Hats

Baseball Caps -- NOT!!

Since you have gone to all the trouble to make yourself fit in as a traveller (a customer visiting the fair) it makes sense to outfit your head properly. Is a hat important? Yes! These faires, and especially the Renaissance Pleasure Faire I attend, are outdoor events, and the sun is merciless! A proper hat will give you the shade your head will need. Also, it will be airy enough to be comfortable.

You can easily use or adapt a wide-brimmed, straw hat like you can find anywhere. Wear it off the shelf, or pin it up like a cavalier's hat, and decorate it with ribbons and flowers. Both women and men wore this kind of headgear. (You can use a felt hat too, but a cowboy hat is not quite right, nor is the Stetson(tm) worn by that "lost Ark" fellow.)

The hat described below and illustrated above, is simple to make, and shades your head and neck beautifully. You can make it in a day, and use it anywhere, all year long.

First, measure your head all the way around, and make a headband that long, or a little more for comfort, out of interfacing (the stiffener in cuffs and collars,) or some really wide elastic, with an extra half-inch on the ends for the short seam. Cut a strip of cloth twice as wide as the interfacing, this time with an additional half-inch on the long edges, for the long seam.

Pin the interfacing onto the cloth, then fold the short ends over to make a circle, with the interfacing on the outside. Sew the seam all the way down. Now you have a tube. Fold the bottom of the tube up to the top, covering the interfacing, and zig-zag the very edge. (You will sew the headband into the hat at the half-inch seam line later.)

Now, cut out a bi-i-i-i-g cloth circle. Make it at least three times the diameter of the headband. Another method is to cut two circles about twice the diameter of your head, with a hole cut out of the middle of one for the headband, and the sew these together. Both ways work. IN any case you will want to gather the edges as described below to make a perfect fit.

After zig-zagging the edge, set your sewing machine to run at the longest stitch length. You are going to get the cloth ready for gathering. With a washable fabric marker, draw

two straight lines, like cross-hairs, on the cloth to divide it into four even sections. Make two little marks at the oustide end of each line, one on either side of the line, about a quarter of an inch apart. Now, sew from one mark to the next, never crossing a line, at about 3/8" in from the edge. Gently pull on one of each of the threads, like a drawstring, to carefully gather the edge to the diameter of the headband, making a bag.

Put the headband inside the mouth of the bag and pin the zig-zagged edge to the raw edge of the cloth. Sew the two together at the half-inch seam allowance, and turn the whole thing inside out to hide the edges. Then sew two ribbons on the back of the headband. Use these ribbons to cinch the headband tight so it will not fall down around your face. If you sew, or know someone who does, you can find even better ways to make a better fit.

There you have it -- a lightweight and shady hat that works well in the stands of the jousting tournament or the football game (Hey! Have you seen what some people wear at those events? You'd be normal.) Both women and men used this hat.

For fancier hats, check out The Auld Garb Monger's free offers on the Sewing Projects page. There are also links to other Renaissance-themed Web sites on that page.