Chapter 7: The Sorting Hat

Whew. Am I exhausted. Was up late last night starting the sorting hat, and up early finishing it. Took me all-in-all about 3-4 hours, start to finish. What started out as a cabinet box, and an old sheet turned into a grumpy-looking old hat.

I started out by measuring my head with a sewing measuring tape, 22 inches. I got a pretty big head. I then measured that onto a box, and using a straight edge and my protractor (OMG! I used it out of high school! Who knew?!) I crafted a nice looking triangle. I cut it out using an Exacto knife. Next I scored the cardboard a little in straight lines to get it to bend better, and duct taped it together to form a cone. I used the cone base to trace on the cardboard a nice looking brim and cut that as well. 

After the duct taping, I distressed the top of the cone a little to make it bend forward, like the hat has in the movie. Then I duct taped the brim to the cone and started to work on the sheet. After cutting to the appropriate size, I fitted it over the cone and started to safety pin what I think the hat should look like. It was at that point I went to bed.

The next morning I took out my needle and thread again (getting tired of sewing), and sewed together the eyes first, then the mouth, and realized it was wayyyyyy too tall. So I took it all apart, cut it down to size, and duct taped it back together again. I fit the sheet back over the top and secured it with, yes, more duct tape. After sewing for what seemed like hours, I think I got it where I wanted it to be. I cut out a few scraps for the ties and sewed them onto the bottom to dangle down. And Viola! A homemade sorting hat.

The steps weren't too hard, it was just time consuming. Here's pics: