If you don’t enjoy repetition, you probably won’t like making straw doll hats. That’s all it is… repetition of going round and round with the hat braid until you get to the top… I never counted how many times it takes to go around a hat but it’s quite a few and the bigger the hat, the more times around you have to go.
I started this hat for Sara before my sister, Cindy and her hubby got here… and then when they went to bed, I finished it… well, it’s not done yet, but the main part of the hat is done… just need to finish the top piece and pull it through and then put a scalloped edge around the brim.
So here’s the hat in progress…remember, I didn’t have a hat form so I just used a hat that fit Sara, but was pink, and covered it with foil so I’d have something to work against when I glued my braid down.
(Oh, Dorothy, those little colorful pieces are strips of Wasi tape to hold the foil in place and down in certain places.) :o)
The first row is held on with double stick tape and the rest of the rows are glued down with little bits of glue added on the top edge of the row you are adding.
I use a quick dry Tacky glue and it sets almost immediately… so your rows never slip or move apart. You overlap the braid about 1/8″ or less if you can…
When you get up to the top you have to pull little threads in the braid that curl up the sides and make it curl in a smaller circle around the crown of the hat.
…almost done…
When you reach the top, you have to get your hole as small as you can and then when you take the hat off, you pull the braid through and glue it on the inside…
All done… with this part… I left it on the foil so I could show Cindy, tomorrow, how it peels off the foil or hat form if you are using one. Then it’s putting the edge on it and “embellishing” with flowers. My favorite part! Well, I do enjoy making them… it’s kind of a peaceful hobby! :o)
Hope you have a great Saturday…
Blessings, Jeanne
I always enjoy “watching” you make a hat; I think I might like to try that sometime. Right…I need one more hobby!! LOL
I was in JoAnn fabrics today and discovered they now carry Liberty Lawn fabrics! The had a big display of them, all kinds of prints and some gorgeous colors. Of course, it’s $34.99 per yard, and coupons do not apply. Oh, well, I bought some anyway–for a blouse for me! Couldn’t resist. It’s from part of my Christmas/birthday money from Ron this past winter. He really can’t shop much any more, so….
How funny Charlotte. I went to Joann’s yesterday also. However, I did not see any display of the Liberty. Our store is pretty small, so they usually don’t have everything like the larger store in the next town. 🙂 But, congrats to you on getting some for a blouse. I’m sure it will be lovely. Can’t wait to see it. Hope you can send Jeanne a photo.
Dear Charlotte, thanks for sharing information about Liberty of London. I love its material.
I just got some patterns for my Kaye Wiggs Holly doll, named Caroline. Oh, not for me to use (laugh). Someone in my local doll club is going to make a few dresses for Caroline.
I have not gotten material yet. I will be going to JoAnn Fabric in a few days with another doll club friend who sews to pick out fabric. I will definitely be looking for Liberty of London material now.
Have you noticed that the Dollar Tree isn’t a dollar any longer? It least that is true here in PA. Things are now $1.25. I guess for the franchise to survive, it needed to raise prices. I guess I can’t complain too much because it does carry many products that I find useful.
I haven’t been in JoAnn’s in months because I haven’t “needed” anything. But I have quite an amount on gift cards I need to use and will be checking with the JoAnn’s in Katy to see if they have the Liberty Lawn fabrics. That would be a great use for my gift cards because I can’t really afford a large enough piece for me otherwise. And I could use the “scraps” for doll clothes. JoAnn’s is near my church and is open on Sunday so I wouldn’t have to make a special trip and can save my gas. Thanks so much for mentioning this. The store is very large and hopefully will have the fabric.
Sounds like a fantastic idea, Barbara! My best friend June (in Mich.–we’ve been best friends since 1952, first grade) said she’d seen an announcement that JoAnn’s was now carrying Liberty Lawn. The fabric is on long rolls, not bolts, and there was a free-standing unit that held all the rolls vertically; they were actually pretty easy for even short me to lift out! Many prints and colors. Let us know what you chose! Mine has sort of wildflowers all over, and is a directional print. I also have (ordered from Farmhouse Fabrics a couple of years ago, I think) the bright pink mini-flower print, which I also saw there. And there are a couple of novelty prints that were calling my name, too….
