1778 French hat

I'm in need of a floofy French hat.  I will be portraying an upper sort Philadelphia woman and while I have the gown and other accessories, the hats I have that go with that gown are simply trimmed straw.  Modern mass produced straw hats, while shaped like 18th century hats, just don't look the same as the old ones so lately I've taken to covering them with silk.  My gown is a shot silk which looks coppery--it's made with yellow gold threads crossed with burgundy.  I use yellow ribbon for the breast knot and sleeve bows so I thought a yellow hat would tie it all together nicely.  Also--I wanted to use stuff I had in my stash.  I've been thinking of making the hat in the fashion plate below. My original plan was to use flowers around the puffs but the more I studied the image, the less I liked that idea.  I decided to just get started and see how it would shape up.

I used the method that I outlined in the tutorial I posted a few months ago.  I used the yellow silk for the outer cover and the lining.

The cover went quickly so next I had to plan the trim,

I had to really think about how I wanted to make the first ruffle.  The image looks like the ruffles are pleats that are not pressed flat.   I decided to use silk organza and I cut two strips 3 1/4 inches wide and stitched them together with a tiny French seam. The circumference of the brim is 45 inches so I figured I'd probably need twice that.  After stitching a tiny hem and pressing it flat, I started pleating the strip around the brim, having it hang off about 3/8 inch or so.  Silk organza is super springy so I needed t pin the hemmed edges in place as well.

I used a combination stitch to stitch the ruffle to the hat cover.  I took back stitches over the pleat fold with a running stitch in between. After stitching, I used the steam from my iron to blast steam at the ruffle to sort of set the loose pleats without pressing them flat before removing the pins.

I cut two strips of taffeta about 45 inches long by 3 1/4 inches wide and carefully trimmed one long edge with my large (7mm) scalloping shears.  Then I pressed the long straight edge under about a half inch.  I pleated this ruffle to the hat on top of the first one. The taffeta was much more cooperative in that I did not need to secure the loose ends of the ruffle or steam it.

 I secured the second ruffle to the hat the same way as the first.

I had to play around with my organza to see how large to make the puffs.  Because the organza is so sheer, I decided to use a long strip that was 12 inches wide. I fiddled with it and determined that the puffs would be about 6 inches long.  The strip was folded cross grain at 6 inch intervals and whip gathered along those folds, connecting the ends together in the last fold. I  made 6 puffs.

The puffy strip was pinned to the hat while I figured out what to do next.

I was still having issues with the ribbon. I had a lovely Roccoco pink that is sort of a salmon color but it just didn't look bright enough against the yellow which is brighter than in the above picture.  So I rummaged through my ribbon stash.   Before settling on something, I walked by the roses in my kitchen and it hit me!  I had a dark rose --almost a pinkish red--that I could use and it would actually go better with my gown.  I had this color in both 1 1/2 inch and 2 inch ribbon!  Yay!  Problem solved! My hat will literally match my flowers!

I studied the original fashion plate some more and determined that the little pink things between the puffs were some sort of gathered ribbon.  I cut a 7 inch piece of the 1 1/2 inch ribbon, folded it in half lengthwise and whip gathered the fold.  When I drew up the gathers, it formed a little spiral which I stitched around the puffing strip between 2 puffs.

I like the way it looked so I cut 5 more strips and finished the puffing strip.

My ribbon was too wide to wrap around the crown but a strip of the 1 1/2 inch ribbon folded in half fit perfectly so I tacked that around the crown and then added a 4 loop bow. The bow in the fashion plate is sort of nondescript and I couldn't tell what style it is.    Then I made a 6 loop bow with ribbon ends hanging down and tacked it to the brim.  Voila!  She is basically finished.  I just need to add ties to the lining side,

I was tickled with the say it turned out and I can't wait to wear it,  I thoroughly enjoy hat projects and have a number of them waiting to be completed!  It took about 2 days to complete this from start to finish.  I'll update with photos of it being worn at a later date!

Update:  Here is my hat in action!