Mad Hatter meets Slightly Crazy Daughter

So sitting here with a blank page as I am about start a project which not only is important to me but is also going to be full of stress, pressure and, I guess, tears - not to mention the swearing lol.  My eldest daughter is getting married and is wanting to do an afternoon tea for the small party of close family invited to the ceremony.  She is obsessed with the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland - she also has a Cheshire Cat tattoo! - so I happened to mention doing place settings in the form of a hat using the label as the name card.  She likes the idea of the hat but isn't sure about the label so here I am looking for an image of the hat so I can make a 'mock up' to show her.

Now I have already made a top hat for the bridegroom panda I made a few years ago so I know I can make a top hat so I have the basic idea.  However the Mad Hatter's hat is a slightly different shape and I won't be able to make it with felt as this hat is smoother, almost leather-like, so am going to have to have a play with the fabric also.

I have just raided my hoard collection of fabric for something suitable for the mock up and found a piece which could be the right colour (blue for the wedding!) but not necessarily the right material.  To give it the stability I am going to try using a medium interfacing and try that out.  Now just got to work out the pattern...... wish me luck. I may be some time LOL.

So, paper pattern first.  Curling an A4 piece into a cone shape, I cut off the narrow/pointy end so it was an appropriate 'head' size then cut off the top so the bottom was narrower than the top unlike the top hat which is the same width all the way down.  I should probably point out at this time that the hats are about 2-3 inches high NOT full size ha ha ha.

This threw up the first issue.  Each time I tried to straighten up the wider top, I took more off the height leaving me with a hat 'body' even I thought was too small. Ok then. Minimum swear word and recut.  This second time I cut the top as if I was cutting a circle and that worked better than the first attempt.  Mirrored the curve on the bottom and I had a level top and bottom. Result!

Measuring the width of the top gave me a starting point for the top.  I knew I would need extra on the top as the tabs used to fixing it to the main body would be cut from it so again, this took a couple of attempts before I was happy that the piece would fit.  Second issue: narrow end too narrow to get fat fingers in to secure top from inside.  Might have to look at fixing top on the outside and adding a second layer of outer material to hid the tabs if I can't work this out.

So now the final bit, the rim.  Looking at the many (many) images of the hundreds (!) of images of the Mad Hatter's hat, they all show a 'wavy' rim rather than a straight one on a top hat.  However, at this point I am thinking that a straight one could be moulded into shape.  I think if I was to use some PVA on the material and mould it whilst it's still wet, that would have the same effect.  So here goes....  Complete failure, lmao. Cut the hole in the middle to fit around the wrong end of the main body so started again. Medium swear words!! 

So here it is - the finished prototype!  I know the rim is too high up but apart from that, this pattern looks ok.  Now I just have to make a proper trial version with material and with all pattern pieces tidied up and measured properly - not just using the roll of carpet tape as my template lol.  So the process will be the same - give or take a few tweaks and swear words - so will post photos of the finished one.  If I hit any other snags I will add them to the story so that I a full 'warts n all' reminder to keep my mouth shut in future!!  See you later :) 

Ta-Da the final photo.  Excuse the spots of wet glue but this is the result of my labours.  The name label is one of the experiments by Emma and Tom (bridegroom) writing done by me just as a 'doo-fa'.  Looks ok and am happy, Emma thinks it's cute so I think she likes it too.

Note:  As I was looking for a totally different pattern for another project, I came across (yep, you're already ahead aren't you!?) a pattern for a mad hatter's hat!!  Basically same as mine so was a little smug but obviously annoyed that I hadn't done a search first.  I also came across another pattern using an upturned paper cup as the base for the main hat body.  We now have two different sizes of cup and this is the next project once (secret) project 2 has been completed.  Gonna be busy! :)