The Mad Person-Who-Stitches: A Fabulous Hat, Part 2

Elisheba asked for a fabulous hat, ideally with a ship on it.  Read part 1

My original planning scribbles for the hat:

I wrote about making the ship in part 1.  For the base I lucked out and found a 1/4 inch wide metal band headband at a local Target.  (Plastic bands tend to snap after about a year, based on my own cheap headbands.)  I padded it top and bottom with 1/2 inch flexible craft foam left over from Trapeze Doom Guy, cut very roughly in half to be ~1/4 foam.  The foam sopped up enough superglue that I had to reglue a lot, but eventually the foam was stuck on.  (I need to work on taking more in-construction pictures, sorry.)   I then wrapped the messy-looking thing in sparkly black stretch velvet left over from a leotard and stitched the wrapping shut.

Then I needed fabulous, sparkly fabric.  I was originally thinking of something with sequins in gold and scarlet, because of the viking dragon ship for the hat, but Gail K Fabrics (my favorite local fabric store) had a bolt of this:

and obviously this was the fabric to use.  It's feathery/leafy/wave-y and bright pink and blue with tiny silver sequins!  I cut out parts of the feather pattern, working from the flowers, and wired them with 20 gauge crafting wire left over from making a plush Hakuryuu.  Sewing the wire onto the back of fabric sections was easy but tedious.  But then I got to start putting everything together:

Here it is before I put the ship on:

The feathers were the only part the cats were really interested in.

back view

And with ship in full glory:

Elisheba says the feathers are not too much.  It's her hat, therefore the feathers are not too much.

I am very happy with my first attempt at a hat.