I know it might be hard to believe, but I do not have a sewing machine. What I know about sewing by hand I’ve taught myself, and my mom taught me to sew on her mom’s (my grandmother’s) pedal Singer. I love that machine and if one day it makes it’s way to me I will cherish it, but the fact will remain that it can only do a straight stitch.

So, I was thinking on getting myself a brand new sewing machine.

I know what I do not want:

1. I don’t want a machine with a plastic body. No, no, no… I hate those (and that immediately rules many brands)

2. I do not want a fancy electronic embroidery machine. I want it simple, basic.

3. I do not want a second hand one and I don’t want a bargain that will break on day two.

These self imposed restrictions have led me to the following machine (that unfortunately does not sell in Spain), a Janome 419s. It’s a Japanese brand, and this particular model has an all metal body and can do 18 stitches and a one step button hole. It also has a free arm and the feed can be dropped.

It looks like a strong machine that will be able to sew through felt and whatnot. This french website has lots of pictures of the little details.

The strange thing is that, if I buy this machine in Holland (I’m going there soon for a few days) it will cost me 399 Euros. If I buy it in the UK it will cost me 232 Euros (including shipping to Spain) and they even drop in a set of scissors worth 65 Euros. It’s a no brainer really, but I’m amazed there can be such a huge difference in price. The official Janome price is simply half in the UK…

Well, this is it. I’ve kind of made up my mind, but I will try to test one while I’m in Amsterdam, to get a feel for the machine.

 So… if any one has any objection against this machine or brand, please speak now (soon) or forever hold your peace…

Finally I took the felt out of the block but not before trimming out the excess felt with a new toy I recently bought myself at a craft fair. It’s called a chenille cutter made by Olfa. It’s similar to the paper cutter from 3M that I showed you on this post, only this works much better because it’s intended for cutting several layers of fabric, and the manufacturer even says that’s good to cut felt. I thought it was made to cut chenille, but after looking around on the web I see that it’s meant to make chenille, or at least something that looks like it, pretty cool actually.

Well, back to my hat. I was very proud of myself after I unblocked. It looked like a hat! It looked pretty darn good!

   It does looks like a hat… I know it sounds silly but I was imagining everything that could go wrong and was not so sure about the whole thing.

I unblocked while at Nina’s workroom and immediately realised that it was too soft and needed some stiffener. I used the chemical smelly stiffener because it would not have been a good idea to use the waterbased one since the hat might have lost it’s shape. I felt wonderful and held the hat in my hand all the way back home (in the bus)… people must have thought I was nuts.

The BAD news. Either I have to chop off the top of Peter’s ears by one centimeter or I need to re-do the crown. BWAAAHHHH! Entirely my fault because I DID measure the distance between the top of his ear and the top of his head, wrote it down, worked it into my sketch and then FORGOT all about it until the moment I put it on Peter’s head. The underside of the crown (crease) has to slightly sit on top of the head, otherwise it will not be comfortable to wear. Or would it? I think not, but then I think about a top hat and that does not sit on top of the head…

Soooo… this is the plan (possibly doomed to failure). I am reworking the crown block. The height will go down, but mostly the crease will be deeper. I hope I will be able to save the brim, and just steam the crown, put it back on the crown block, tie the base with string and with the help of more steam I should (hope to) be able to work it into the new shape. What I reckon I cannot do is to simply lower the height of the crown without going down on the central crease because if I do that I will have excess felt and I wont be able ease it into shape. Even so, I will have excess felt and don’t have a clue how it will work out… possibly a mess…

Stay tuned…

It seemed like the day would never come, but finally I have dared to block the felt on my wonderful new blocks.

Still too lazy to dig up my jiffy steamer from under a pile of boxes I have popped the water sprayed felt, wrapped in a wet towel, into my microwave.

This is the fur felt capeline I have used, bought at the German supplier KOPKA, it’s a special capeline for man’s hats. It’s special because because it’s thicker felt and heavily sized.

