‘Tis the season for silly Christmas crafting! Can I take this pile of decorations from the dollar store and turn it into a very seasonal, very festive 18th Century placemat hat?
I’ve wanted to try making an 18th Century bergere from a placemat ever since I saw the tutorial by the Pragmatic Costumer some time ago, and when I saw a selection of silly Christmas mats in the local Jumbo supermarket, it felt like the right time to try.
I bought some Christmas- colored ribbons in a cordoneria downtown, and made a trip to the Best Mart dollar store to see what sort of Christmas froof I could find for decorations, came home and dug out my spool of millinery wire – and I was ready to go.?
The placemats are VERY floppy, so I started by sewing two circles of millinery wire onto each placemat – one circle about an inch in from the edge, to give structure to the brim, and another circle about 2.25 inches in radius around the center, to stiffen the “crown” of the hat.
IMPORTANT NOTE HERE:
When sewing millinery wire by machine, you need to be wearing proper eye protection. Millinery wire is solid metal, sewing machine needles move swiftly and safety goggles are cheap in any hardware store. Even sewing slowly and deliberately, the needle can snap – and when it does it will happen faster than you think.
I set the sewing machine to a zig-zag stitch, of about medium width and about medium stitch length, and I stitched at a slow and deliberate pace – I wanted a zig-zag that would be short and narrow enough to hold the wire securely, but also wide enough that I didn’t have to risk the needle hitting the wire on every stitch.
When I came to the end of my circle I kept going and overlapped the wire by about 2 inches to keep the circle circular – and then I cut the wire free with a pair of wire cutters.
I trimmed the hats with my ribbon, using the pleating to hide the wires.
The red ribbon was pleated in a box pleat, which sprang up in lovely puffs.
The gold ribbon I pleated in wide knife pleats.
I didn’t worry about measuring the pleats, I just eyeballed them to keep them relatively even, and let the small variations between the pleats give a happy organic feel to the hat.
Once I had the ribbons sewn down, I tacked on dollar store Christmas-y corsages and other wintery floral bits until the hats looked pleasantly tasteless and festive.
Lastly, I cut ribbon ties about 24 inches long and hemmed the ends so that they didn’t unravel. Then I flipped the hats over and sewed on ribbon ties. On these crown-less hats, you need to sew the ties about 2 inches out from the crown line, or you risk looking like the last pancake at the pageant.
The red hat is suitable for the 1750s and early 1760s when a single sprig of ornamentation, discreetly placed, was VERY chic.
The gold hat is suitable for the 1770s and 1780s, when they wore the entire kitchen sink.
Voila! It’s an 18th Century Placemat Hat. And another 18th Century Placemat hat. Bold, Brassy, Cool and Classy – two fabulous Dollar Store Christmas Bergeres!
Extremely cute! Tableware chic! Festive as heck!