Pirate Costume: The Hat

 Greetings friends,

For a number of years I thought it'd be fun to gradually assemble a pirate costume that I can wear every year for Halloween. This eliminates the need for new costumes, and with a small amount of effort I can add little details to the costume every year. Last year (2021) I went very simple, repurposing a "Where's Waldo" striped shirt for my pirate garb and sporting a matching red bandana. This year, I decided I'd have a go at making a nice pirate hat.

I ordered a felted wool hat blank from Cooperstown Trading Post, in a size XL. I forgot to take a photo of the hat when it arrived, but it's a very basic black hat with a round wide brim. The hat was incredibly stiff, but with some persuasion, it became pliable enough to shape.

I wanted to style the hat similar to the classic tricorn, so I started by bending up the brim of the hat on each side and applied some small clamps to establish a crease. I used the steam setting on my clothes iron to gently steam the hat so that the crease would set. This worked incredibly well to soften the wool and make this work much easier. At the same time, I was able to steam the crown of the hat and stretch it over my head to achieve a better fit. With the hat shaped with steam and clamps, I used some thick thread to "pin" the sides up to hold the tricorn shape.

For the trim, I wanted something ornate but not too over the top. I found a wonderful trim from Palladia Passementerie which I think has the perfect level of flair. I sewed this around the brim of the hat after shaping it, using a thumb tack to poke through the thick wool and then sewing the trim into place.

I have some future plans to add to the hat, for example some feathers and maybe decorative pins or buttons, but at this point it was ready for the debut! It fits really comfortably over my bandana and I'm sure will hold up well for quite a long time!

Arrrr!

Thanks for reading,

Juju

Plague Doctor Mask

Greetings friends,

Well, we're in the midst of a global pandemic... The coronavirus has halted the economy, reached 3 million cases worldwide, and exposed which world leaders are capable of handling this type of outbreak, and which aren't...

I thought it would be wonderfully fitting to share an old project of mine, made in the fall of 2018. This was my first dive into the world of leathercrafting, and it was loads of fun to make. This will probably be a relatively short post since the majority of the project involved stitching, which let's face it is not riveting... 😜 Lets dive in!

I found the plans for this mask on Etsy. There were many choices available, but since I was looking to create the most traditional looking mask that I could, this one looked the best to me. For the sake of authenticity, I also opted to use undyed leather in the hopes that over time, a patina would develop as the mask is worn and a more weathered appearance would result. I used some dark thread as an accent for the light leather.

Working from the pattern, I cut out all the pieces required for the mask. I used a surgical-grade scalpel for cutting which created nice clean edges on all the pieces. Once everything was cut out, I punched holes along all edges that would become seams. The following pictures lay show the progression of stitching seams together one after another. Each piece builds on the one before, and the whole mask comes together rather nicely.

This piece becomes the bottom of the "beak." The holes 

punched on the sides of the seam are vents for breathing.

The two halves of the face of the mask were each stitched to their respective side 

on the bottom piece, then folded over and stitched along the top to close the beak.

The forehead piece was stitched to the top of the beak first, then connected at the sides. 

Here it's easy to see the rivet holes on the sides of the mask where the straps would attach.

Sadly, I forgot to closely document the attachment of the straps, but 

behind the head is a belt buckle that holds everything together.

I was very pleased with my handiwork, especially given my inexperience in leathercrafting. This certainly motivated me to do more leather projects, some of which have already been shown on the blog and others which will be posted later on. I ultimately would love to work on a complete plague doctor costume, but that would surely take some time!

Thanks for reading,

Juju