Here are some pictures of the process:

Yes, crazy enough to nuke the brim after the crown was blocked (no pins in there, just string!), also a picture of the plastic bags I’ve used to protect the block:

And here the blocked brim. You can understand now what I meant before when I said that the brim block goes upside down. The block is in the oven for drying (I have an air oven and it’s set at 50ºC). I did put my marble dust bag on top and some weights on top of that to keep the top crease in place, but I had removed them when I took the picture so that it would dry:

 

Here are some pictures of the blocked brim:

I might still get a decent hat out of this… who knows!

Tomorrow the unveiling/unblocking… I hope to have time to post about it!

I thought I’d show you the latest progress on the brim block…

I don’t know how I manage but lately I end up working on the block late in the afternoon until the light is almost gone and I can see close to nothing (guessing my way around), so I will wait until this weekend to check up the block with good light and give it a final shape and polish. The edge is pretty much done, first I’ve traced it with a pen and then I’ve used the metal file to make the indentation and shaping.

I must say I’m pretty happy with the result so far… I can’t wait to block the felt and I hope that a proper hat comes out of it, but it’s really hard to visualize the final hat just from the block, even if it’s me who has made it.

And I want to say thanks to Jill for keeping an eye on me and the block/blog!

As Jill says, the plot thickens…

Because the brim for the homburg hat curls up, the brim block will curl down (with the crown disappearing through the middle hole). So I’ve been looking at pictures of homburg hats, upside down, to get a good idea of how the brim has to be carved.

What about this…

Feels silly doesn’t it, but it’s what I’ve been doing these couple of days, looking at my hat books upside down.

But before getting to the fun (yet terrifying) part of shaping the brim, one needs to file down the opening until it’s slightly larger than the crown block size. The reason it has to be slightly bigger is because the crown block, with the felt already blocked on it, has to fit through, so the thickness of the felt has to be taken into account… This is an annoying and lengthy process, with constant checking and re-checking, and I suspect I’ve over done it and the hole is now too large… Ah well, if it turns out to be too big it can be fixed by glueing a thin layer of sheet cork around the brim headsize. So I will worry when I get there, because at this moment so many other things can go wrong that it might be premature to get upset about just one…

Is the gap too big?  

Once you have the central hole of the brim done, it’s time for the shaping, this is where I am at the moment:

Front view…

side view…

The curves at this moment are pretty subtle, but I think I will leave them like that. The most important part which is the brim edge still has to be done (check the picture above and see how the brim edge curves towards the inside), and that’s not going to be easy! But hey, I’ve gotten this far…

There is no hat without a brim, so now it’s time to get on with the brim block!

These are the steps to follow:

1. Decide the brim width (and give it an extra half centimeter just in case…)

2. Draw an oval, for which you need to calculate the width and height of the oval (based on the brim width and the headsize oval measures). After that all you need is a string and some pins. Follow the instructions on this link, it´s quite simple and you will get a perfect ellipse!

  3. Trace your headsize oval on the center of your brim oval pattern, and cut out the outside and inside so you can now use it as a pattern to trace on the cork. We will need two layers of work for the brim. Make sure to mark center front, back, and both sides.

4. Now it’s time to cut the cork with the jigsaw. You need to make a pilot hole with a drill, one centimeter close to the inside line of the headsize so you get a hole large enough for the saw blade to fit in and cut the central oval. I say to drill close to the line because this way you will save the maximum amount of cork for a future project. Remember not to cut on the line, but towards the inside. Once the hole is made you can start on the outside, also leaving a margin, but this time cut towards the outside of the line. With the scraps you should cut two smaller pieces to be used as “elevators” for the block. This elevation will allow us to block the felt in one piece, fitting the crown through the hole in the center of the brim.

5. Now it’s time to glue (with contact glue) the two brim ovals, making sure to match center front and back. The two blocks that we have cut for elevation will be added at the end.

Finally it’s time to shape the brim…

Because I did such a lousy job with the sawing, I’ve had to do some extra work and some rethinking on the shape.

Getting to this…

…from this…

… has not been easy at all. I’ve had to do some serious sanding down just to eliminate the steps. Honestly even a one armed blind folded person would have done a better work with the sawing… but hey, it didn’t turn out that bad so I’m not going to beat myself over it.

