So the feather for this hat, instead of being a single large feather, is foam covered in feathers (mostly rooster) to match the collar. It’s large, lightweight, frugal, and fabulous! Making this hat took about 9 hours, and cost about $22.
Materials:
- 3 sheets purple craft foam
- 2 wire coat hangers
- hot glue gun
- paper towels
- 1 sheet of stiff black felt
- pack of at least 10 ostrich and 50 rooster feathers (search on ebay for these)
- Cloche hat
1) Straighten out the wire coat hangers and curl into the shape you want.
2) Using the hot glue gun, slowly glue the curled wire to the outside piece of foam. Do one wire at a time, and use plenty of glue. Angle the top ends in to make a point, and leave an inch or two of wire sticking out the bottom.
3) Glue the inside piece of foam on top, sandwiching the wire.
4) Cut off the excess foam.
5) To make the feather more three-dimensional like the cartoon version of it is, I stuffed the inside with paper towels. Easy to come by and nice and light.
6) Pick out the skinnier, fluffier feathers and glue them around the edges of the foam to hide the ugly glue parts.
7) Glue on the rest of the feathers, leaving the bottom 2 inches empty. The black felt gets glued around here, so no point in wasting feathers underneath it. I glued on the ostrich feathers first, then the larger iridescent rooster feathers, then all the small ones. Glue them on so they form a nice thick layer of feathers. (I was right by the way, it took way longer than I expected, because feathers and also possibly mostly because the hot glue gun was broken).
9) If needed, prep the cochle hat- mine had a ribbon glued on that I needed to pull off, and I had to cut off the brim so the whole thing laid flat against my head. I then cut the point in the front.
10) Decide where on the hat you want the feather to sit and cut small holes for the wires at the bottom of the feather to stick through. Bend the two pieces of wire so they face the front of the hat-this will keep the hat on and will stop it from falling backwards. Glue a third small piece of wire in the middle of the back piece of the foam and bend it facing the back of the hat-this will keep the feather from falling forward. Insert the feather into the hat and glue the wires in place. Glue the perimeter of the feather to the hat.
11) Cut out two pieces of the stiff black foam and glue the edges on the hat. Don’t glue the bottom completely against the foam, have it on an angle so the feather appears more to blend in with the hat.
12) Cut small sets of holes in the hat to stick bobby pins through, to help pin the hat on your head. The feather is sturdy, but the hat itself is top heavy and kind of moves around a bit. You can always adjust the wire in the feather and bend it a bit to change the center of mass.
