Next Level Millinery

 In May 2025, I bought two straw panama hats at two different thrift shops.

 

 

 

 

 The untrimmed light straw hat on the left came from Salvation Army thrift shop and cost $2. The brown hat on the right came from a Value Village, cost $7.33, and was trimmed with a narrow band of dull gold grosgrain, which I didn't care for. They did look okay as they were, but I though they both could benefit from being trimmed. 

 

 

 

 

 

As I wrote in this post, I had trimmed another panama hat, bought from Walmart, in a cream grosgrain a year before in the spring of 2024, but I was never really happy with it. It looked amateurishly done. I watched some instructional videos on how to put a grosgrain ribbon on a hat, and found out what I should have done differently. The bow was too big and floppy and on the wrong side (the convention seems to be that hats have their bows on the left side), I stitched the ribbon on wrong so that it was too loose and my stitches showed, and I didn't know that one is supposed to press the ribbon after putting it on the hat. I also learned that I should stitch the band together and slip it over the ribbon, then slide the ends and the bow through it and stitch things in place, rather than trying to stitch the band around everything last.  

 

 

 

 

I ripped the gold ribbon off the brown hat, bought a length of dark brown grosgrain ribbon for $2.55, and retrimmed the hat, implementing the new tips I'd learned from my research. Total cost of hat: $9.88. I was much happier with the finished result than I had been with the hat I did last spring. It looks reasonably professional. 

 

 

 

 

 For the $2 light straw hat, I bought a length of butterscotch-coloured grosgrain ribbon for $10.34 (this was a far less common colour of ribbon than the cream or dark brown and I had to go to a specialty shop), and put it on. Total cost of hat: $12.34. I was also very pleased with how this one turned out.

 

 

 

 

 After I'd finished trimming the two new hats, the first one looked so poorly done by contrast that I ripped the cream grosgrain off the hat I trimmed last year and redid it to the same standard as the other two. 

I try to learn at least one new thing from each project. With this project I not only learned how to put a grosgrain ribbon on a hat, but also that no matter how simple and straightforward a new project might seem, it's a good idea to research it. I'm bound to learn something from my research, and the results will be at least a bit better, and possibly so much better that they're on a completely different level, than if I just try to wing it and figure it out as I go.  

 

 

 

 

 

It feels incredibly self-indulgent to have three such similar hats, but now I always have a hat that goes just right with any summer outfit I happen to be wearing, they didn't cost so very much, and they will last me for years.

A Straw Hat for Summer

One of the items on my wardrobe needs list this spring was a straw hat. I had a twill fabric trilby with a tartan band that I'd sewn myself in 2015, and a commercially made ivory knit floppy hat that must be nearly twenty years old, but I also seemed to have a number of summer outfits neither of them worked with, and I wanted to be able to prevent sun damage and (more) wrinkles with some style, not to mention receive fewer scoldings from my dermatologist. 

After scouring the nearby Dufferin Mall and the Stockyards for a suitable straw hat, I bought the classic panama straw you see above at Walmart for $21.47. I thought the PVC leather band and plastic ring trim was ugly, but I could remove it and retrim the hat myself. The problem with inexpensive hats often is the trim, by the way. So many of the hats I saw when shopping for a hat this past spring were a good shape and not bad quality and trimmed in an inexplicably tacky and/or hideous way. If you find an inexpensive or thrift shop hat in a size and shape you like and a trim you don't, keep in mind that you can change the trim pretty easily and inexpensively, but do watch out for the glue that will be left behind. You probably won't be able to replace a wide hat band with a narrower one, or leave it untrimmed, because you'll need to cover up the dried gobs of glue that will be left behind. This is why in traditional millinery hat trims are always sewn in place, making it possible for one to refresh an old hat with new trim without anyone being the wiser. 

When I got the hat home, I did some googling and searches on Pinterest to get ideas on how to retrim a straw panama. According to my research, hey are usually simply trimmed with a band of black or white grosgrain ribbon, with perhaps a flat bow on the side. This was fine by me, as I wanted a simple hat I could wear with everything. On my next trip downtown, I purchased a metre of wide ivory grosgrain for $2. 

 

 

The finished hat. Retrimming a hat is always harder for me than I expect. I have trouble visualizing it, always end up redoing it a few times, am never confident in the results, and even when I declare the job done always feel I haven't gotten it quite right. But I think this one is fairly satisfactory. It's simple and fresh looking, and will go with any of of my summer outfits. Not a bad outcome for $23.47 and the time and effort I put into this relatively easy project. 

Tip of the Hat

In the spring of 2012, when I was buying the materials for this linen jacket, I thought it would be nice to make a linen hat to go with it. I selected Vogue pattern 8405 and bought extra linen for the project. I very much liked the shape of view D of the pattern, as well as the manner in which it was trimmed. Using a bit of extra ribbon to hide the seam of the ribbon band is a very clever idea, and looks so good.

It took me over three years to get around to actually sewing this project, and after I had actually worked with the linen to make the jacket, I decided linen wouldn't work for the pattern after all because the required hair canvas interfacing would show through it. I bought a half metre of ivory twill instead. Finding a ribbon for the band proved somewhat challenging. This band is created by sewing a checkered ribbon on top of a plain satin one, but while the satin ribbon was easy to find, tracking down neutral-coloured, attractively patterned ribbon in the right width proved unexpectedly difficult. I looked in Fabricland and in the ribbon stores on Toronto's Queen Street West, and had no luck. Finally I ordered a metre of ribbon I liked from an Etsy vendor.

And here's my version of the hat, in twill with a tartan band. It turned out quite well. It fits well and is becoming to me, and I like my ribbon and fabric choices better than those of the sample. Mine is not as evenly top stitched, though. I never can seem to get top stitching just so.