Welcome to my
millinery tutorial. Miniature hats are a fun and creative
project. The styles, trimmings, and variations are
endless. The methods I will show you are the same basic
techniques that I use when making my own miniature hats. I do
not claim to have developed every technique in this tutorial.
There are many excellent books, videos, articles, and expert hatmakers
out there. I have tried to research all available techniques and
methods available to develop one that would work best for me in
creating 1/12 scale hats. The resulting techniques is a combination of research, experimentation, and lots and lots of
mistakes.
Everyone develops
their own methods, and I encourage you to develop your own. My
techniques reflect the things that are most important to me. All
of the edges of my hats, inside and out are completely finished, with
no raw edges anywhere. This means extra work, but a well
finished hat is important to me. You may decide to eliminate
some of these steps in order to simplify construction. Scale is
also very important to me, and since I am also a doll maker, these hats
are sized to be in scale both in miniature room settings and to fit
well on my miniature dolls. Remember that some of those
elaborate hairdo's we put on our dolls need to be considered when
making a hat.
Enough lecturing,
let's make a hat!
Card Stock: paper 8 1/2" x 11" to use in your printer
Aleen's Designer Tacky Glue (my favorite)
Wonder Under or other double sided fusable adhesive
Fabric 6" x 6" piece will make one hat. I only use light to medium weight silks, but rayon is also
glueable, and less expensive so it is a good fabric to use to practice with.
Laces: An assortment of narrow cotton laces is wonderful to have on
hand.
Silk Ribbon: 1/8" and 1/4" widths are generally used, and you
will find that you can never have enough colors!
Trimmings: Yes, there are always ribbon roses, but lesson two will take you
beyond the ribbon rose and give you lots of ideas for other wonderful trimmings.
"Good" Scissors: Small, Sharp scissors for fabric and ribbon ONLY.
"Not-so-Good"
Scissors; for paper or anything else that isn't fabric!
Needle Tool
Rose Making Tool
Fine point glue syringe
Iron
Patience; Not available in any stores, but a must have for fiddly mini
work. With time, you will find that the more you have, the less you need.
Now, put a piece of cardstock in your printer, click on the hat, and print
out your pattern, then come right back here, and lets get started!
So that we will all be using the same pieces at the same time,
here is a diagram of the three basic parts of a hat. Regardless of style,
most hats consist of these three pieces.
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Cut a piece of wonder under just smaller than your cardstock pattern
sheet. Place the pattern face down on your ironing board, and place the
wonder under face down on the back of your pattern. (Paper side of wonder
under will be facing up. If not, prepare to clean your iron!)
Using medium heat, and firm pressure, fuse the wonder under to the back of
the pattern sheet. Allow to cool, the peel the paper backing off. If
backing does not come off easily, reheat till it is well fused, and try again. |
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Cut out your pattern pieces, cutting just inside the lines. Place your fabric right side down on your ironing board. Arrange the
pattern pieces on the fabric with the wonder under side down.
IMPORTANT: Leave 1/2" between each piece in every direction!
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Cut out each pattern piece, leaving 1/4" around all outside edges.
For the tip piece, cut this out right along the edge of the
cardstock edge. Now, fuse a scrap of wonder under to the
uncovered side of the tip, and fuse fabric to this side, and
trim. Both sides of the tip should be covered with fabric
now, and trimmed neatly around cardstock base. |
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Cut small notches around the outside edges of the
brim pieces. When notching, use those Good scissors, and cut right up to,
but not thru the card stock base. |
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Now cut carefully between the ends of the brim pieces, and into the inner
circle. Trim the inner circle, leaving 1/4" around the inside
edge. Also, cut off the corners on ONE end of the brim only. |
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Cut notches along both long edges of the crown
pieces. Study the picture and see that the corner pieces on one end of the
crown have been clipped. |
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To finish the brim edges, run a small, narrow bead of glue along the edge of the cardstock.
It doesn't take much, especially if you are using Designer Tacky. Work
small sections at a time, and fold the notches over into the glue. Your
needle tool is helpful with this step, particularly if you don't like sticky
fingers! Repeat for the center portion of the crown. Fold and glue
the end of the crown that was notched. Leave the other end to extend as a
tab. This is important, as you will need this tab later to hold things
together. |
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Finish the edges of the crown pieces in the same manner, making sure that you
glue under the notched end, and leave the other end extended as a tab. |
Very good! Now get up and stretch, wash those sticky fingers,
have
a glass of ice tea, then we'll go on to the next step!
