Hats with Peachy

Peachy wearing a straw boater I made last summer. I bought a regular old sunhat from work for $3 (it had some hideous trim hot glued to it - yeuch!) and then reshaped the crown, brim, and sewed on a hatband. 

The lovely thing about straw is that with a bit of steam/hot water you can basically get it to do whatever you want. I made a rough hat form (a thin strip of scrap metal my dad picked up, bent into an oval the size of my head and covered in plastic) and then steamed and stretched the crown over it and let it dry with a weight in the middle to keep the top flat. I also shortened the crown at the same time and unraveled/trimmed the brim when it was dry. The hatband is a piece of ribbon sewed on (no gluing hats!!)

I was going to sew a little button on the bow (I found an awesome button with Humphrey Bogart's face on it, and one with Bela Lugosi as Dracula!) but eh, I really don't wear this hat enough to make it fancy. It makes me look like Asian Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables is actually super popular in Japan, apparently). But sometimes you just gotta protect your head from the sun, especially if you don't have very much hair. So until I finish my new summer hat project (crocheting a cloche out of raffia - a much more flattering shape for me) this is what I got :)

Peachy, my model, is older than I am (she was given to me before I was born) and I can't remember a time before I lost all her clothes. Now that I have skills I really should make her some...

Until next time!