Week 20 Sun Hats

I'm settled at the beach house on the lake, enjoying two weeks of holidays in one of my favourite places. It is wine country, so you can guarentee we will be enjoying some of the local vineyards. But most exciting is that the kids can play in the lake all day and I can relax on the beach and FINALLY get into my summer read. (Link here for your reading pleasure. )


 In the last few months, I've been trying to work out how to make a sun hat, just for this occasion, or for gardening, or just because everyone needs a fabulous sun hat. But I am quickly learning hats are not easy to make, or to make look good.
 I am told that my great aunt Eva was a milner and I had hoped that maybe somehow I could naturally pick it up. But after this process, I now have a new found respect for hat makers.


The fabric went through many trials and tests to add color, beginning with artichoke and ending at artificial dye. But the biggest lesson of this all was that the very purpose of a sun hat, causes a naturally dyed hats' colour to fade when worn in the sun!

I created three hats for this weeks post. Each hat is made out of an entire 1/3 of a yard of hemp, organic cotton and recycled polyester.  Each one addresses the "waste" fabric a little differently.



Hat A turned out romantic or Victorian for lack of  better description. The pattern was an adaptation of a one pattern piece, reversible sun hat, found here.  With all the little off cuts, and some additional lace, I created a large flower on the hat.


The fabric for Hat B was eventually dyed with the shibori technique.  The hat, more like a bandana, has a little bit of structure and a cute brim. This pattern was adapted from this picture.  The extra fabric was sewn on the inside of the hat to create some decorative stitches.


Hat C is sort of like a a slochy toque. This hat is a relaxed fitting bakers styled hat. The idea behind this can be seen here, as the bulk of the fabric is incorporated into the hat itself and very few off cuts needed to be added.  In this case I intentionally created a bow, but this extra fabric could also be added to the band to add stiffness or something entirely different. There are numerous possibilities, and these are just three quick concepts.





I am that I am. 



















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