Felicity's (Human-Sized) Summer Hat & Fascinator
- wingedmermaid
- Mar 31
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 15
I usually hate shopping in January. The only things left online or in stores are the picked-over remains of every savings event from pre-Black Friday to New Year's sales. But this January, I actually stumbled across something I was really excited to see -- an "18th Century Milan Straw Hat Blank" from the Colonial Williamsburg online store. ...And, it was on SALE!
I'm not sure how I even stumbled across the online store. I think I had been looking at Felicity's summer outfit and wondering if anyone offered that style of hat. I really love the look of it -- particularly the shorter crown paired with the wider brim. I love the '50's version, too. So, after going down the rabbit hole of straw hats, I think I came across the listings for the ones offered by Colonial Williamsburg. I was so surprised to find that they had an online store to begin with, and then to find that they offered a hat that looked exactly like Felicity's... I was over the moon!
I quickly decided I wanted to try making her hat for myself. I'd seen the Pleasant Company era "Dress Like Your Doll" hats go for well over $200; I was sure I could recreate the hat for less.
The hat arrived a little over a week later. I still remember when I first opened it, I could smell some kind of amazing scent that immediately made me think, "this is exactly how an old time-y general store ought to smell." I'm not even sure how to describe it. It was like a mix of the smell of tea and maybe candles or soap? Whatever it was, it smelled incredible and I wish the hat had retained that scent.
The ribbon was a little tricky to find. I couldn't find a good match at all in person, even after trying Joann's, Michael's, and Hobby Lobby. Thankfully, I found a pretty close match from an Etsy store. The ribbon is so silky and soft -- much better than anything I've gotten from the other stores in a long time.
The roses were hands down the most difficult part of the hunt. No one makes small roses -- or at least not small but well made or with variegated colors. In the end, I think I took two rose stems from Hobby Lobby and a small rose "bush" from Michael's and used only eight roses from the group. I'm super happy with how they look (and I used a reward voucher, so I think the Michael's flowers were essentially free!).
This past weekend, I finally put everything together. I decided I wanted to sew everything in place instead of using glue so I could have more control in positioning each flower or leaf (and both tacky glue and hot glue have not always worked exactly how I want in the past). First, I tacked the blue ribbon in place, then I added the rose leaves.
Next came the hardest part -- the roses. They were unwieldy, they weren't always easy to sew through, and I had to make sure I kept enough of the stems of they would fall apart completely. The first four seemed to take forever -- especially because my thread kept getting tangled or caught up on straw or leaves -- but seeing the first half finished spurred me to continue on. A few hours later and the hat was finally complete!
I am SO happy with this hat! It feels like having the real deal -- especially because the base came directly from Colonial Williamsburg!
I'm not sure if I'll ever wear it out in public. It's a lot more fragile than I expected. The straw of the hat sheds a lot and already some of the stitches have come undone (or they were like that to begin with and I didn't notice). I'll probably take a few pictures with it for something like Dress Like an AG Day, but I won't be taking it somewhere it could easily get messed up, like one of the Dapper Days at the Disney Parks.
This hat does make me want to make Felicity's summer dress, though... I need to get better at sewing human-sized things!
Update 4/13/25: I got a fascinator base off of Amazon, removed the "straw," feather, and rose decorations it came with (stapled to the top with a GIANT staple...), and used the scraps from making Felicity's hat to create a fascinator I could wear to spring Dapper Day 2025! I got a lot of compliments on it and it was pretty easy to wear (at least with my hair down; with a ponytail it just kept falling forward)!
