Make a Small Feminine Top Hat

This is a tutorial on how to make a smaller tophat

I previously made a large one and this is the feminine version

What you will need:

Cardboard

Felt

Tape Measure

Chalk

Duct Tape

Glue/ Glue gun

Scissors

Needle and thread

Compass

Pen/ Pencil

Fabric and decorations of your choice

First you need to measure around your head

I made mine a little smaller than the circumference of my head because I want it to sit more to the front and be smaller than a regular tophat.

From there you take that measurement (mine was 45cm) and cut out a piece of paper that is about 2cm longer because you will need to glue it together to make a band like the above

Using the oval band you have now glued up, put it over some stiff cardboard and trace that oval onto the paper

Once you have the oval, you will now need to find the middle of it

Then using a compass, draw a circle around the oval - about 5cm or so - depending on how wide you want the brim of your hat to be

Cut the circle out of the cardboard

Neaten any edges that may need it

Before you cut out the inner part, you need to draw tabs all along the inside of the brim

These are going to stick to the tube part of the hat

Now that you have drawn your tabs, you can cut them out one by one

Pretty tedious but worth it

Fold the tabs up

Now that the brim is done, you can move onto the tube part

Depending on how high you want your hat to be - I opted for 10cm because I wanted a smaller more feminine look

I then measured onto the card 11cm up (just to be safe) and the circumference of that band which was 45cm wide

I then cut that length of card out

I used a glue gun here to glue the tube up

I would recommend it for only this part and the felt

This part particularly because the cardboard is thick and has a little trouble with regular glue

Alternatively you can also use duct tape to keep it together

Run that along the outside join and just ensure that it is properly stuck down

Now, using the tube you have just glued up, you can measure out the top part of the hat

I ALWAYS have trouble here so do try to be accurate.

If the oval is a little wonky then let it be so - as long as it is true to the shape of the tube

Any alterations that you do after will make it hard to fit it correctly

I learnt this lesson the hard way

Once you have your oval shape, it is time to add some tabs

This time they need to be on the outside as they will stick the top part of the hat together

Again time to cut out the boring tabs

It's a little easier this time because they are on the outside

Fold the tabs up

Make sure that you do this carefully and accurately to avoid having trouble with the next step

I tried this with normal glue and with the glue gun but neither of them worked

In the end, duct tape was the best solution

If you have kept your measurements and folding accurate, then this should be fairly simple

You put the tabs into the tube facing downwards and make it fit as the very top of the hat

Once it is in, you can tear off duct tape and stick it on each individual tab making sure that they are stuck down properly

I stuck the brim on first before measuring the felt

I would actually recommend that you cut out the felt for the brim first before sticking it on

For the felt you need to cut out two circles that are a little larger than the brim as they will come together when you stick one piece above and one below

Then, with the top piece of felt on the brim, you can proceed to fit it and stick the tabs to the inside of the tube with duct tape once more

put the hat upside down onto some felt and using some chalk, measure around the top

Do be sure to leave a little extra all the way around because you can always trim it later

Rather have too much than too little which makes it look untidy

Glue the top part on

Now using those same measurements from earlier to create the tube, measure and cut out enough felt for the tube part of the hat

Be sure to leave just a little extra again and glue it all up using a glue gun

If you have not already cut out the brim and have already stuck it on like I did, then you can simply cut out two circles (again wider than the brim) and score them in the middle

Then cut the first from the middle out a little at a time until it can fit over the top of the hat

Once you have the top over, do the same with the bottom to ensure that the hole that your head needs to fit in, is wide enough

Any excess felt on the top you can glue to the inside of the hat

Because this hat isn't sitting flush with my head, I needed to add hairclips to make it stay on

I glued four clips onto the bottom felt of my hat

This was the most finicky part

I hand sewed the pieces together to give it a nice shape and look

If you have excellent gluing skills then this may not be necessary but I wanted to make sure it all looked like one continuous piece of fabric so I hand tacked everything to give it a nice finish

Finally it is time to decorate the hat as you see fit

I looked up different Victorian hat styles and many of them had some sort of fabric around the hat and draped down with some sort of decoration on the front

To watch the full video on how to make this hat, you can check out my link below