These are the steps to follow:1. First file down the headsize area until you get to the correct headsize, making sure you file evenly as not to change the oval shape. The last steps of these have to be done with sand paper or the metal rasp to leave a smooth finish.

2. Use the side of the metal rasp to make an indentation around the base of the block to form the string groove. This will be useful when blocking because you will be able to tighten a string or special spring around it to keep the felt in place.

3. Follow your plans to shape the rest of the block, using the different tools.

4. If you need to have a groove or difficult shape that cannot be made with just the rasp, the variable speed rotary tool with a large round bit will be of enormous help. But beware, it is easy to make irreparable damage because the bit will be turning at really high speeds, so be very careful and remove material little by little. Finish with some sanding to even out.

And there you have it! A finished crown block!… still to come of course, is the crown block.

Some pictures (click to enlarge):

Tools for cork hat block making

Originally uploaded by kuki.deprada.net … the millinery blog.

These are the tools I’ve been using. There are notes on this picture (comments on each tool), so please click on it to be directed to flickr and you will be able to see those notes when you run your mouse over the image…

The idea was to make a block that looked and felt as close as possible to the real thing. Having holes in the base to hold the block is really useful, an the central hole allows you to put the block in a stand.You don’t really need to do this. This layer can be just like the others, glued in and then sanded (and you can omit the three holes), but since I was going to make the holes and that was going to be time consuming, I thought it would be better to make the base reusable for other blocks of the same size.

But since I did it, here’s how…

I used a “hole saw drill” with it’s corresponding “hexagon adapter a.k.a. mandrel“. The circle has a diameter of 29 millimeters, and we used a drill press stand (that we’ve had for ages) that allowed us a lot of control on the depth of the holes and the perpendicularity. Afterwards we used a thick drill bit to empty out the remaining cork.

To attach the base to the rest of the block I used a dowel kit and again the drill press stand, which is important in this case to make the holes perpendicular, otherwise it will not work properly. The idea is to make a first set of holes in one side, then you put a metalic pointed thing in the wholes (that comes with the kit), position the other side on top in the right position and press hard to leave a mark. Because it’s hard to see anything in cork, I glued a piece of paper, but you can just as well use some masking tape (it just didn’t occur to me at the time).

The result was great! And I’m really happy I did the whole thing.

One important detail is to leave sanding until later, when it’s properly assembled, so the whole thing will be smooth.

Planning all done, and the oval patterns traced on the cork it’s now time to use the jigsaw to saw them up. Since sawing is the fun bit, and we were sawing 4 pieces, we did 2 ovals each (modesty aside, mine turned out much better!).

Some advice:

1. Do not do this in your living room. Or you will end up with a think layer of cork dust all over the place, if you don’t believe me take a look. I should get a foldable work bench so I can do it in the balcony.

2. Make sure your cork sheet is well fixed to your table, a couple of bar clamps will do the trick. You don’t want your cork to be wobbly.

3. If your jigsaw can be tilted, make sure it’s perfectly flat (unless you want it tilted!)… don’t ask me why I’m telling you this.

4. Make sure to cut outside the line. You need to leave some space for the sanding that will happen later, if you cut exactly on the line you might be eating away too much cork, and it’s easy for the blade to go in the direction you don’t want.

5. Do not bother to use the vacuum accessory (that connects the jigsaw to your vacuum cleaner) because it really doesn’t suck up much (at least in my case).

We did make a dog’s breakfast out of it, I must confess, and we did not get the gradual step effect that I wanted. It was quite a mess, but I’m fixing it during sanding, although it might affect the final shape.

After sawing, the top layers were ready to be glued together (the bottom layer will be processed differently, not glued). I used contact adhesive for the glueing, and I did it layer by layer because each side to be glued has to be covered with a thin layer of glue and let to dry for 20-30 minutes until it’s not sticky to the touch, only then the pieces can be joined together being extremely careful because once in contact it’s impossible to reposition them, so make sure CF-CF and CB-CB match perfectly. The best way is to position the top piece barely hinged on one edge (matching the markings) and carefully drop it down until it sticks.

Because we did such a lousy job with the sawing this is the result after glueing (there is a gap between second a third layer the size of the grand canyon…):