It's been a dilemma deciding which hat to take to India this time, because - although it's winter - temperatures in the south this time of the year are late 20's to early 30's celsius (which equals a really good summers day in New Zealand!).
Much to-ing and fro-ing has taken place, eventually narrowed down to a toss-up between a cotton sunhat I took last time (too warm, have really unattractive photos of me in front of the Taj Mahal with sweaty helmet-hair plastered to my skull) and a cap from the San Diego Zoo (screams !!!TOURIST!!!), both unappealing options.
Finally, after another look through the hat box, I found this:
My "Christmas Hat" - a $5 paper Trilby from Cotton On several years ago, usually decorated with a necklace of flashing christmas lights wrapped around the crown.
But it needed personalizing. So off came the naff black cotton bias binding trim, and on with a lovely piece of blue and white striped grosgrain ribbon from Made Marion. It was the lovely MrsC herself who jokingly gave me the title for this post while we discussed my plans.
Not sure at the time exactly what I would be creating, I bought a metre ($7) to give me plenty to play with, and in the end needed that whole metre. It took about a hour to replace (half of that was picking all the bits of glue off the hat left by the original trim) - a little Googling for ideas, a bit of steaming to shape the ribbon into a curve, snip snip, fold the bow and pleat, and a couple of stitches to hold it all in place.
Done, and doesn't it look terrific!
