Lots of scraps of leather

[luckykaa]

Ordered a packet of leather offcuts of eBay.  Was surprised that all the pieces are actually quite sizeable.  One is actually large enough to make a hat brim - only the wrong sort. 

Now I have to decide how to construct the tricorn.  Do I sew of cheat with a hot glue gun?  Do I learn basic leatherwork? 

Oh, what the hell.  I'm making a garment I have no experience with using a material I have no experience with, and a technique that I'm really inexperienced with.  What could possibly go wrong?

Comments

[pewterfish.livejournal.com]

Mmm, no cheating. Learn a bit of leatherwork, why not?

"What can possibly go wrong?" Along with "How hard can it be?" and "It seemed like a good idea at the time", this phrase has caused a lot of trouble and a lot of fun over the years. Enjoy the ride... :)

[flannelcat.livejournal.com]

How thick is the leather?

If it's thin enough, some decent leather needles and being /very/ careful, you could use sewing machine?

Let me poke cassies_file and see what she has to say on the matter...

[cassies-file.livejournal.com]

*is poked, sticks head in*

You can make a perfectly good tricorn without any real "leatherworking" beyond being able to punch holes in leather.

3 pieces of leather - a circle (slight ovoid) for the top of the hat, large circle for the brim (with a hole in the middle handily the same size as the bit for the top of the hat) and a straigh/slightly curved piece for the middle part(you know, the height defining one, that the folded up bits attach to, no i dont know the technical name)

once you have the pieces set out if you punch holes along all the relevant sides (entirety of middle piece, outside of crown, inside or brim) you can lace it all together with one piece of thonging, then turn it inside out to hide the lacing.

If you want a more detailed explanation im sure i can rig up some step by step drawings or something...

[luckykaa.livejournal.com]

Ooh, interesting...

Your explanation makes sense. Will try to remember to take photos during construction so I can produce a how-to if it works.

Now my only problem is that no single piece is quite large enough, but stitching together a couple of straight pieces should be much easier than stitching the crown to the brim.

[flannelcat.livejournal.com]

Possibly sew lots of bits together and make it from that??

[tictactoepony.livejournal.com]

A Frankenstein's monster-hat :P