How to Make a Straw Hat

In my last post I showed you the fabric for a Frisian hat I made using the block printing technique. Today I’m turning this piece of fabric into an actual hat. This kind of hat is quite particular, due to the bonnets the ladies in Friesland used to wear during the 18th century. But the technique shown here can also be used for any other kind of straw hat you want to make.

The above picture is from the exhibition; Chintz, cotton in bloom, at the Fries Museum. On the left you see an outfit of a Frisian woman in the 18th century. The enormous white bonnet she is wearing is called a “Duitse muts”, This was a very delicate bonnet made of lace, which was heavily starched. To protect these bonnets, the ladies in Friesland used to wear these large straw sunhats, which you can see on the right, when going outside. Because this is such an interesting and unique item, I chose to recreate it. But straw hats in general were quite popular in other countries and other times. So you could use this technique to make smaller flat straw hats for the same century, or bonnets for the romantic period. 

The first step is to find your materials. If you are making a smaller hat, you could use a thrifted modern straw hat as your basic material. But if you are making a larger hat like me, you are going to need more straw than one hat can provide. And unless you are very lucky, the thrift store doesn’t have two of the same hats, and you do want the straw to match. I therefore found an alternative: Placemats. The one thing you want to look out for when making hats this way, is that you chose a type of hat, or placemat, that is made of braided strands which are stitched together, and not a woven one. 

Because to make the hat in the shape that you want, you have to seam rip all the stitching out. That way you are left with long strands of braided straw, which you can form in the desired shape. This is the most tedious part. I like to do this while watching tv. I ended up using four placemats. 

The nice thing about these braided strands of straw is that they can be sewn with a regular sewing machine. Just make sure you change your needle after you’re done with this project, because it’s going to get dull really quickly. Shape and stitch the pieces of braid together to form the shape of the hat that you want. The Frisian sun hat like mine is kind of shaped like a half circle, but you could also go for a circular shaped hat, or follow a bonnet pattern. It is useful to make a paper pattern of your hat and stop every few rows to check if you are getting the right shape.  

It is also possible that after this step your hat pieces don’t want to lie flat. If you have this problem, wet the hat with hot water, and lay it between two towels with some heavy objects on top, and let it dry overnight. The pieces should lay completely flat when you get back to them in the morning. 

When you have your flat pieces done, you can start assembling the hat. This has to be done by hand, because now the pieces don’t fit under the sewing machine anymore. I used a whip stitch to sew the pieces together. My advice would be to use a thimble to push the needle trough, because otherwise you will have very sore fingers by the end of it. 

If you have a larger hat like mine, you might also need to insert a wire frame at this point to support the weight of the hat. If your hat will be (partially) covered by lining, you can insert the wire with a wide zig zag stitch on your sewing machine. I did this at the edge of the hat where the lining will fold over. But be careful, because you might break a few needles if it accidentally lands on the wire.  the other pieces of wire I attached to each other by making loops in them and sewing them in with a few small hand stitches. This step is optional though. It all depends on how large your hat is and how stiff your straw is. (but the stiffer the straw, the harder it is to sew, so try to find a good middle ground)

And this is the result. A large flat straw hat. Lik I said in the beginning, this type of hat is quite unique. It was only worn in the  province of Friesland in the Netherlands  during the eighteenth century. So I can imagine not a lot of people would want to create this specific hat. But using this method you can make any kind of hat you like, as long as you can construct it from several small pieces. 

The final step is to attach the lining to the hat. This was a must to protect the large bonnets from snagging on the straw. But even if you are not wearing a bonnet under your hat, adding a lining does make the hat more comfortable to wear. And, If you added a wire frame to give your hat some structure, the lining also hides that. I attached the lining by hand with small stitches, both on the outer rim of the hat, and on the crown of the hat. 

The end result is this large hat that displays the printed fabric nicely. To wear it, some ribbons have to be attached to the sides, to keep the hat from flying off in the wind, But it also just makes a beautiful object as is. And if you make a straw hat using this method, please share a picture with me in the comments or on social media.