DIY Witch Hat. How to Make, Sew from Fabric

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The witch's hat is often found as an element carnival costume. It can be sewn by hand, which allows you to make the headdress individual. Sometimes the hat is used to decorate the house on the eve of Halloween, and someone puts it on, complementing their outfit.

The ease and accessibility of choosing materials and designs allows you to sew a small-sized hat that will serve as a small stylish decoration for your home.

Necessary calculations for the hat

To sew a hat from fabric, you need to make a pattern.

First, you will need paper; with its help you can make sketches, transfer the drawing onto the fabric:

You need to measure the circumference of your head and calculate the radius.
Using the formula R= L / 3.14 / 2, you need to calculate the volume of the hat.
Next, you need to measure how many cm you will need for the brim of the hat.
You need to leave about 1 cm for the seam and 1 cm for finishing the edges.
You should also calculate the wire consumption for encircling the brim and frame of the top of the hat.
If you replace the wire with edging tape, the rigidity will not be sufficient. You can additionally strengthen the structure with cardboard.
The gluing should be done with superglue for reliability.
If desired, you can insert a drawstring and elastic band so that the hat sits more tightly on your head. This will require fixation around the perimeter to increase the level of rigidity.

A do-it-yourself witch hat should also have a comfortable height so that the weight of the fabric does not tip the structure to the side. You can make a wire retainer, then thread it into the seam.

In general, witch crowns can be completely different - wrinkled, long, with a slope or tassels on the bent end. As for decorations, too - you can decorate with glitter, beads, heat-stickers.

How to Make a Witch Hat Out of Fabric

Most often, craftswomen choose the standard option of making a hat from fabric. This is often complicated by the fact that not every type of material is rigid. It is necessary to strengthen the structure with cardboard and wire. Therefore, it is better to choose a dense and rigid material.

To make it you will need:

textile;
scissors;
needles and threads in the color of the fabric;
wire for the frame;
cardboard or paper for patterns;
decorative materials.

The manufacturing process is as follows:

First, you need to take measurements to make a pattern. The calculation methods were described earlier. According to them, you can take measurements with a reserve of 1-2 cm for the frame.
The wire must be bent into a circle, taking into account the circumference of the head. It is worth considering the circumference of the outer and inner circles.
The pattern should be transferred to the fabric. First of all, you need to make a cap.
The fields should be made from identical parts of equal circumference.
The wire should be attached in a ring to the back side in the inner seam.
The wire can be replaced with cardboard, which should be cut out in one piece to strengthen the brim at the base of the hat.
Connect the pieces together with a blind stitch.
The fastenings of the parts can be decorated with edging tape or other materials.

The finished product is tried on, after which the back side of the seam is sewn up if it is too big or does not fit well on the head.

A do-it-yourself witch hat can also be sewn from another material. As an alternative, soft textile but dense fabric samples are used, such as felt, cloth or burlap. Less often, such an accessory is created from leather and fleece.

Felt Witch Hat

Felt can vary in composition and characteristics, so its properties directly affect the density of the fabric. And this is important for obtaining the desired result.

To help you make the right choice, below are typical felt characteristics:

Natural	Synthetic	Mixed
Down felt is a soft and delicate material that is considered to be the best in quality. It contains a downy portion of hare, fox, and rabbit fur.	Acrylic felt is considered a plastic recycling product, so it has high rigidity. It has increased density, holds its shape well, but does not bend well.	This material is obtained from synthetic and natural fibers, it is considered a mixed type of felt. The quality depends on how much one or another material predominates. Natural raw materials are cleaned and sorted, the fluff is rolled. Then, during heat treatment, the fluff is felted and forms a homogeneous fabric. To give it rigidity, artificial material is added, giving the felt thickness and density.
Wool is a coarser material, characterized by greater weight and rigidity. It has high strength; it is made from sheep and goat wool.	Polyester material, on the contrary, is very soft, but holds its shape well. It is one of the most popular consumer products, which has a low cost.
Down-wool felt is made from wool and down. The ratio may vary, so consumer properties differ depending on the composition. If wool predominates, the material resembles wool felt. With a greater addition of down to the composition, the material resembles a soft down analogue.

For sewing a hat, wool, polyester or mixed felt are suitable, which are sufficiently rigid.

To make the headdress you will need:

felt of two colors;
black thread and needles;
dark or black colored tape;
cardboard;
filler (synthetic fluff or synthetic padding);
beads for decoration;
scissors;
tweezers;
hot glue.

