Decorating Hats

I love hats. I love decorating hats; working with the ribbon just makes me happy. Every time I see a promising hat at a thrift store, I can't help but pick it up and add it to my collection (I have quite a few now). My latest find was red and purple (yes, a Red Hat Society hat); mama walked right past it. I bought the hat, because what was under the red and purple was beautiful. The above picture is what it looks like now. You have to look past the decorations and see the potential in the hat itself. Hats are like people-it is what's underneath that counts.

Wrap a ribbon loosely around the hat, twisting the ribbon a couple of times, and tack it down in a few places. It always takes me awhile to make ribbon fall naturally. Play with it until you like the way it looks.

Make a bow and tack it on top of the band. I chose to place the bow at about 4 O'clock (if the center front was 12 O'clock).

I next made a couple of yo-yo's (I only ended up using one, but I was making it up as I went along, and I thought at first I would use two). To make a yo-yo, run a gathering stitch along the bottom of a length of ribbon and pull to gather. Shape the gathered ribbon into a circle, tie off your thread, and sew the ends of the ribbon together.

I stuck an old clip on earring through the hole in the yo-yo...

for added interest and to tie the colors together.

I made three more yo-yo's, one out of the same ribbon as the hat band, and two out of a third colored ribbon (it usually looks better when you add that third color) and sewed them together as you see here.

Sew the red yo-yo to the other three...

so that it looks like this.

Sew into the middle of the bow, and you're done!

Why not try re-decorating an old hat of your own? You might be surprised at how satisfying it is.

~Susan Liana