Dear Jeanne, you make hat creation look easy. I am looking forward to seeing what you will add to the hat.
I hope you and your sister have a wonderful day together and that you travel safely to see your other sister.
I know that spending time with your sisters (“sister magic”) always lifts the spirits.
Well, I got caught “big” time yesterday with the dollhouse. FedEx is pretty vague on delivery time. Big window, so we went for our usual walk. When we returned and were about to start up the steps, other person said, “What is that?” There on the landing about 6 steps up was this gigantic box. I mean huge. I said it was a dollhouse, and it was very small. 🙁 So, I grabbed the box, or tried to, and got it up the rest of the 13 steps and into the house. I could barely get it in the door. I pulled it into the hall and left it. Other person was going to head to the store, so changing the subject, added some more things to the list and off he went. I sprang into action. Getting this problem accomplished was going to take a miracle. I squeezed into the doll room and started moving storage boxes, doll beds, and other things to make way for the new addition. Ran to the other side of the house and pulled out the longer card table from under the bed. Dusted it (bad housekeeper) and slid it all the way back to the doll room/guest room. Managed to open the table half way and squeeze it in before letting down the legs on the other end. Fit perfectly across the end of the bed. Pulled storage boxes underneath and stacked giving me plenty of room to walk back to the hall and open that gargantuan piece of cardboard sitting there. Packed with dreaded “peanuts,” bubble wrap, as well as airbags everywhere. Dove into the box and managed to maneuver the main house around the piece of wood the sender had installed to protect the precious chimney. Fast as a bunny, took that piece into the doll room and plopped it on the new table. Went back and rummaged around until I found the famous rec room. Put that on the table as well. Remembered that there was supposed to be furniture. Another dive through peanuts to finally locate two cardboard boxes of furniture. Yay! Brought them in to join the two house pieces. Back to the hall, gathering up all of the plastic airbags as I went. Found the scissors and popped them, well most of them. I just had to jump on a couple to remind me of my old teaching days. When any supplies arrived with those airbags, I always used to spread them out around the room and my class would take turns jumping on them to the surprise of my teaching partner and her class next door! Bad me. On with the show… Now here I am with this absolutely huge box of peanuts. What to do? Time was ticking. Other person should be back any minute. Decided that the box needed to disappear and quickly. Went out through the back slider dragging the box behind me. Down the twisting steps into the stuffed garage. Where to put the beast? No time to cut it up for recycling. Full of peanuts that you can’t recycle here. Saw an opening behind the old table. Lifted up that box with my brute strength and dumped it over the top and behind. Whew! Now, I have another project to complete at a more convenient time. Back up the twisting steps and into the house. A quick check of the hall and moving a few more things when I heard the truck. Done! He was back. Me, exhausted. Dripping with sweat, but all done in twenty minutes. Yay! I felt like the Energizer Bunny. And not a word has been said about the box since. Out of sight, out of mind. 🙂
Have a great weekend everyone.
ROFL. That is fantastic, Joy. Yes, once the box is gone I would assume the delivery was forgotten. Glad you got your dollhouse and can’t wait to see pictures.
I love the play-by-play description of your endeavors. I agree with Laura. We need pictures. Congrats on your valiant attempt to “minimize” your purchase. Wish I could have been a fly on the wall.
Dear Joy, oh my goodness, I cannot stop laughing. You are such a great storyteller. I was following every word you wrote. I was thinking Lucy or Carol Burnett.
I echo the other Sofa Sisters, please do send photos when Other Person is not around to observe. This is a purchase with a “history” and we are all anxious to gaze upon it (chuckle).
Joy, This was so much fun to read! Yes, like watching an episode of I Love Lucy. Pictures appreciated when you get it assembled.
I am sure the students were lined up to be in your class. 🤭
Oh Joy, I laughed and laughed! You are hilarious and I bet Jeanne is showing this to Cindy and Deb too! What does Other Person have against a dollhouse? You aren’t running around getting plastic surgery or other “enhancements”! He should be happy! Now you have to send pictures of this beautiful dollhouse to Jeanne so we can see what this was all about!
