A hat can do the trick for Halloween

Sometimes a full-blown Halloween costume just won’t do, but you can get away with a snappy chapeau almost everywhere.

This week we’ll tell you how to recycle an old straw hat into a Halloween fashion statement using one yard of decorative fabric, a few faux flowers and a needle and thread.

To make our sample projects, we removed the red, white and blue bows and tinsel garland from two straw hats we had decorated for the Fourth of July and used them as our base hats.

A good quality straw or fabric hat – and embellishments attached with a few well-placed hand-sewn stitches – can be reused season after season.

Fabric stores have a bountiful supply of specialty yard goods this time of year, ranging from colorful whimsy to somber elegance, and most are reasonably priced – between $5 and $8 per yard. It’s a good idea to shop early for the best selection.

For one of our sample hats, we chose a dark gray cobweb print with a surprise feature. It shimmers with vibrant blue or rich purple highlights as the fabric moves or the light changes. It also has a wonderful billowy quality when caught by a breeze – perfect for the veil effect we wanted.

Our second fabric choice was a lightweight, silky orange with fuzzy black stars.

Both fabrics were 45 inches wide and cost about $7 a yard. We purchased one yard of each.

As embellishments, we chose dark blue/black (and one purple/black) flowers to go with the cobweb fabric, and a black feather boa for the orange.

Let’s start with the cobweb-veiled hat.

Using the entire yard of fabric, trim around the edges with pinking shears, then drape it over the crown of the hat. You have a couple of draping options: have the fabric hang evenly all around, or taper it so that the veil is shorter in front and longer in back. We chose the latter option for our sample.

With a long needle and thread, tack the fabric in place at several points around the base of the crown, then attach the artificial flowers around the crown as desired. Remember, the fewer stitches you use, the easier it will be to remove them later if you wish.

To make the orange ruffled hat, use pinking shears to cut the fabric into three equal strips lengthwise. Cut a piece from one strip large enough to cover the crown of the hat, and tack it in place with a needle and thread.

Sew the three fabric pieces together to make one large circular piece, then use a running (basting) stitch to gather the circle into a ruffle. Be sure that one side of the ruffle is wide enough to cover the brim of the hat. The shorter side will stand up around the crown.

When completely gathered to fit around the hat, tack the ruffle in place at several points around the base of the crown and add the feather boa on top of the stitches, knotting it at the back and letting the ends dangle.

When choosing fabric for the veil hat, be sure that you can see through the material and that it drapes well; for the ruffle hat, choose fabric that’s lightweight and flexible, so it won’t be heavy or too stiff.

A treat – no trick!

We normally do one of three things with our sample projects each week: give them as gifts, donate them to charity thrift shops or fundraising sales, or take them apart and use the materials over again in new projects.

This week, in keeping with the spirit of Halloween, and to say thank you to all of our readers, we’re doing something a little bit different.

We hope that our hat creations will inspire you to design one of your own, but if you’d like to wear a Craft Corner original to a party or Halloween dress-up day at the office, here’s your chance.

To win one of our Halloween hats, send us an e-mail (jrocoffin@aol.com) or give us a call (425-238-4985), give us your name and a phone number or e-mail address, and we’ll enter you in a drawing for the hat of your choice.

Be sure to indicate “Orange Ruffle,” “Cobweb Veil” or “No Preference.”

Submit your name by 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20. We’ll hold the drawing on Monday, Oct. 23, and notify you that day by phone or e-mail so that you can pick up your hat at The Herald’s reception desk in plenty of time for Halloween.

We’ll also publish the names of the winners in our Oct. 29 column.

We hope you’ll find this a fun treat and take part. Remember, if you decide not to keep the hat for next year, simply remove the Halloween decorations and you’ll have a pretty nice straw hat to wear plain or redecorate.