What to do? I thought it'd be a fun challenge to try and make myself a new one from things I already had lying around the house. It felt like it'd be a great use of resources, too :-)
I based my pattern largely on this one, with a bit of help from lots of others. I used scraps from old jeans for the outer and a much-loved 20 year old skirt that I'd recently retired for the lining. The outer is embroidered with several different sashiko stitches - it seems I can't get enough sashiko right now!
It took a while to work out a pattern where the crown tapered smoothly over my head (mocking up each iteration in newspaper). Then it took a while longer to work out the brim: I wanted it to be nice and wide to shade my face from the sun, but the denim scraps I was working with weren't that big. For a while I thought I might have to give up on the denim altogether, but eventually figured out a solution: make the brim in three pieces (not two) and taper towards the back. And, when it finally came to putting it together, I discovered it was going to be just too floppy with only interfacing stiffening the brim :-( Denim's pretty heavy! That one was solved with plastic - there's a ring of the plastic sheeting they put on the front of spiral bound files going right around inside :-)
I'm really pleased with how it's worked out!
It's even reversible - strings and all!
I'm looking forward to wearing it in a couple of weeks time when our street celebrates Neighbours Day 2017 :-)
Whilst I was figuring out the pattern, I spent my sewing time finishing up the sashiko on two second hand pillow cases I'd started embroidering back in October. I'm really pleased with how they've turned out, too.
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| (excuse the terrible lighting!) |
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