I’ve never found a hat that fit me, but I’ve always wanted a cowboy hat. I had some time, and I needed a new project anyway. I looked up lots of DIY tutorials for leather hats, one of them was a YouTube video run by a man in a loin cloth. That was extremely disturbing. I thought to myself “Ra, this one is going to be tricksy while patterning on your own head, just like that dress you wanted to make, but couldn’t pin it just right because it was on yourself, and you had to twist and turn to get to the spot, which flattened out when you got to it. It’ll be like that. Do us a favour and buy a pattern if you can find one”.
I’m glad I listened to myself then, because not long after I stumbled upon an “Indiana Jones Hat” pattern made by DieselPunk. It looked like what I wanted, and was cheap, so why not! I bought the pattern, picked the smallest one, and set about assembling the paper version to check if it fit my head. It did!
I wasted no time in picking a dye colour and preparing the leather. The worst part about the whole process was that I needed to punch each hole with a round punch. One. At. A. Time. What a nightmare! I should’ve bought a good round punch beforehand, but I was in a rush so made do with a scratch awl. I assembled it slightly differently to how he does it, and I think the final results look rather good. I’d change up how I finished the rim, and might even try an accent colour next time. Now that I have a hat pattern I can make as many as I want, and they’ll ALL fit me!
Build album here.