Make your Own Kentucky Derby Hat

Making my own Kentucky Derby hat was so much fun. I had thought about it for years but never really had a reason to. Nobody was throwing a Derby party. I wasn't going to Churchill Downs or even Canterbury Downs.

But, I finally had a reason. It just so happened that the company I work for decided to have Derby Days. A contest for who wore the best hat. I knew right away this was my chance. I was going to make a hat. woot woot.

Most people I know would say, "Why make one? Why not just buy one?"

My answer to that is;

a. because I like to "make things".

b. because then I can customize it.

c. likely it's cheaper to make one.

d. likely I'll have better quality.

With that said I made one instead of buying one.

Here's a quick view at my process:

1. Go online and pin kentucky derby hats.
2. Go onto my Derby Hat board and see if there is a pattern. *Do I like 1 big flower? *Do I like several flowers? *Color favorite *feathers? *hat size *hat type
3. Watch video on making a hat. (for tips and tricks)
4. Buy Hat (I chose black because I wanted to wear a black dress.) I bought mine at Gordman's but I know that DSW has hats as well as many other stores.
5. Go to Joann Fabrics and pick out flowers, ribbon, accents, feathers, toule, and netting in the color I wanted. (teal for me because I love that color and I was thinking of working with peacock feathers)
6. Warm up the glue gun. Make sure to have extra sticks handy. I went thru about 2 sticks
7. Get to work on gluing on your accessories.

I ended up buying a combination of "stuff" from Jo-Anns including a huge flower, several accent flowers in different styles and sizes, different sizes and colors of satin and mesh ribbon, coated wire and feathers.

Here's a quick animation on the process of making my hat. While you watch you'll  notice a couple of things:

• I start with the big flower first. It's the the focal point and I want to make sure I start with that instead of gluing it on at the end.
• I move things around a lot. I try out an accent first then I glue it down once I like what I see.
• I try to use the visual triangle or working in 3's design theory. (3 purple flowers) (3 loops of ribbon) etc.
• I try to build out my design. Big flower first, then I add the bigger items like the ribbon. Next I work in my other accents starting with the largest to the smallest. It's easier to fill in gaps with smaller items then to add larger accents at the end.
• I tried a couple of light green items which I thought took away from my focal point so I took them out.
• I also with work different textures, colors and heights. Notice that one of the last things I added was the peacock feathers. They stuck out the furthest so they went last. They gave my hat some dimension as did the other teal/blue/blackish colored feathers.

Here's my final "Kentucky Derby" Outfit.

I decided to wear a black dress and keep the jewelry simple because you want to highlight the hat not all the other stuff you are wearing. (p.s.  I haven't mastered the art of taking pictures wearing a hat yet. Please forgive me)

Side view. I really loved how it turned out. It's my favorite color. It's over-the-top gaudy but cute. It's not ugly-gawdy. I didn't want to do ugly. If I wanted over-the-top ugly I would have added a huge peacock head or horse-head.

Sassy.

Now I'm just having some fun taking pictures of myself. Which I don't do very often at all. Usually I'm just behind the camera.

From the other side.

If you notice the original hat didn't have a whole lot of bend to it but once you add the decorations it gives the hat some nice curvature which I love. It makes the hat seem like it has more character.

Here's some close-up images of the hat.

It's hard to see from far away but the large flower and some of the smaller ones have gems glued into the centers. I love that touch. I thought it added a little something extra.

Here's one last animation of the hat from all angles.