The first step to making a felt hat for me was to make my felt hat base. We got to choose a pre-made felt cloche in the colour of our choice (I went for a deep blue) depending on the shape of hat we wanted to end up with we got given a hat block. The felt base was then washed in hot water and pulled over the block (extra steam could be added to any areas that needed extra streching).
(Here are my classmates stretching their bits of felt).
(And a pro giving it a good old tug). Some of the blocks needed the felt pinning to them (the little red things are pins) while others like mine had a drawstring providing the same function.
This was then left to dry in Louise’s special drying cupboard, we then moved on to the flower decorations. These were made by our teacher.
Aren’t they lovely? To make the felt we chose roving in colours to complement out hats, we pulled out the fibers so they were long and laid the fibers in rows first lengthways then horizontally on top. After another two rows of this we were able to add the top decoration.
Unfortunately there was no cream roving, so I went for white, adding bright pink accents to imitate Lillies. Once all the piles of fibers were arranged we added water and olive soap and rolled. The rolling agitates the fibers in the wool and eventually they stick together. Like so
Wire was inserted under the brims of the hats, Louise finished the brims of most of them, folding the felt over the wire and machine stitching in place. But I decided to handfinish mine. A band in a contrasting colour was then passed around the outside of the hat and the ends sewn in place. Unfortunately my flowers weren’t quite the right base colour and the pink accents were a bit distracting so I decided to make them into individual broaches to give as presents (above). But here is me in my hat
I will be making a cream Lilly to fasten on the front as soon as I can find some cream roving. And here are my classmates hats
And here are some that Louise made
And here is an experiment by our felt teacher (she actually created the cloche herself from 2 felt colours, isn’t it beautiful?
I had a really fantastic time making my first felt hat with Louise, I will definitely be returning to Leicester to complete another course the question is which one, there are formal hats, facinators, a course on featherwork…http://hatsfromthehall.com/
