We had a sort of vague commitment to doing some sort of Halloween in the office since it was on a workday for the first time in a while. So I decided that I was going to bring the project, which I’d been eyeing up for years, to life. You see, in 2018, Bernadette Banner posted a video about a Winter Witch Hat and then another one about a similar hat in 2020. I’ve been thinking about recreating that for literal years, but never actually got around to it. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to make myself a new hat, suitable for winter.
Since the videos above weren’t full tutorials, I scoured the internet and found some other examples of people taking on this project (ash_rock and Fresh Frippery). This last one is an actual tutorial so I took those instructions and ran with them. Since I wanted the hat to sit more ‘over’ my head than ‘on’ my head, I increased all the measurements. The original plan was to make it out of black wool, but since that fabric is quite precious, I decided to make a test version out of left-over fabric from these pants.
Two brims, one crown and two ear flaps were cut from the plaid. The brims and crown were interfaced for some stiffness and the earflaps were lined with some nice warm fleece. I put the hat together and then decided to line the inside of the crown too. I found some of the interlining from my red coat that matched well in colour and sewed it in. The ugliness is hidden with some bias tape. If I’d been fully awake throughout the project, it probably would’ve gone a lot quicker. However, I did finish it in a day and I’ve been very happy with it. I think it’s cute and I love the little fold-over point. If I make it again, I’m going to make the hole for my head a little bit bigger, but it’s not too annoying this way.
It looks great!