Jeanne, I certainly was surprised to see that the hat was white! I figured it would be straw colored, but I am sure you know what you are doing, and you will knock it out of the box with the embellishments. Have loads of fun!
Joy..! I am out of breath just reading about the doll house un boxing! We must see pictures! It sounds great! Maybe other person will like the house?
Jeanne….The hat is pretty already even without trim but I know it will be darling. Your stash of trims had all kinds of possibilities.
Have fun with your sis and family!
Hat making does look like fun. I really may have to try that sometime since you can choose just the color/style you want. Hope your having a great time with Cindy and then on to Deb’s..
How Joy perfectly camouflages new purchases. I don’t succeed, my spouse will always catch me. Anyway, now I even don’t want to order dolls anymore, seeing all the poverty in the world. A great hat for Sarah – maybe I’ll make one too. Only yarn for now. I greet all the sisters.
So, how would you crochet a hat? Start at the top, opposite of Jeanne’s, and circle around either adding or dropping as you go and then doing the brim last? I haven’t crocheted in ages. I would love to see yours if you make one.
Alina, just a little comment to help assuage your conscience regarding buying dolls, etc. I sometimes get the feeling that I’m indulging my wants while others have so many needs but then I realize that my satisfying my wants does provide others with their needs. That everything I buy is giving someone else a means to an income. A perfect example right now is the fact that I cannot buy anything from an Etsy shop in Russia and I truly do love their artistry and creativity. I’ve gone to the various shops to tell the owners how much I will miss them and that I will be back as soon as I am once again able to buy from their shop. A couple actually had comments telling of their sadness at not being able to sell right now and have something on their shop site that you can check to tell them you want to know when they are back. In truth, in one way or the other, we all contribute to the welfare of each other, even when indulging our dolly “must haves”.
I love the white hat and can’t wait to see it embellished. Problem is I don’t have a hat to do this with. I have a ton of 18″ doll hats of all colors but the hats are too big even for my 18″ dolls. Any ideas how I can use them to make smaller hats?
I don’t know if there are any farmers among my sofa sisters but I do know there are a lot of sofa sisters interested in the environment and I want to share something I found amazing. Hubby just handed me an interesting article that blew me away. We always laugh about the “LED blue” lights because they are so bright. They are now finding that they can use the LED blue light at high intensity for short intervals to kill weed seeds. They started with tumbleweeds but they were fairly simple because they live on top of the ground, but now they have devised a way to put an attachment on a combine to kill the seeds as the chaff tumbles through. They mentioned particularly waterhemp seeds that are a scourge for soybean growers. Our farmers do grow soybeans and we’ve never had a problem with waterhemp, but about five years ago we had the scourge of Pig Weed that attacked our soybeans. The head of Pig Weed is huge and nothing but seeds. We had a lot of rain and they could not get into the fields to use the herbicide and the Pig Weed took over totally destroying our soybean crop. Being our largest cash crop, this was devastating to us because you cannot plant soybeans again in that field for about three years. After two years we could plant wheat in those fields because Pig Weed is peculiar to soybeans, but the income didn’t come close. Aside from considering our income, there would also be a definite advantage for our outgo since our herbicide and fertilizer costs are directly related to the petroleum market which right now is devastating to us not only at the gas pump but for our farming expense. The environmental advantage would be priceliess.
Hope you have a fun weekend, Jeanne. Can’t wait to hear all about it.
We are on evacuation alert for a nearby wildfire. It’s going to be a rough summer. It’s better than bombs.
Dear Marilyn, oh dear. Please stay safe. We will be praying for you.
Oh no, not again. Around here we are on alert everyday. If anyone smells smoke they want to know where it is coming from. We now have lots of cameras that point at different spots in the hills, so we can pounce early on fires. I shouldn’t say we, but the local fire people. We’re a bunch of nervous nellies. 🙁
Hope they get this new one of yours out quickly.