Edwardian-Inspired Doll Hats
This is cross-posted from my DoA thread for those of you who don’t use that site!
I really like the big, old-fashioned lady's hats with all the ruffles, bows, ribbons, and flowers, sort of like these (particularly #6 and #3), so I decided to try making one! I loosely followed this tutorial for 1/12 scale hats, except of course some things have to be changed for 1/4. I measured out my own pattern pieces. I am an absolute beginner myself when it comes to hatmaking and am mostly following someone else's guidelines. This is my first time making a hat (for dolls or otherwise). ☆ PREP: MATERIALS USED─── ⋆⋅☆ - secondhand fabric (satin, cotton) - secondhand accessories (lace, fabric rose, plastic pearls) - cardstock - hot glue - needle & thread This was intended to be a no-sew project, but halfway through I realized I needed something to line the inside of the main hat body, so I ended up sewing up a quick cotton lining.
☆ PREP: PLANNING THINGS OUT─── ⋆⋅☆ I started by sketching out my rough idea for the hat design; a simple hat with some lace, flowers, and beads, based on the materials I had available. I tried to visualize the structure to help me understand the pattern shapes I'd need to make.
Next up was making the pattern -- which took a little math but was still pretty easy. I had to make a circle freehand, so I used a ruler to make sort-of-equal lines to guide me. I measured an approximate distance for the brim on my doll's head, and the width of the hat inner hole / outer top, then used those measurements to make the pattern pieces.
I cut them out for testing and I ended up needing to redo them a few times.
Afterwards, I made a "final test copy" from cardstock and taped it together loosely to see how the scale looked on my doll, and to try out some accessory placements.
The main body ended up being too tall, so I took the cardstock model apart and trimmed it before moving on. ☆ WORKING ON THE ACTUAL HAT─── ⋆⋅☆ Now that I had a base out of cardstock, I moved on to gluing the fabric onto the main pieces. I was using this pretty blue fabric!
I mostly did this on my own, but after looking at the tutorial again I realized I basically did the same thing as them. I used hot glue for this process -- while it was drying I pushed it down with my fingers to keep it flat and to help keep things flush together.
Now that I had the main body pieces done, they looked like this:
At this point I realized I was going to need to find a way to line these pieces, or else you'd be able to see the glue-y parts underneath. I decided to make a second brim, cover it in fabric, and add lace to it, so I could glue the "bad" sides of both brims together to both hide the glue and add lace cleanly.
I also made a little lace bow out of the extra lace I had left over.
Next, I glued all the main pieces together. First the hat top and the side strip, and then the main brim to the little top-sidepiece combo.
This is when I stopped to sew the cotton inner lining and glued it inside, so I could later sandwich the sticking-out ends in between the "bad sides" of the two brim pieces.
Then I glued on the bottom brim piece, and the main piece was complete!
☆ ACCESSORIZING AND TRYING IT ON─── ⋆⋅☆ Finally, I placed on the beads, lace bow, and fabric flower, and glued them into place.
I think it came out surprisingly cute!
I tried it on my doll after, but it was a bit hard to get it to stay still and not fall off. It's likely because the head hole in the hat is a bit too small.
I was only able to get it to stay on a flat angle, but I intended it to be tilted a bit. I think it looks a bit silly flat, but I can't think of a way to fix it
Overall I think it came out really well, even if the fit isn't 100%. I'm definitely going to try making more hats in the future. I'd like to try a top hat, or a leather hat, maybe.
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