How To Make a Felt Pillbox Hat part 1

Making a small cocktail hat using a hat block and flat wool felt.

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Closed Caption:

hi I'm the National traveler and I
thought it was about time I didn't have
a DIY today I'm going to be DIY a small
cocktail head otherwise known as they
could and I'm going to be using one of
my very favorite materials which is felt
i'm going to be using today that felt
this is the lovely pink and purple
college matches my hair but you can get
it in many different colors example is a
lot of the apple green
now I known felt you do have to use a
certain type of film which is either a
wool felt or felt if you use the try to
use that flimsy acrylic filter you can
in some craft stores and bars and stores
it's not going to work it doesn't mold
it doesn't have properties of a natural
flavor and so that's what's important
that you use wool or fur felt there are
some other names you might find if you
come across the military supplies such
as many vein which is going too much
longer pile of the largest also another
lovely fluffy and got a small pile to it
and you're just all felt which had no
policy to very dense lovely will but
which enables you to mold so make sure
it's not
acrylic felt em now a little bit on the
filter itself and just very small
rundown on some of the properties i
started off making a roving do it for my
here
some years ago when I was much more into
play here and that's how i was
introduced to working with felt
now you start off with a roving such as
this which you know just five as you can
pull apart
war will under certain conditions
transformed into phil basically you need
to have pressure you need to have hate
in the form of
steam or water and also an alkali such
as soap or detergent
now if i want to dump this into hot
water with saturated in a duck hot soapy
water and then rub it furiously on a mat
maybe even I would end up with these
spiky things you see here which I've
used to decorate his head but which
started their life off as rolling grids
it is called a small cocktail hat and i
just used extra features to be a sort of
true for that community next
this is a traditional milliner's head
block for a small cocktail hat shape if
i take the top of here you can see it's
there it's just a lovely round shape
with not curved edges
sometimes known as a pill box shape
although pillboxes can also have quite
too sharp vertical edges but this is a
nice curved one I guess like a small
beret perhaps but i really like this
so we're going to be using this one for
this project
now he will be our lovely future colored
felt that will be using for this project
and what we're going to do is place it
over the block and mold it or as
militants they block it to the shape of
a headlock will have for the need
we're going to use steam to do this more
on this later but basically it will take
on the shape of the form below and so
enable us to make a lovely cocktail hat
we left my kitchen because the next
thing we're going to do is to slightly
dampen the belt going to run some water
here
yeah of course that the world will
become damaged with deeming it but with
the thick of variety particularly it can
help if it's already a little bit
dancing and therefore softened really -
for the fibers to take on the form of
the head block
I'm just running the water over it
don't get it situated so this is what
i'm going to be using today
it's not a proper military steamer but
it does the job
obviously whenever working with steam be
really careful of your hands you do not
want the degree burns
at this point we place our dance and
felt over the block now I guess you
could even try just don't get the hot
water and seeing how it works for you
but if I have a steamer
i'm going to use it
yeah
so while Affeldt is malleable because
it's just been steamed we begin to
stretch the fibers gently diagonally and
then vertically and horizontally so we
start getting this movement in all
directions so that it starts taking on
that curve shape
now i'm going to just a little bit more
because it's getting cooler
yep it's still up and pull
yep could be hard perhaps but they think
yeah it's doing the job you're basically
stretch and stretch you get more out of
you felt this way because it does
stretch and in addition it is as you can
see taking on that curved shape soon as
we can after that
keep pulling
yeah
and now we're going to get to the point
could that where we're going to be able
to bring it underneath the mugs to
finish off now I haven't quite finished
working on this one but once i have done
it down a bit more steaming I said that
really is conforming much more to shape
what we do then is start to pin all the
way around
I did this actually already in the video
but the files corrupted so I'm really
creating this now it looks like it never
we'll go round
but trust me when you steam it enough or
Duncan hot water enough construction
world as i showed you it will
as you'll see in the next clip
so I finished going around it all
pushing of a girl just pinning and
intervals
another failure will find that the false
start to come out now
I felt for this hat real is only whats
around the edge he that matters anyway
always have a bunch of stuff which is
like a little money bag that little toy
antrax you can get back at all because
away anyway later for don't fret about
that we've just got to get it smooth
really to that edge and then let it dry
and just going to cut off the excess now
so we don't have too much punching
happening
I mean he could cut all the way down but
once it's cut you can't uncut for
careful so I just kind of a little bit
off just to get some of the excess and I
need a better parent is so with my
proper fabrics is now I'm cutting away
the excess
yes love having just cut through the
thickest felt that is what you want
just so you don't have too much
David structures anyway you get the idea
so that is drawing now
of all the things that will be at and
the wall has shrunk a little bit if it's
dry
if that the wool fabric seems to have
shrunk I guess the fibers themselves
don't shrink but they come close
together and that together during the
felting process and when drawing
so all of those wrinkles are really
outside the area we need to be concerned
about so that's going to be fun when we
take it off the block which is the next
stop for the next step even well I think
we've covered enough for one day so I'm
declaring this the end of apartment