I started out with a plain black top hat and glued on layers of felt to make it flare out at the top, just like in Mina’s tutorial. Since I wasn’t happy with any of the gold sequin fabrics I found locally and there wasn’t time to order any, I decided to create my own wavy-line sequin fabric by tracing lines onto fabric with a cardboard template and gluing strings of sequin trim onto the fabric. (NOTE: Once I was finished, I decided the sequins weren’t close together enough so I added more sequin strings in the spaces between them.) I’m not sure how many yards of sequin trim it took—I just bought a spool of 100 meters and still have plenty left over. I chose a lightweight, semi-sheer cotton/silk lining fabric layered over a yellowish gold poly-cotton broadcloth, since that was the only way I could achieve the color and texture I wanted with the fabrics available. I used my very most favorite glue, Gem-Tac. I made three large ovals (one for the flat top part of the hat, one for the underside of the brim, and one for the top side of the brim) and one long rectangle (for the stovepipe part of the hat). Be careful to make sure the nap of the sequins are all going in the same direction!
I glued the sequin fabric oval onto the top of the
hat first, pinning it in place while the glue dried. You can see I made cuts
through the center of the brim fabric pieces like a pizza—this is because on
the top side of the brim, you need to wiggle that piece of fabric from the top
of the hat (which is wider) down to the part where it meets the brim (which is
narrower).
I glued a thin line of glue around the inner side of
the top brim, trimmed off the triangular pieces that were in the way (and made
vertical snips in the fabric where it needed to lay flat), glued a thin line of
glue near the outer edge on the underside of the brim, and then clamped the
fabric in place with clothespins. You
can remove the clothespins after about 20 minutes—you just want the glue and
fabric to stay in place while it’s drying, not glue your wooden clothespins to
your hat forever! After it was dry I trimmed off the excess fabric on the
underside so I had about ½” left.
I laid the underside piece of fabric onto the
underside of the brim and made snips to the inner circle so everything would be
flat and even, then put a thin line of glue on the inside stovepipe part of the
hat, just past where it meets the brim. I pinned the fabric in place while the
glue dried.
After the glue was dry, I trimmed off some of the
excess on the outer edge of the oval fabric and then tucked the raw edge in so
it was all hidden, then pinned it in place.
You want to make sure everything is evenly tucked and distributed while
you’re pinning it in place. I then
hand-sewed the edge of the top brim fabric and the edge of the under brim
fabric together. Use matching thread and try to hide your stitches in the
sequins as much as possible. I trimmed off the excess fabric in the inside of
the hat (leaving about ½” of fabric) and glued a ¾” black grosgrain ribbon over
it to cover all the raw edges and finish off the inside of the hat. I decided
to do the brim in this way because A) you can see vertical lines of sequins on
the underside of Columbia’s hat in the movie and B) I didn’t want to attempt machine
stitching through the felt hat, sequins, AND glue.
Covering the stovepipe part of the hat was pretty
much the same as Mina’s tutorial. I will mention a few additional things,
though. Since the stovepipe part of the hat is wider at the top and narrower at
the bottom, the seam where the two edges meet is going to make the sequin lines
look like the letter V instead of straight up and down. I put the seam on the
right side of the hat (NOT the bow side). Also, since the hatband and bow are
going to cover the edge where the stovepipe fabric meets the brim, you can just
cut off the bottom edge of the stovepipe fabric so there’s a ½” gap which will
be covered later anyway. I followed Mina’s tutorial for the hatband and bow.
As I mentioned above, when I was all done I decided
the sequins weren’t close enough together, so I added more. I glued extra individual sequins on the ends
of the strings to cover them. You can
see some threads sticking up on Columbia’s hat during Time Warp, so it’s screen
accurate. I took a photo of the brim underside during the process of adding
more sequin strings. You can really see
the difference in the shininess depending on how close together the sequins
are.
Here is a close-up of the finished hat….
And some photos of it in action!
