making a hat

not many people realize the work involved in making a hat. here are a few photo’s that may give you an idea of the effort involved. all hats start as a ‘hood’ - just like a dressmaker, milliners do not ‘weave’ the hat from scratch but buy the basic ‘material’ just like a dressmaker would. here in these photos you can see that the trims are tacked into place using ‘contrast’ colour thread for easy of seeing and the milliner may go round and round the brim many times adding trim and ribbons. this hat has a lovely spotted ribbon on the under brim as it is covering the wire (which is there for support of the brim). also in these photos it is easy to see the construction of the ‘headfitting’ inside the hat, this is used to help ‘size’ the hat, usually it is colour coded to match the general colour of the hat.