Mini Top Hat How-To

Almost a year ago now I created a mini top hat for a quirky dance performance. This morning I was rummaging through my collection of photographs and discovered step by step pictures of the process and thought I should share them already!

Materials:

4 pages of 8.5x11 cardstock

¼ yd fashion fabric

craft glue (I prefer FabriTac)

spray adhesive

paper and fabric scissors (one each, usually)

Printing Pattern:

Print two copies of the page with circular shapes and one copy of the rectangular shape page.

Cut out all pieces of cardstock with one exception. For the second large circle, do not cut out the center of the ‘doughnut’. This is your lower brim and will be left solid.

 

Glue the cardstock down to the back side of the fashion fabric using spray adhesive and then trim the pieces out. Leave yourself a little extra fabric around the edges of the long rectangular piece (the 'stove pipe').

 Use hot glue or fabri-Tac to join the edges of the 'stovepipe' piece into a cylinder. Notch the extra fabric around the bottom and top edge as shown below.

 Use an Xacto blade or scalpel to remove the extra fabric from the middle of the 'brim' piece.

 Fold in the cardstock tabs on the top of the hat and glue them inside the top of the 'stovepipe'. This part will likely require an additional tool like a popsicle stick or butter knife to slide between the top of the hat and the wall of the 'stovepipe' to press the tabs securely to the 'stovepipe' piece.

Next, slide the fabric-and-brim piece over the top of the hat and glue to lower 'stovepipe' tabs of fabric and cardstock. You will be glueing the two 'brim' pieces together as well as you can here.

 Glue down the fabric tabs at the top of the hat and cover with the fabric covered, tab-less top piece (remember, you have two of these?). Carefully trim the fabric that is hanging off the brim. Now would be a good time (while the glue is still super flexible) to start shaping the brim. I chose to finish the edges of my brim with some flexible ribbon stitched over the edge of the two brim pieces.

 At this point you can consider your hat done or go on to add embellishments such as net veils, hat bands and feathers. The best way I've found to keep the little fascinator hat on is with little combed snap clips stitched or glued to the bottom of the hat.

Ahoy Matey!

While working away on the Mord'Sith project for my halloween costume, I was also trying to put together a custom order for a good friend of mine. I was commissioned for the project ages ago but we were plagued by constant delays in obtaining materials so were left scrambling at the last minute. This is a modified version of one of my patterns. I had to change the shapes of the princess seams (and yes, they're called princess seams even in men's clothing) to reflect a masculine shape and the sleeves had to be redrafted and cuffs created. We stayed up til 1am the Thursday before Halloween weekend sewing and doing fittings. Then got up to finish buttonholes at 6am on Friday. The coat is 'coat weight' wool lined with dark sea green rayon lining material. We're probably going to revisit this project at a later date to add extra trim and such for further pirate foppery ;)

She's Only Smiling Because She's Dangerous

Call in the Experts!

Last night's progress on the Mord'Sith costume was all due to my friend Adam who worked at a leather shop some years ago and can often be induced to help out when I find myself in need of leather working. You don't get something for nothing of course. In exchange, I am sewing a fully lined wool pirate coat. Here you see the corset progress as of probably 8pm.

 

After pictures were taken more strap work was completed and I've drafted the thigh guard and holster for tonight's slaving... Incidentally, if anyone wants a copy of these patterns as a starting point, I'm happy to share. You can find the patterns WITHOUT assembly instructions here (click the picture):

Source: Mord'Sith Style Armor via NightLilyDesign on Craftsy

Where's a good Agiel when you need one?

Well this has been a rough week for costume progress. My buckles were delivered on Friday in two different colors/metals and the boot laces that I custom ordered set in leather were set backwards and can't be used as planned. I was also double charged for shipping. I will be calling the company Monday morning to see if they'll make things right. To be fair, I did place 3 separate orders with them that they had to combine so it might have caused confusion in their systems.

Buckles, spray painted gold:

The gorget neck piece laced up and ready for snapped tabs as closure. Note, this is different from the TV version which has more boot hook quick laces on the side back piece. Those hooks are reported to snag the braid horribly not to mention how tricky it sounds to lace the piece on by myself with the hooks in back... I have chosen to make it look like the whole thing is laced on and have hidden snaps actually holding the piece together at the side front panel.

And here are the boot hooks/quick laces that I intended to sew to the corset piece. They followed my template for placement just fine.

But they faced the hooks towards each other, instead of away so I can't actually lace them when they're sewn in as intended.

I'll be setting rivets and adding buckles to straps next while hoping the company can quickly ship me replacement boot hooks. If not, then 1) I won't be using that company again and 2) I'll have to punch little holes along the slender edge so that I can hand stitch the hooks to the corset in the proper orientation. PIA. *sigh*

Yeah Straps!

I've finally gotten a couple chunks of productive time and made quite a bit of progress on my Mord'Sith costume :D I am in danger of running out of things I can do until my buckles, boot hooks and rivets ship!

Here you see the corset with straps- it will need rivets and boot hooks to be wearable:

 

And here is a quick view from the inside in case you're unsure how the straps weave in and out of the corset. You can see the loose ends on the right where the straps will be anchored by rivets.

The Mord'Sith Costume Progress Report

We're getting down to the wire and boy is it tense! The dark red lycra body suit has been received from China and the individual panels of the neck corset (gorget) have been cut and finished but await some new equipment and supplies to be laced together. This morning I ordered buckles, rivets and a leather punch along with quick laces/boot laces/boot hooks pre-set into strips of leather. I've drafted a preliminary pattern for some pleather knee high spats that has to be tested. Now that the buckles are ordered I can finally cut straps and glue layers together. Below you see the pieces that make up the neck protection cut out of heavy interfacing, glued to the wrong side of the pleather, trimmed out and finally with decorative stitching holding the pleather wrapped around the edges.