An illustrated guide for making Vintage Vogue V7464, hat B, part 1

Due to all the images I break this guide up in two parts. I hope you will find it helpful. Now when I know all the steps, the hat isn't so hard to sew- I just wish I had known them before I started...

It’s meant to compliment the original instructions, so you need those too to get all the information you need. I made my hat in green wool felt that probably is a bit on the thin side. I starched it heavily before I started to sew and I think it will hold up well enough, as long as I don't get it wet. I used ordinary heavy wire when I made it, but have since found my millinery wire in a box where it wasn’t supposed to be and replaced it.

Here are all the parts cut and thread traced. I really recommend you to thread trace here. It doesn’t take long and you need to be able to see the marks on both sides. Pattern piece A is the front and the curved end is the one that curves down toward the face when you wear it. And though it wasn’t clear to me when I started, the opposite, pointy, end is one part of the “bow” on the finished hat.




Fold pattern piece C, press, then sew gathering stitches along the raw, rounded edge.



Pull the gathering threads so the flat edge gets rounded and the rounded get straight. Well, as straight as possible anyway… Sew the raw edge to the corresponding part on pattern piece B.



Fold the rounded edge on A and stitch a narrow channel between the markings. Don’t do it as I have done here- despite careful checking I managed to fold it the wrong way. It’s no big deal, it looks fine anyway, but if you want the raw edge on the inside, do it the other way around.



Insert wire.



Fold the rounded edge back as instructed but don’t press. I did and have had to try to steam away the fold mark. Here I also did another mistake. The illustrations show that the very tip of A is folded back out again, but I managed to miss that. However, I haven’t been able to figure out why that should be done in the first place and happily let my mistake be. Sew A and B together.



The hat sewn together. Note the seam allowance jutting out on B. It is supposed to do that at this point, so don’t worry.



And here is the inside.



With the right side up, fold A as shown. Sew down invisibly.





Sew gathering stitches on B.



Fold D in three lengthwise and press. Gather the gathering thread on B as much as you need for D to get wrapped around it.



The second part will be posted tomorrow.