Big Floppy Sun Hat

I saw a sun hat made of strips of fabric.  I loved it!  The concept seemed so simple, like a coil rope bowl.  I wish I had taken a photo of it (I may have at the time, but if I did, I accidentally deleted it).  It seemed so obvious that I thought I could find some tutorials or examples online.  Nothing.  The closest one was a tutorial that twisted fabric, but nothing that showed a flat, shiplapped design.  I did some random research, tried to remember as much as I could about the hat, and struck out on my own (no surprise to my regular readers).

I recall the original hat having raw edges, but I wanted finished edges.  Bias tape seemed the way to go.  I waffled on width for a while, but decided a ⅜" width was as wide as I could go and be able to curve it without too much gathering.  I started with 1½-inch strips sewn together, then ran them through my bias tape maker until I ended up with a double-folded strip.  Cleaned out a lot of my leftover string fabric!

Then came the experimentation.  I'm pretty sure what amazed me with the original hat was that it wasn't zig-zag stitched (although it might have been with a narrow stitch).  I wanted to straight-stitch the bias strips to each other, with each new layer straddling the prior row.  (After I finished it all, I wondered if one of my old Singer attachments would have helped me with this.)  The idea was that the hat would be reversible with the same finish on both sides. 

My first attempt started as a normal coil bowl, but that ended rather rapidly because the fabric kept bunching up attempting to do such a small, tight circle.  I decided it needed a larger circle to ease out the curves.  That worked better, but I still couldn't seem to keep the pieces together.  Since I was stitching so close to the edge, the outside fabric would slip sometimes, and I'd end up simply stitching the bias tape closed instead of to the prior row.  I ripped out my work and put the hat aside for other projects.

When I picked it up again last week everything went smoother.  I had spooled up the bias tape tightly before I put it away, and I think that prevented the tape rolling as I stitched it.  Whatever.  I had a lot fewer stop-rip-starts than my first attempt. 

The hat is a little shallower than I anticipated.  Once I started sewing it kind of took on a life of its own.  I'm getting hat pins to hold it in place.  If that doesn't work, I'll have to add some kind of straps. 

Rob calls it my goofy floppy hat.  But even when it was only halfway done, he correctly identified it as a hat - so I must have been doing something right!  I do have to admit, it's pretty silly.  But I love it.  We'll see if I still love it when I put it to use.  

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