Manufacturing process:

It is necessary to prepare a cone of felt to create the height of the cap. It is necessary to measure the circumference of the head and make a pattern.
Next, you should transfer the measurements onto cardboard or directly onto the fabric.
You also need to cut out ¼ of the cone so that when sewing the edges you get the desired shape.
Felt can be sewn or glued along the edges. The edges of the blanks can be finished with tape.
The cone needs to be filled with synthetic padding and pressed down as desired to add ambience to the shape.
For the base of the hat you will need felt, which you need to sew around the edges with a loop stitch. This can be done with any color of thread.
You need to glue a cone in the center; you can also sew it on from the inside, finishing the seam with a stitch.
When using hot glue, be careful to remove any stretchy threads; try not to get it on visible areas of the product.
The base of the cone can be sewn and decorated with ribbon.
If desired, you can decorate the hat with beads and add decoration to the finished product.

Felt is convenient because it allows you to make small-sized hats for dolls, preschool children and adults. The material holds its shape well, is convenient in practice (you can sew or glue parts) and is easy to clean.

Hat made of cloth

A witch's hat, sewn with your own hands from cloth, can be soft, dense and hard. Such material lends itself well to bending, holds its shape and is pliable in sewing.

Since there are different types of cloth, It is worth choosing the material that meets the characteristics of the material for creating a headdress:

Weave type	Felt covering, linen and twill.
Composition of raw materials	Pure wool, a mixture of coarse or fine wool and other fibers.
Woolen cloth	The composition contains wool of merino sheep, camels or other breeds of sheep. The price is high. The warp and weft fibers have the same thickness. A cheap analogue contains cotton, and the weft contains a mixed type of yarn, which may contain viscose. Wool reaches 60% in this type of fabric.
Color	Plain dyed or melange - the thread density varies from 45% to 68%, for the weft - 78-90%. The density of the surface type can reach 450 g / m². For the production and sewing of clothes, cloth with a density of 560-890 g/m is used.²Some types can be coated with impregnations for sufficient heat resistance.
Relative density	A felted pile indicates a weak density indicator. Coarse cloth is distinguished by the presence of thick yarn.

For sewing a hat, you should choose cloth that has a good density of 600 g/m². At the same time, pile stripes from yarn, uneven threads and unevenly felted parts of textiles should not be visible on the surface. High-quality expensive cloth produces a good product that holds its shape, but is subject to deformation during sewing.

To make a hat you will need:

cloth of any color;
scissors;
cardboard for patterns;
threads with a needle;
pencil;
decor.

During the manufacturing process, it is important to use ironed cloth that does not have any creases:

All measurements need to be transferred to cardboard, and a pattern needs to be made. Thin paper will not work, since due to the density of the cloth and its likelihood of shrinking, it will not fit evenly to the surface of the fabric.
Make a pattern according to the size of the head, then add a reserve for allowances. Depending on the density of the fabric, the reserve can be from 1.5 to 3 cm.
After transferring the pattern onto the cloth, you should cut out the details for the brim and crown along the contour.
The brim pieces should be doubled and cardboard should be inserted between the bottom and top pieces to fit.
The inner parts of the brim must be sewn together using a blind stitch.
From the wrong side, you need to sew the pieces together.
If the hat is to be creased in the crown part, it is necessary to sew the cloth from the inside so that creases remain.
For decoration, you can use various materials that match the color scheme.

If desired, the product can be complemented with a veil, feathers or flowers.

From burlap

A do-it-yourself witch hat can be sewn from burlap. This material is used for packaging. It contains flax or jute. Depending on this, the linen weave can be wide or dense. Plant and natural fibers allow you to make burlap of different densities.

The fabric has different characteristics:

Jute – contains only natural jute; coarse material may additionally include admixtures of fibrous plant stems. The yarn is “porous”, the density is low. At the same time, burlap has high rigidity.
Mixed burlap contains jute and flax in equal proportions. It has medium rigidity, but high strength due to jute fibers. The price is higher than the 100% jute analogue.
Linen burlap is considered the most expensive type of material in this segment. Contains 100% flax, is soft and has a medium degree of hardness. It also has antiseptic properties.

The most convenient to work with are blended and linen burlap. They can have a density of 200 to 430 g / m². The higher this figure, the more expensive the material will be. But to make one hat, 2 m of fabric is enough, so it is easy to plan the budget.

And for sewing you will need:

sackcloth;
scissors;
cardboard;
threads with needles;
pencil;
wire;
hot glue;
decor.

In the process of creating a hat, you need to prepare a wire frame, so this will be the first step:

You need to take measurements around the circumference of your head for the future hat, make a pattern and transfer it onto the fabric.
For the frame, you need to create a solid ring of wire, immediately thread it into the edging, and give it the shape of a hat.
The brim needs to be reinforced with cardboard. Without it, the hat will only have curves at the edges of the brim, which will create the image of a beach hat.
The cardboard needs to be tightly fixed in the grooves of the fields, and the edges sewn together.
A second solid wire ring should be attached to the free edge.
The cone needs to be made from ¼ of a circle so that the hat is pointed.
Connect the edges of the crown to the brim using a loop stitch.

