Finished bergére hat

I finished my bergére hat a few days ago, I'm really happy with how it turned out and it would appear that I've well and truly caught the millinery bug, especially since it's our current project at uni. So expect lots more hat posts in the near future.

Before I show you the finished hat I thought I'd go through how I made it.

Both the hats I bought, I used the one on the left.

The first thing I did was rip out the hat band and elastic from the inside and remove the white Petersham from around the sideband.

 

 

The crown had already been cut off and sewn back on again at some point so I just unpicked the other persons stitches and then trimmed it down a little bit. Evening up the edge in the process, it had previously been lopsided.

Please excuse the blur, I didn't realise that my camera was focused on the sketchbook instead.

I then had my two separate pieces.

These I took downstairs to flatten out and reblock them slightly.

I used the hot water and heavy books method whereby I wet the straw (more than damp but not dripping), covered it with plastic bags to protect the books and then weighted everything down.
The brim had some weird waves in it and I wanted to see if I could make the hole in the middle smaller. The crown I rounded more on the base sauce pan, wetting it then tugging it gently into the shape I desired.

Once both pieces were dry I brought them upstairs again and trimmed off a little bit more from the crown. I had originally wanted it to be higher and more angular but by this point I had changed my mind.
I carefully pinned the two pieces and then sewed them together.

Not quite sewn yet but you get the idea.

Once that was done it was time to decorate it. I had decided that I didn't want it to be too fancy but simple puffs weren't the order of the day either, it needed a little something more. I settle on gathered puffs and then alternating white-gold paper roses.

At this point not all of them were attached properly.

 I attached the roses by driving the wire through gaps in the straw and then twisting it into little spirals on the inside. It looks a bit messy but once the hat band was in you couldn't see any of it.

Then I unfortunately forgot to take anymore photos. Basically all that happened was that I finished applying the roses, sewed in the ties, which I made from the same silk as the puffs. And then I decided that I wanted yet more decoration so I made a little matching silk bow to go at the front and put two more roses on that to cover the stitches where I'd sewn it to the puffs. Once all that was done, in went the hat band and it was finished!
It took me so long to finish the hat because I added wire to the brim, deliberated about whether it had enough of an effect for me to add an edging (which I didn't think would look very nice) and then took it off again.

here, have an extra large picture of the finished hat!

I'm really proud of how it turned out, I need to add some worked loops for hairpins on the inside but I'll do that at a later date.
The bow sits just off to the left and gives the hat a fun little jaunt look that I really like. I'm so pleased with the silk that I used, I found it in the scrap bin at university and the colour matches perfectly with a colour in the print of my fabric from Colonial Williamsburg. Said fabric will hopefully become part of an outfit that I will wear this hat with.
Overall this hat cost me £2.50 since I found the silk, already had the flowers, pale gold petersham and threads. Which I call a win!