Elizabethan Whovian Hat

It’s been a year since I started working on my Elizabethan Whovian costume. During that time I’ve worked on it on and off, but progress on it has been slow partly because I ran into more problems with the bodice of the dress, and partly because my day job has kept me very busy. Despite this, I was able to work on and off on the hat for the costume. I recently finished most of the hat, so here is how I made it!

If you followed me on Instagram, then you probably already know I made the hat using Lynn McMasters’ Elizabethan ridding hat pattern…

I used this pattern a few years ago to make a hat to go with a Granado Esparda Musketeer costume I worked on but never finished. I still want to make the Musketeer costume, but I’ve lost weight and my sewing skills have improved since then so if I finish making the costume, I would need to remake the whole entire costume over again, hat included.

Since I made the hat a few years ago, I was familiar with it and how to make it. The main difference between the hat I made back then and the Elizabethan Whovian hat I made is the core of it. Back then, I made the core of the hat out of craft interfacing. I worked very well so I decided to make the core of the hat out of craft interfacing.

It should’ve work just as well as my last hat, but I did not use the same kind of craft interfacing as I did for my first hat. I bought a bolt of craft interfacing a few years ago, but I never got around to using it. I thought the interfacing would work just as well as the original interfacing, but I was wrong. The new interfacing was too thin and I had to layer four pieces of the interfacing before it was thick enough to be used as a hat base.

After working with this interfacing, I decided that if I make a new Elizabethan hat (Which I plan to in the future) I will use the interfacing I used for my first hat instead of the interfacing I used for this hat.

After cutting the interfacing pieces, I sewed the four brim pieces together with a zig zag stitch in a circle and sewed the wire around the base.

Then I sewed the crown interfacing pieces together and sewed wire to the edges.

After that was done, I cut and sewed black velvet to the hat bases.

I also lined the crown of the hat with white satin and sewed bias tape to the bottom of the crown. I did this so I could sew the crown of the hat to the brim easier.

The pattern did not call for a bias tape edge on the hat crown, but I thought it would be worth a try. Even though it worked well, I’m not sure if I’ll add a bias tape edge to the crown again.

As for the brim, after I sewed the velvet onto the brim base, I sewed black stretch velvet around the edge of the brim to create a nice binding around the edge. After that was done, I thought the edge was a little plan. So, added a black satin trim I found at Hobby Lobby.

I sewed the trim on by hand, which took some time but the result was really beautiful!

After the trim was sewn onto the hat, I sewed bias tape around the hole where I will wear the hat.

I did this for two reasons. First, I wanted my hat to have a head band. I’m not very experienced at sewing hats (Believe it or not, this is my second attempt at sewing a hat from scratch) and I really am not sure how to make a head band. I wanted to try using bias tape as a test to see how it will work. And secondly, I wanted a way to prevent the raw edge of the velvet to unravel.

After I finished the brim of the hat, I sewed the crown of the hat to the brim of the hat.

Since the bias tape and wire showed on the outer part of the hat, I wanted to make it look better by adding a trim around the base of the hat. This hat is meant to be part of a Doctor Who inspired Elizabethan costume, so I wanted to make a trim that is a Doctor Who fabric.

After searching Spoonflower, I found a design by bonnie_phantasm of the 4th Doctor’s scarf. When I saw it, I could imagine the scarf could be the trim of the hat. So, I bought a yard of the design on silky faille and cut out one of the scarf sections. Then, I folded it in half and cut that section into to pieces.

Then I pleated one edge of the strips…

And sewed them onto the front of the hat. This made the trim’s colors look symmetrical, which was what I was looking for. I thought about using two sections in different colors, but in my mind it wouldn’t look right against the rest of the Elizabethan dress. So, I went with the symmetrical look.

After I sewed the 4th Doctor scarf trim onto the hat, it looked like this…

 

 

And that’s about it! I’m very happy with the way the hat turned out, even though many parts gave me trouble. My original plan was to add a Doctor Who themed rosette to the back of the hat, but I’m not sure if I’ll end up doing that. I thought that after finishing the 4th Doctor scarf trim, the back would look really ugly and a rosette would cover the bad sewing I thought I’d need to do to finish the trim. When I finished sewing the trim onto the hat, I thought the back looked better than I imagined it would so I plan on leaving it. I might change my mind, but for now I don’t want to change it. (I think I’m too exhausted from sewing the hat together to care about making a decoration for it) I’ll let you know if I change my mind.

Thank you for reading!