: : :My New Hat: : :

lining

 Three things in the fashion world make me very happy--boleros, scarves, and hats! When I saw Vogue 8405, I knew I had to give this pattern a whirl.

I made view C, size small, in off-white linen. I did not use hair canvas for the interfacing, but just went with heavyweight interfacing. In the end, this hat could probably use a little more stiffness, so next time I'll probably use hair canvas as the pattern envelope suggests. (between you and me...I didn't feel like going out to buy hair canvas ;)

This hat took about 4 hours to make . . . . However, I do have some gripes with this pattern. The instructions were vague and sorta lame in my opinion--you just have to kinda go by what feels right, and rely on the illustrations. Also, maybe it was just me, but on piece 8 of the pattern (the piece that is attached to the crown), it clearly states that the seam where you sew piece 8 together is the center back. In reality, the seam should actually be on the left side--and not the back. This caused me 25 minutes of scratching my head in confusion. I just went ahead and put the seam on the side, and it doesn't seem to have drastically affected anything. As other reviewers on pattern review did not mention this, it was probably an error on my part. I hope I'm making sense. lol

For the brown band, I serged up a 2" strip of chocolate brown linen (instead of ribbon) and just folded it so the serging didn't show. The finished band ended up being a little over an inch wide. What makes this hat fun is that you can change the band anytime with minor effort to get a completely new look.

Anyway, other than some minor confusion about where the center back was on piece 8, this was a pretty easy hat that came together quite nicely. I rather think I'll make it again sometime soon. :)