Working with Sinamay

7. January 2011 by tscott.

I’ve been making little cocktail hats for the past year.  I’ve been making them using cottons, denims and felt bases.

I wanted to make some using sinamay, but I found the sinamay bases to be a little expensive (between $8 and $10 for one small base.)  I wanted to make my own, so I purchased some sinamay from Hatsupply and embarked on my journey.  

Searching on the internet, there are not a whole lot of tutorials on using sinamay, so winged it.  The sinamay I was using was stiffened, so I soaked it for a few minutes in hot water to make it more pliable and was able to easily pull it on to my form.  For the trim, I considered using satin, but didn’t want the hassle of making bias ribbon so I cut the sinamay, ironed it and baste stitched it to the edges after sewing wire to the edges.

There is a website that has ebooks on making hats.  After creating my base, I wasn’t sure if I was missing something so I broke down and purchased the Feather Creations ebook that instructed on making a sinamay base.  After downloading and reading, I found that what I did, was pretty much what I did to make my base.  So my instincts were correct and I wasted $19.  Lesson learned..go with my instincts.  

Below is the base I created.  It’s still baste stitched because I despise working with invisible thread, so I have permanently sewed it on yet.  I’ll post a tutorial on how I made my base soon.

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