Hat - Part 3

Well, we are at step 19:  The fun part!  Embellish.  Figure out how you are going to decorate the hat.  If you hand stitch you can later remove decorations and re-do your embellishment, voila! a new hat!

You can add all kinds of stuff, depending on the era.  Bring out fancy belt buckles, old jewelry, maybe pearls, silk flowers, lace netting ribbon, birds, or just feathers.......

Bring out the little pieces of fancy cording, lace.....

You can do just the top of the brim or bottom too.

 I know, we haven't finished the lining of the hat top.  Some of your embellishment may require finishing it after the embellishment so figure if that is true for your hat.  By the way, the bands around the top sides on the outside will be one of the last steps.

 Old jewelry like this brooch can be added.

Grandma Eberly's brooch given to her by her daughter, Edna.

Here are some other hats I've made to maybe give you some ideas.

I had totally forgotten I had this hat, now I have a skirt to go with it!

Side view:  I need to trim that ribbon in the front!

I made this green hat years ago and get lots of compliments on it.  It is rather simple with 2 peacock feathers and a pulled up and folded brim.  Ardenwood had peacocks over a hundred years ago so the peacock feathers honor them and the ones we have on the farm today.

My daughter gave me this hat.....And now I can wear it with my new skirt too.

This was my first hat I made.  The brim is really flat with no padding, I added netting on top to give it some dimension.  The feathers are egret feather, common birds around the San Francisco bay.  I found these feathers in the grass on a walk one day......I guess the egret was hot that day and took his feathers off.  Well, I like to think that is what happened.  The egret was close to extinction in the Victorian era because so many were killed just for the beautiful male mating feathers to decorate all those hats.  Lucky for us we have plenty of egrets now.















I made this one quite a few years ago too.  I had a copper colored dress and it went very nicely with it.  It too has too thin of a brim and if I was to do over would pad it on both sides with felt.  I would also maybe put some netting under the crushed velvet to lift up the folds a bit.  The feathers were given to me by my son-in-law honoring one of the pheasants he got. 

Side view.

 
It takes a lot of guts for me to wear this one......reminds me of something the dowager in Downton Abbey would wear.... But it is hard for me to carry it off.  It seems so BIG and HIGH.  And SO overdone with the stuff on top. But, people love to see it and compliment me on it.  I think it is because it is different shape and almost all our hats are the same shape... Well, not much is handmade nowdays.

This one I started last year and haven't quite finished.  It takes after the green one above but needs it's big button added to the fold and maybe a couple ostrich feathers.

It will take a bit for me to think about just what I want to do for my new hat.  I think I will take my shantung that I made the body of and use the back or shiny side for some ribbon-like embellishment.