#hat tutorial

And I also have a question!! H o w in the world do you draw cowboy hats?? Idk if you ever answered this before but I just can't get them right and I love how you draw them on your cowboy au!!

Thank you!

For hats I just draw infinity loop and add detail

!!! thank you! I have the process pictures under the “Moommnnn” highlight in my instagram (bubblyernie)

here’s the hat in question

Basically its 3 pieces of hard felt, two for the rim, one for the cone part.

It’s going to be extremely difficult to understand when i type it but ill do my best. also i made it very hands on, very little math is done. its sloppy but its also a very arts-and-crafts hat so i didnt want it to look too polished anyway:

- make the the cone first, you’ll have to do some adjusting with how tall you want it to be. Make sure the bottom part will line up with the part that goes on your head. sew this so it holds its shape. now flip it inside out so the seam is hidden

- cut out two “donut” shapes for the rim, the inner circle should have the same measurements as the bottom of the cone. You can just put the cone over a big circle of felt and trace it out if youd like, thats how i did it. Remember your seam allowance!

- take one piece of the rim and slide the cone into the part that your head will fit in. It should look like this. This is good-side to good-side. Now sew along the bottom edge so the pieces stick together. 

- cool. Take your sewn together hat, flip it inside out so the bad side is facing outwards. Take your second rim, sew it along the outer edge. What you should end up with is a hat, bad-side facing out completely

- Now take this inside out hat, flip it using the opening around where your head will go. push the edges so the seam looks nice, and if your felt isnt hard felt (i used hard felt), feel free to stick some cardboard or another support in there. Warning, it might get heavy, i wouldnt know, i didnt do that. You also cannot iron it if you put in cardboard, which i recommend (the ironing part). Now just messily sew the inside rim closed. Remember: what the audience doesnt see, doesnt exist, so be as messy or as clean as you want to with this part.

- okay now IRON this hat if theres nothing in it. itll give you a flatter rim. 

- Now on the outside, there’ll be stiches or whatever you want to cover up. Theres a big seam line on the back of the cone that i didnt show in my photos, but i decorated it so that would be on the back and itll never have to be seen. You can cover up the part where the cone meets the rim with flowers, like i did, and i recommend you sew it, dont glue it because they might fall off. warning: this takes an extremely long time so strap in.

Lots of people are hard at work making their own felted fantasy hats, either using one of my tutorials or what they learned during one of my face-to-face workshops. But there is one question my students ask me over and over: How do I make an extra wide brim?

That's a good question. The standard hat shaper that I use in my Wizard and Witch Hat tutorial only allows for a brim as wide as 4 inches, while some of the hats in my shop have brims as wide as 8 inches.

The short answer is that I had to figure out how to create an extended brim hat block using the simple materials I had at hand or that I could buy from the local hardware store. After months of experimenting I finally came up with a design for a custom extended brim hat block that would allow me to make all those wide hat brims you see in my shop. Since I've came up with the design I've made seven or eight more, and all of them have lasted for months and dozens of hat projects each, without much sign of wear and tear at all. The block is waterproof, perfect for wet felting projects, as well as sturdy and easy to clean.

If you are interested in making hats with brims as wide as 8 inches, and you are thinking about getting my tutorial, here are a few more things you need to know. First of all, this is a video tutorial. If you've bought any tutorials from me in the past you know they are all PDF tutorials with step-by-step instructions written out. I decided to make the change to video though because there are just some parts of the process that it would be hard to describe without the benefit of seeing it in motion. I also did lots of voiceover work in the video so you still get the benefit of hearing me describe the process as well as giving you some helpful hints along the way. Through the whole video you will see me go from describing the individual materials and parts all the way through assembly, start to finish.

For anyone worried about the video quality, this is not a low-res YouTube video. The video resolution is 1080p, with lots of lighting, and the voiceover work was done after the video was recorded using a Blue brand desk mic. (not using the camera mic or anything unprofessional like that). The file download is about 1.13 gigabytes and is in MP4 format, playable on most computers. But this is my first video tutorial so let me know if there are any technical issues, if you need the file in a different format, or if you need the video at a smaller resolution. I'm sure I can get Grumpy Husband to figure it out for you.

Keep in mind this is a video tutorial on how to make an extended hat block. The video does not include any information on how to actually make a hat, so you will either need to know how to make a felt hat already or you will also need my Wizard and Witch Hat tutorial.

For a full material list check out the tutorial listing. And good luck!