To decorate the hat, you can use twine, decorative spiders and ribbons with artificial webs.

Made of leather

It was said earlier that the witch's hat can also be sewn from fleece and leather. Since fleece resembles soft felt, the principle of working with it is clear. And leather or its substitute will require additional skill in work.

To make a hat look fabulous, like in the movies, you need to understand the principle of working with leather materials, as well as be consistent and neat.

To sew a leather hat you will need:

genuine black leather;
superglue or haberdashery glue;
overlock thread silk or synthetic;
wide eye needle;
hot glue;
press (made from heavy materials at hand);
scissors;
felt-tip pen;
cardboard;
awl and thimble.

Decorative elements such as buttons and hardware must be attached to the leather hat before it is sewn.

You will also need a frame made of thick cardboard to give it a typical shape:

First, you need to do the standard step - take measurements, make a pattern and transfer them to the fabric.
You need to draw on the skin with an alcohol marker that does not absorb into the surface. Ink markers and liners are not suitable, as are pencils.
The pattern also needs to be transferred to cardboard to create a frame for the soft leather. The dimensions should be smaller, without any allowance for seam allowances.
Once ready, insert the cardboard fields into the leather scraps.
The blank parts need to be prepared after trying on the cardboard: make holes with an awl if the leather is hard, and do the same with the edges of the crown.
Using a needle and overlock thread, you need to sew the free edges of the brim on the outside and inside.
The leather part for the crown needs to be stitched along the edges and put on a cardboard cone. The fabric should not fit tightly to the cardboard due to the allowances that were made earlier.
To give the crown a casual look and a slight crumpling, the leather needs to be gathered into folds and glued to the cardboard from the inside with superglue.
After this, you can sew the pieces together, using a thimble to make it easier for the needle to pass through the leather.

A do-it-yourself witch hat can be sewn using this principle from leather substitute of any size. The only difficulty is that some decorative elements cannot be glued to the leather.

This involves using metal elements with fasteners in the form of clamps. Sometimes, tools for working with buttons, beads and plugs may be required.

Decor for hat decoration

Even witches have their own style and dress code, which interprets the use of elements of a certain shape and style. It is generally accepted that a witch's hat should be pointed due to the historical significance of clothing and the ethnic culture of accessories.

DIY Witch Hat. How to Make, Sew from Fabric — Feathers can be used as decoration for a homemade witch hat

The sinister meaning was already present in Mark Twain's time, when Phrygian caps and gennins were mentioned.

The first mention of pointed hats was in the Subeshi necropolis in China. This is around the 4th century BC.
Europe associated such accessories with witchcraft because of the references to sorcery and evil spirits. They were the ones who came to people in such attire.
Due to children's naive fears, such an image was quickly remembered from fairy tales that mentioned old women, dark forces and enchanted apples that could put anyone to sleep.
European artists began to paint pictures of witches wearing exactly these types of headdresses.
And Professor Gary Jensen specified that women themselves wanted to relate themselves to dark witchcraft forces, using outfits with elements of pointed hats in their image. Such a hint at magic played a cruel joke on some girls.
And in English folklore, according to A. Rackham's illustrations, characters were depicted wearing church pointed hats that had spires - the pointedness of the accessory reflected involvement in church "light" forces; and a negative perception indicated mistrust of churches at that time.
Later it was accepted that spires call for grace, and in the common parlance such headdresses were worn by people far from the church. This gave rise to gossip that the spire attracts evil spirits, especially for people who formed discriminated social groups in society.

Later, pointed hats began to be decorated with various beads and ribbons to dilute the witchcraft associations in people. In the Russian Empire, due to the formalization of costume features, such a hat caused mild indignation, but the opposition intelligentsia considered it a "democratic hat."

At the beginning of the 20th century, it became popular with students, who sensed in it the scent of the revolution of those times, when power was replacing aristocratic circles with modern ranks and classes.

Nowadays it is difficult to imagine a pointed hat without decoration:

Most often, a veil is used, casually gathered at the base of the brim.
Less often, the hat is decorated with sequins, if this is not a feature of the fabric.
Spiders, current Halloween elements, scary skulls and imitation bones are all good options for detailed decor.
But feathers began to be used only in masquerade costumes.
Stars have become mandatory children's attributes, creating the image of a wizard; not at all evil.
Miniature hats can be glued to a headband and trimmed with ribbons to add volume.

The witch's hat is considered the main attribute in creating mystery. It also helps to conduct witchcraft rituals and spells. In terms of creating it yourself, the accessory does not take much time, but the costume turns out to be the most complete, beautiful and bright.

Even Harry Potter wore the Gryffindor sorting hat at Hogwarts, so a carnival masquerade without such an element of attire cannot be held so as not to overshadow the magical rituals of wizards.

Video about making a hat

Master class: Witch hat in 30 minutes: