A Quick Summer Boater Hat

So I've been holding off on photographing my new swim costume because I wanted to make a boater hat to go with the ensemble. Although I have a swim cap to go with it, I wanted a decorated boater hat for any "out of water" antics.

Most of the boater hats I viewed were decorated simply with a ribbon band, but I wanted something a little more but nothing too extravagant at the same time. While I'm making this to go with my swimsuit, I also want it for some other projects I'll eventually make. I started by purchasing a basic straw boater from Amazon.

amazon.com

Accessories I purchased online from etsy, going off of how I wanted to make it so it could be used for other outfits. It took a couple of weeks, but I finally got all of my supplies gathered together just last Thursday.

The first thing to do was get rid of the ribbon band it came with. Thankfully it was very easy. The hard part was trying to pull off all the glue left behind. There was only a little bit left after picking as much as possible at it.

Using a green silk ribbon, I redid the ribbon band and used it conceal the little bit of remaining glue. I went in with a vague idea of how I wanted to decorate with the ribbon. I just started folding, angling, pinning, and voila!

I pulled apart my leaves and flowers to eyeball how everything would look in front of the "bow." Before I could do anything with those though, the ribbon had to be tacked down.
Now I've done a little it of millinery work with covered buckram bonnets before, but this is my first time working with straw. I was a lot easier that I thought it would be. Just make sure to use sharp needles.

With the ribbons pinned in place, I then used basic tacking methods to anchor the ribbons and the folds to the straw.

Next were the leaves. I did some twisting, folding, temporary pinning, thread tacking, and a little bit of rearranging. One of the things I have found is that buying millinery flowers are much easier to work with in comparison to craft store flowers.

Last but not least were the silk and velvet daisies. Overall, this project was completed in about 3 hours. It was nice because I had imagined it taking much longer, but this means I'll be able to do photos this upcoming weekend!

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Notions - Pre-made straw boater hat from Amazon, green silk ribbon from Shy Myrtle, velvet leaves and daisies from A Pink Swan, and heavy duty poly thread.