How to make your own hat

This week  I had  the opportunity to participate in a course on hat making. The course was lead by swedish milliner Marlene Feldtblad and it was amazing.

I was very lucky because I had the chance to participate  in 2 different activities.

The first day Marlene showed us how to make a pillbox hat. The base is a special fabric that must be wet in order to be shaped and manipulated.

When the desired shape is done, you have to let it dry. Once it is dry and hard you can cover it the way you want and using any kind of material you wish.

Our atelier was focused on how to drape with fabric. It seems very easy and simple but it’s not!.
For my pillbox I chose a mauve silk fabric and I pleated it in a simple way. The last step would be to add some fabric flower, pearls or feathers, depending on the taste.

My pillbox hat is still not completely dressed but I think you can get an idea of how it would look like. I find it very 50’s, I love it!

The second day we learnt how to make hair decorations with banana fiber. Banana fiber is an amazing material. In order to be handled it has to be a bit moist and once dry it keeps the shape you had sculpted with your fingers. You can find it in a enormous variety of colors.

To get a cool hair decoration you can combine the banana fiber (used as the base) with other kinds of decoration. Pearls, normal fabric, other pieces of banana fiber in different colors, feathers or any other material you can imagine! Here’s what I did:

Check out Marlene’s blog to find some more examples of what we did with the banana fiber. Some of my colleges were really good at it.

If you have the chance to attempt some kind of hat atelier, I highly recommend you to do it. The choice of materials and the possibilities to combine them are endless.

This  is a great way to complement your outfit as well as to learn more about other materials that one can apply for sewing.