Straw hat (September 2020)

Background

This will likely be the least informative and shortest blog entry I will ever do. I have almost no pictures. I am sure none of this is actually period. But its a thing.

So, I am not a sun dweller. I am pale. I burn. The sun is my enemy. I also do things such as shoot archery, which often takes place in an area with a dearth of trees... which means a lack of shade. For some odd reason, straw hats that seem appropriate for the SCA are few and far between, and if you are lucky enough to find one, it is located in the Ukraine and is $30 to ship. So, I had the brilliant idea to alter a hat to suit my needs.

Construction

So, I found a hat online that I liked the brim on, and it looked big enough to fit my very large sized head (24" is not common for ladies, but its what I have). It was a straw cowboy looking hat, shown below, but without the stupid patch. Now this is the important part. I then let it sit in my closet for like 2 years... After it properly aged, I ripped apart the top part of the hat, but left the brim intact. I was left with a pile of woven straw bands.

For the bottom of the "head" part of the hat, the bands are mostly just hand sewn with a running stitch under no tension. For the area that decreases to round off at the top, I pulled the bands as tight as I could at the bottom edges, and kinda tried to keep the top edge of the row below it relaxed. Sorry if that is confusing to explain. When I got to the top where I wanted to close the hat off... my band snapped, which was actually convenient, since I couldn't figure out how to transition to a "flat" coil. So, I took a flat coil from another band of straw, and just sewed it to the top. And then it was done. This is *far* from fancy. I think my thread is some sort of polyester. But, even though its not perfect, I like the final result, and it should in fact keep me in shade.