Time to complete: around 2 hours
Cost: Hat cost £3, materials approximately £2.
Hi,
I am fortunate to live in the town, that is home of the biggest carnival in the world, Bridgwater Carnival.
Every year, for the last few years, my sister and I have made our own tradition of wearing random hats. This year there are four of us partaking in this tradition.
I decided that it would be funny if we all went as minions, from Despicable Me. I made my own hat, instructions are as below.
What:
Yellow Hat:
I found a yellow beanie on ebay, it already had a grey band around the base, which adds to the effect but it is not essential.
Felt:
White, Black and Light Brown- I used some of the black as the black strip around the head for the glasses, but in hindsight, thick black elastic would have been better.
Templates:
To make the eye, I drew around a large tin lid, which coincidentally is the same size as the base of a regular sized mug.
I also used a large tea light for the inner eye, and a metal eggcup for the pupil. It's trial and error to get the right size, but it didn't take me long to find things in the house that were the right size.
Grey Socks:
I used the tops of some grey socks as the glasses, the top of the socks are ribbed and worked really well for this purpose.
Something for Hair:
The minions have a mixture of hair on the movies, some have a few strands sticking up, you could use pipe cleaners for this, or even some thick rope. I was lucky to find a strange hair band, which worked quite well, as it has black ruffles, that looks like a little crop of black hair.
Fuel:
My fuel of choice was chocolate milkshake, and the purple chocolate with popping candy and jelly pieces in.
How:
1) I started off by drawing round the circles, to create the eyes. I used a tiny dab of fabric glue to hold them in place to make it easier for sewing later.
2) I cut strips from the black felt for the strap around the back, you need to be mindful that the hat stretches when worn, so the strap will need to stretch too, my hat needed three sections for the strips. To make sure this fit, the only way to do it is to carefully tack it in places when you are wearing the hat, in front of the mirror... to make sure that it sits right.
3) I placed the eyes onto the hat, with a dab of glue, and also dabbed a little glue either side to hold the black strips in place before sewing.
4) To make the glasses, I cut the top off the sock, as mentioned before, if you cut again, you can unfold it, which creates a bigger piece of fabric. I had two pieces of this to make the round of the glasses frame. I folded it in half, bringing a piece from the top and the bottom, to sew it along the middle. I then folded it in half again, to create a rope like long length, before sewing the ends together to form a ring.
5)I then sewed round the eye, securing each element to the hat, and carefully sewed the black band, mostly by adding a stitch or two while it was on my head, trying hard not to sew it to myself.
6) The final touches are to sew the glasses piece on, and add the hair.
