Milk Maid Hat

Halloween was quickly approaching. My husband wanted to go to a Halloween party and he actually wanted to dress in costume! Well – he has a cow (complete with udders) costume that he really wanted to wear for the party. Granted it was a Harley Motorcycle club party and he really wanted to wear the cow costume on his bike. Of course I wanted a matching or related costume, so I decided to go as the milk maid. I found a Dorothy Wizard of Oz outfit from Party City that would work, but I really needed the white, puffy milk maid hat to round out the outfit. So I decided to make one.

Now, this was my first project on my new sewing machine. I just got the sewing machine the week before Halloween and I was very excited to use it! I went online and found a great tutorial for making the type of hat I was looking for, which I discovered is called a Mop Hat. The best tutorial I found from Modesty Matters.

Since this was my first sewing project on my own, I was a little shy of going to the fabric store. I selected a poly satin in white because I wanted the fabric to be a little shiny to match the white fabric of the dress. I also bought some lace for the trim and I already had some thin elastic (maybe 1/4" wide) that I had used in another project. I wasn’t thinking about blogging my creations at this time, so I didn’t take pictures while I was working. Check out the tutorial for great demonstrations of the general technique.

The only thing I really did differently than the tutorial video was that my hat was quite a bit smaller than their hat. I wanted a smaller, cuter brim of the hat, where theirs is more floppy. I also added a trim of lace along the edging of the hat. I did this after hemming the edges of the hat and before sewing in the elastic. I was pretty proud of my first sewing project.