I’ve been wanting to make a railroad engineer’s hat for a while now. When I was in the US, I tried to find the right striped denim cloth. I didn’t manage to, but I found this swell blue-and-white striped heavy cloth. Later Dad pointed out that it was called ‘ticking’ and it was for making mattresses. Oh well.
Anyway, I’ve been searching for hat patterns for a while and never found anything. I found a really lousy tutorial somewhere on making a “train driver” hat. The tutorial was awful, but I decided to say fuck it, and make one from scratch. The only cheat I did was to steal the brim-lining from a crappy hat I bought for $3 at walmart.
Making the folded top part of the hat is definitely the hardest thing to do. I could really use a decent pattern for that part. The rest I handled fine. My first top made the hat look something like a cross between General Erwin Rommel and the admiral on Star Wars who’s choked to death by Darth Vader. But instead of it being desert camoflauge or Deathstar black, the hat’s made out of mattress covering.
I’m quite pleased with the fit. It’s rare that I have a hat that fits, and this one is fitted perfectly to me. If I make another one, I think I’ll raise the top part a bit longer so that it can fall over to the side a bit. Also the center band should have its stripes running horizontally, not vertically. If I can get a decent pattern design (make my own?) for the top part, I’ll be able to put the thing together so efficiently that I’ll be able to include a tidy liner to hide all the sew-hacking underneath.
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That is one cool hat.
If I ever get back to Strasburg I will try to get you a real engineers hat. Interestingly I was at a site in Michigan and one of the Boiler Operators was wearing an engineers hat so I asked him about it and Strasburg was where he got it and he wished he had gotten more.
Maybe you found this:
http://workingperson.com/products/66_86_93/1/1105/Kromer_Hats:__Striped_Cap_BK75.html?utm_content=1105&utm_campaign=sa&utm_medium=comp&utm_source=yahooshopping
http://www.johnhelmer.com/prod.itml/icOid/96
did your mother ever tell you the tale of the velvet skirt? I am thinking that the principle may apply here. lol
Go buy a little kids conductor hat and get a good stitch ripper and take it apart. that will give you the pattern pieces that you need and you will know the order of the sewing steps you need to take. Now…. since you have already made a hat of the appropriate size you can use that to gage how much you will need to add to the pattern pieces you have to make the hat the size you need.
lol,
i got luke a conductors hat.
break out the ripper.
You hat looks good. quite impressive.
I for one, am tired of looking at your scowling face. How about a picture of that cute little boy? It has been way too long.
All railroad engineers scowl.
Most other engineers look concerned.
Martha, move over, my Bro can sew!!!
Wonder if you can craft Nico a Halloween costume…she too is too big for the store-bought selections.