a phoenix hat with peacock feathers

One of these days I'm going to take an official millinery class. I think I do ok up-cycling old hats but I can't always get a good base hat to turn into exactly what I want. That was the case with the hat for Phoenix. I knew exactly what I wanted; I just couldn't get there. But this hat looks nice and I'm ok with it... for now. ;-)

At this point I had already doused the original straw hat with boiling hot water to reshape it. I then cut it into 3 parts: the crown, the outer ring, and the inner ring that I did not use at all.

I folded the outer ring until I got a bow shape then used clear thread / monofilament / fishing line to sew it together.

The clear thread was a PITA to use!! >:-( It kept getting hung up in all the raw exposed straw edges. I did what I could then lost my patience and hot glued it.

Next, I flipped the front edge down and put the crown on the inside. I needed to make the crown smaller to I slit the back side and squeezed it until it fit.

In this picture you can sort of see the slit along the back of the crown. Knowing I was going to add feathers, I wasn't worried about it showing. I hot glued the crown to the outer ring/brim.

The new hat shape was all together and secure but I had a lot of exposed raw edges of the straw that was catching everything. I gently trimmed it all down and then used good old Elmer's Glue as a sealer. It dries clear so no worries! Once the glue was dry, I added the ribbon and feathers. That's it! Scroll back up to the top to see the finished hat in all her glory. ;-)