Folie Jolie - Happy Handmade Hats: 2017

Making a 500 year old hat with modern millinery techniques. French hoods are typically made like all buckram covered hats: cover will a mull (French fleece, flannel, very thin quilt batting). Hand sew. Cover with silk. Hand sew. Connect the pieces. Hand sew. Make billiments. Hand sew. All that hand sewing takes a long time, and if a hat takes me a long time, I have to charge people a lot more to buy it. Plus it's a bit tedious and I have a short attention span. So, when I was at Millinery Meet Up, I met Darryll Osbourne and his lovely wife Renee of Hat Blocks Australia www.hatblocksaustralia.com. And he has this fabulous little hat block, part of the Rebecca Share collection. It's a little crescent, and perfect for a blocked French hood. Now I know that isn't how they were made in the 1500's, but a blocked shape is a lot easier to deal with. The cresent is only part of the hat though, for the brim/base I relied on a pattern from Tudor Tailor www.tudortailor.com.

I had a damaged felt in a gorgeous period appropriate burgundy. Most French hoods were black or red, though I see a lot of re-enactors having them made from fabric matching their gowns. Taking a deep breath, I cut into my felt, cutting the base, which is very similar shape to the brim of the Tudor coif, and the crescent. I then steamed and blocked the crescent, careful to not pin into the fragile ends of the block.

After blocking, I wired the crescent and the base. The crescent was designed to wrap around the wire nicely. I didn't add enough seam allowance to the base, and it has started warping under the weight of the crescent, so I wired and covered with a matching grosgrain. Fortunately my grosgrain is a very close color match and blends well into the final hat.

Attached crescent to brim, and then the fun part: billiments! I used what I had on hand, ouches I lurched from Truly hats. They are lovely, but a bit heavy. I'm planning to make my own hat jewelry for the next one.

Next I lined the hat in a lovely linen. My online communities said they wouldn't expect a lining in this hat, though if it had been made of covered buckram it would need to be lined. I may skip this step next time as it was pretty time consuming.

I used a very fine, lightweight linen, whip stitched into place. It has a "bag" which would keep hair from touching the hood itself. The little organza ruffle around the brim was trickier than I expected. I have a lovely pleating board, and some lovely metallic organza silk.

Unfortunately, the pleats look too large, I think 1/4" would work better, so I end up running a gathering strip and pleating the organza that way. The pleats aren't as tidy as I would like, definitely something I will do differently next time.

Final step! The hood part! Usually made from velvet, but I have silk on hand and it's a bit easier to work with and stores better. Most people would wear a French hood a couple of times a year, not daily. Funny moment when I got my black silk out, what happened here? It looks like I chewed off part the last time I used it!