14th Century Bycocket (DIY Mad Hatter!)

[Ian]

An attempt to spruce up my soft kit headware:

So Historic Enterprises has these new felt hat blanks.  They're just a very basic rounded felt hat shape.  You can leave them as is, but you can also shape felt pretty easily.  I warmed up the tea kettle and steamed the sections of the hat I wanted to shape.  I then stretched the felt over some drinking glasses that had the shapes I wanted to use and let it cool.  It then holds its shape pretty well.  I formed it into a bycocket style hat, and voi'la! 

I had some old tie garters lying around that I used as trim to trim up the edges of the brim.  Then I put used a pewter badge of Saint George on the front to decorate it and used it to secure three pheasant feathers.  Not bad for my first hat making experience!

Here's the shot from the HE website that shows what it looks like unshaped and untrimmed:


Here it is shaped and trimmed


Hand sewed the 'trim' on the brim


Added the badge and 'stuck a feather in my hat'


And historically accurate period non-smile

[Sir James A]

Excellent! The 21st century lacks enough fancy hats!

[Sir Edward]

Great job! It looks really good. It came out better than I would have expected.

[Ian]

Thanks! It wasn't too bad to make. I figured for the relatively low cost it was worth a shot trying my own hand at it. It's not a Hats by Kat bycocket, but I think it's cool that I can look at it and say I made that!  The cool thing is with felt it can be reshaped and reformed to a degree, so you have the option to alter it at a later date or add to it or whatever catches your fancy.

[Sir Ulrich]

If you got that in green it would be a Robin Hood hat.

[Ian]

If you got that in green it would be a Robin Hood hat.

Yes sir, same style hat!  Bycockets were thought to be worn for riding, hunting, and falconing / hawking.

[Lord Dane]

The 14th century top hat. 

[Sir Brian]

Awesome! When I saw your post about your new hat on FB I didn’t realize you started off with such a very basic floppy hat! Well done indeed!

[Ian]

Awesome! When I saw your post about your new hat on FB I didn’t realize you started off with such a very basic floppy hat! Well done indeed!

Thanks.  Yeah, they start life as basically a bowl shaped hat with a round brim.  Gwen suggests spraying it with a little 50/50 mixture of alcohol and shellac to stiffen it a bit, but I just left it as is, and it holds it's shape just fine after steaming, shaping, and cooling.

[Sir Wolf]

very nice.

i have an oooooooooooolllddddddddddd black one. its sorta lost its shape along the way. so i never wear it anymore

[Sir William]

Is it odd that I like the floppy hat as is?  Altho Sir Ian's has much more in the way of swagger.

[Lord Dane]

very nice.

i have an oooooooooooolllddddddddddd black one. its sorta lost its shape along the way. so i never wear it anymore

What lost shape?? The hat or the head?? LOL JK

[Sir Gerard de Rodes]

Very smart Sir Ian. I also have a hunting hat,  an esential part of my Flemish persona when wearing my chaperon down my back
Although it is not as shapely as that.
G.

[Lord Ciaran]

Ian,
I just ordered and recieved one from them a few days ago. I was pondering how I would shape it. Thanks for the information and inspiration. Awesome hat.

[Ian]

Ian,
I just ordered and recieved one from them a few days ago. I was pondering how I would shape it. Thanks for the information and inspiration. Awesome hat.

My pleasure!  The tea kettle is what I've found to be the most steady source of steam.  If you boil a regular pot of water it will you'll evaporate a lot more water than you can use, and you may have to keep adding water.  The tea kettle also allows you to really focus where you're steaming so you can work on smaller sections. 

Let it get decently wet, and then as you stretch it, hold it in place as it cools (it will cool pretty quickly), and then just keep repeating til you get it to do what you want.  Get creative on what you use as 'forms' to shape it over, lots of random stuff around the house works really well if it's got the basic shape you want.