It fabric glue by Aleene's. Again, if you're not using fabric, do not worry about getting this.
Scissors. Fiskars are the best. End of story.
Hot Glue Gun, with glue sticks! (which reminds me, I need a new one, mine is kind of leaking in places it shouldn't leak.)
Hair clip, hair comb, or ribbon that will be used to fasten the hat to you're head. I find that with the larger hats, I need to use ribbon or some kind of tie, and I like how it looks and it makes me feel like I am back in the Victorian era, wearing a bonnet/riding hat or something :)
Trim! Ribbons, flowers, gems, pins, feathers, just about anything. I plan on taking a little fake bird from Joanns and putting it on my hat some day, maybe on this hat!
Now, I do not have any pictures ready just yet, so tomorrow after work I will come home and get started on my hat and take pictures so everyone can get a good idea of what I am doing and how you're project is supposed to be going. Until then, hopefully my directions will be clear enough :)
Step one.
Take one of your felt hats and scissor. Start off by cutting the brim of your hat. Yes, your going to cut your hat into pieces. After you cut the brim off, make a slit up the side, to the top of the hat. Good, now cut the rest of the body of the hat off from the very top of the hat, keeping the top of the hat's circular/oval shape. So now you have a bunch of hat pieces, right? This is going to be the outline for the fabric you will cut for your hat. The best part about this is that after you have cut this one hat up, you don't have to cut another one up, just keep the pieces and you can make more in the future!
Step two.
After you have chosen your fabric, take the pieces of your cut up hat and proceed to cut your fabric. Now, depending on your fabric choice you might have to tweak how your cutting. With the middle, or body of the hat, I give it some extra because we will be folding over the top and bottom of this piece of fabric (that goes for all kinds of fabric, not just stretchy). Now for the brim, I cut two pieces. One for the top and one for the bottom. You don't have to do both, its just what I like to do.With fabrics that have more give then others I make the hole on the inside of the top brim smaller, where the bottom piece the opening will be normal size. The brim on the bottom will be wider than the top piece. (Hopefully I haven't lost you yet!)
Step three.
Its now time to bring out your fabric glue. I start with the brim first. You don't have to, but I think it looks better this way for me. Take your uncut hat and smear the fabric glue around on the brim. I also like to let the glue sit on the hat so that it can get nice and tacky for when I put the fabric on. Slip the top cover of the brim over the hat and smooth it over the brim, and fold over the extra piece of fabric to the other side of the brim and glue it down. Some of the glue might seep through the fabric, don't worry because the glue dries clear. After you have secured your fabric over the brim, again let the hat sit for a while. This process can be a bit long and tedious, but it is well worth the wait and effort. After your feel that the glue has dried enough I like to then put the very top piece onto the hat, again smearing the glue on top and them smooth over the fabric. The middle, or body of the hat should be the only thing left to be covered (except for the bottom of the brim of course). Take your fabric and glue and put glue on the top and bottom edge of the fabric. Now fold it over so that it looks like you have a clean hem. After the glue has dried enough on the fabric it is time to go ahead and glue on the middle of the hat. Your going to wrap the fabric around the hat, making sure that the folded sides are facing into the hat. One side will over lap the other, this is normal. This is where I like to do another fold and glue it down, making it appear that there is a seam going up the side of the hat. Now, if you want to, you can take the bottom brim fabric and just like we did with the edges of the middle piece, we will do the same to the bottom of the brim piece (I have a feeling pictures are going to make this much easier to understand, and a video which I will try to do soon). Again, this gives the hat a clean look once you glue the bottom piece. You now have a fully fabric covered hat!
Step four.
This is where it gets easier, or at least it should be easier. Before you plug in your glue gun, play around with your trim a bit, find what looks better with what. After you have an idea of what you want your hat to look like your ready to start gluing! Before anything, I like to glue down my ribbon/band around my hat. After that I will add a bow, flowers, or a pendent to go on the front of my hat. After I have finished with my gluing, sometimes I will add a string of beading onto the hat if I feel that it needs it.
Step five.
I always add my hair clip or ribbon at the end, again you don't have to go by this example completely, its just how I like to do it. If you're using a hair clip, I like to make sure that the clip is about the same width as the hat because the hat will have better supported on your head. I place the clip right in the middle and use the hot glue gun to glue each end of the clip to my hat. With ribbons you can either sew them in, or glue them. Its going to be faster and easier to glue, but with sewing you might feel more at ease about how tight you tie your hat on to your head.
And now you have your very own Lolita hat! I hope that this was informative and helpful. I'll be adding the photos tomorrow (still today, just tomorrow for me since I have not slept yet) since that is when I will be working on my hat! Goodnight everyone and have a wonderful New Year!
-Lolita Doll 11
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