I've also had good luck putting a wet felt hat into a ziplock bag, still slightly open* (a closed ziplock will explode), and microwaving it for 10-15 seconds. It skips the whole using the kettle thing but REMEMBER steam is HOT. The hat will be hot too.
If it's an old hat you can wash it is before you steam/microwave it so you're not putting a dirty or stained hat on your head. Wash gently with shampoo, squeezing the water through. Rinse thoroughly. Once it's wet and hot, gently pull the felt onto the block. You may need some strength but don't tug. Wet felt is more fragile than dry felt and it will tear. And then you make a smaller hat with it. Best of luck. Making hats is really fun! LynnD On 2/6/06, kelly grant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If you have a wool hat, it's incredibly easy to steam it to the shape you > want! You need to find something that will be a good shape for a block, > like a flower pot. Make sure it's a good size to match your head size. > Remove all the addition hat stuff from inside the felt, like the hat band > and such. Then using you kettle, steam the inside of the felt and then pull > it down over the block. Keep trying until you get the desired shape. the > felt will move around quite a bit! > > Have fun! > Kelly in Nova Scotia > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Wanda Pease" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "H-Costume" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2006 10:48 PM > Subject: [h-cost] Blocking a Wool Felt Hat > > > > I'm going to try and make a Tudor Style tall hat with the pleated crown. > > I > > went to the local GoodWill and they had a hat that fitted perfectly of > > 100% > > wool felt. Problem is that it is a domed crown rather than square. Is > > there > > a way to steam that crown and get it fairly fat? > > > > I intend to play with an thick interlining that I have to get the brim > > shape, then I'll cut the actual hat brim. > > > > Does this sound reasonable, or does it sound like it will be more work > > than > > simply creating the under-structure out the interfacing and paper and > > going > > from there? > > > > > > Wanda Pease/Regina Romsey > > Never attribute to malice what can as easily > > be attributed to simple social ineptness > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > h-costume mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume > > > _______________________________________________ > h-costume mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume > _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
