Felt Hat Tutorial

I tried something new a while back and was very pleased with the outcome.  I saw a tutorial on making hats for dolls out of felt and thought maybe I could do it.

What you need:
1 - One piece of 8x10 felt
2 - White glue
3 - A form to mold the hat
4 - Lots of patience

I had the doll, the glue and the felt so they weren't the problem,  The form was the problem, but I quickly remedied that by looking in my Grandson's toy box.  There it was, the perfect form for a dolls head sitting there among his most loved items.  It was a small bowling ball (you know the kind) that come with the plastic pins. It fit perfectly in one of my drinking glasses.  I covered it with plastic wrap and was ready to go.

Now you mix the glue  and water, half and half in a small bowl.  Mix it well so that it is milky white.

Cut the felt however you like.  I placed it on the dolls head and fooled around with it until I liked what I saw.

Next, dip the piece of felt in the glue mixture, give it a good squish a few times, making sure that all of it has been soaked well, then squeeze thoroughly.  Now for the patience part.  Keep molding it and smoothing it out on the form until you like what you see.  It will be very pliable at this point, so make sure you smooth out any wrinkles.

It does take a while to dry, so don't fuss with it until it is good and dry.  Once it is dried, you will find that the hat is stiff.  Remove it from the mold and embellish it with whatever suits your fancy, you will be very pleased with the outcome.

This is the first hat that I created, which I am pleased to say sold quickly in my Etsy shop. When I took the picture, the dolls dress was blue which just wouldn't do for the pictures, so I changed the color in my editing program to match the hat.  After slitting the hat in several places, I wove a purple and pink ribbon through it, then added pink petals in the front.

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This was a fun hat to make and much simpler that the first one.  I had this great flower embellishment to give it a bit of pizazz.

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Here is another simple hat, which is more about embellishment.  Molding this one was easy.  I wanted an 1800s look so I added a big black bow and wide ribbon to finish it off.  

 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on my hats.  If you do make some, send me pictures, I would love to post them on my blog.