Wheel hat

 

This is actually the first hat that I made using the PDF pattern I downloaded from Etsy two years ago, although it's only in the last few weeks that I've reworked it to the point that I find it good enough.  Since it's cloth, I needed help from Mom to assemble the top and sides.

The facing fabric is from an old pair of chinos.  I used a narrow belt from a thrift store for the chin cord and 4-5 ounce (2mm) veg-tan for the visor.  The visor is treated only with neatsfoot oil, conditioner and a little Sno-Seal (emulsified beeswax), which all contribute to darkening the leather to a natural saddle tan color.  With no dye, the color shouldn't rub off or bleed, and with no acrylic finish, it won't crack if creased.  It's also reasonably water-resistant, though less so than a heavy acrylic finish would be, and of course a glossy finish isn't achievable.  If I'd been thinking ahead, I might have made it without vents and used a more old-fashioned slide system for the chin cord, which would make the hat appropriate for the 19th century.  As is, I believe the roller buckle is more of a 20th-century feature.

The band is built around heavyweight, 2mm cotton webbing, 1-1/2 inches (38mm) wide.  I sewed the crown to the band five warp threads down, though I think it could've been three or even two, which would add a bit of height to the band without weakening the construction.  Of course, with a fisherman-style cap like this, you don't really want a tall band; that's more a military peaked cap feature.  Speaking of which, the crown could also stand to be about a quarter-inch narrower all around when working with a forgiving fabric, though this doesn't seem to work with leather unless you make the band taller.

After sewing in the visor, I hot-glued a sweatband of cotton twill tape with the idea that it would be replaceable (since the cap itself can't be washed and its light color will show stains from contact with greasy skin), but it took up too much room on the inside.  Also, the twill tape had a hard face and was uncomfortable, and proved very difficult to remove.  I managed to peel it out and slice off most of the remaining hot glue, and have now replaced it with a chamois leather sweatband in just the front half (where most grease tends to accumulate), attached with rubber cement.  It's still a little too snug - I definitely underestimated the hat size during construction - but much more comfortable.  The crown has lightweight interfacing and is lined with part of a worn-out cotton bedsheet.

I tweaked the visor pattern several times.  I found the supplied version (right) too flat and a bit too proportionally long.  At first I thought that widening it would be the best way to get it to curl down more, but in the last few weeks I realized that the major factor is how curved it is on the interior edge:  the less curved, the more the visor is turned down when stitched to the straight edge of the band.  Theoretically, a completely straight interior edge would result in a visor that points straight down.  There actually appear to have been wheel hats made in the 19th century like that, although I don't see the point of such a thing.  This cap uses the pattern second to the left, which is perhaps slightly too narrow and not quite full enough on the outer edge near the corners to optimally shield one's eyes from the Sun.

Biker cap

 

Yesterday I finished one more small leather cap.  This one is basically the same as the one I made in 2019, with some largely aesthetic differences.

The crown and band aren't factory scrap this time, but the remnants of a Mirrabella lambskin I bought some years ago.  Although the one I bought was officially some shade of brown, it looks almost black in most lighting, though it may fade with exposure to sunlight.  I matched it with a black chin cord and artificial sinew stitching and a visor made from the same almost-black oiltan as I used on the last one.  The lambskin is thinner than the unidentified factory scrap, so the cap weighs less.  Also, despite having a wider crown, it crushes down better, giving it a casual look when worn.

Fitting is the only fussy part.  I tried to size the band to be just large enough to fit my oversized head, excessive hair, and a polarfleece sweatband lining.  Unfortunately, this resulted in it being a little too big for the crown, forcing me to pleat as I went and causing unsightly crimping in a few spots.

The band is made of medium-weight two-inch cotton webbing.  The crown is lined with scrap twill, probably cotton.  The buckle is chromed steel.  Though the buttons also look like steel, I later discovered that they won't stick to a magnet, so they're probably pot metal, which raises the possibility that their shanks may break more easily with use.  Otherwise, construction is exactly the same as the last one.

18th-century cutlass belt

This is the first complete sword belt of any kind that I've made.  I intended to do it on the cheap but still stick to period materials as best as possible.

The buckle is by Roy Najecki (item EA here).  You can order it with or without a tongue; I ordered mine with one.  The tongue is iron and rather sharp.

The leather is all vegetable-tanned.  It's stained with double-strength, heavily steeped black tea and vinegaroon; the tea supposedly enriches the leather with extra tannins for the vinegaroon to react with so that the leather's own tannins won't be depleted, which would result in degradation and cracking over the years.  The vinegaroon itself is iron (in this case fine steel wool) dissolved in vinegar.  This is not a dye, but a reagent; it looks like pond water or tea, but turns tannins black.  After staining the leather, I neutralized the vinegaroon in a mild baking soda solution until it stopped fizzing.  It's finished with neatsfoot oil and beeswax.

The stitching is coarse waxed linen cord, since I wasn't sure fine stitching would be strong enough.  To keep the end knots from chafing against clothing, they're on the outside, which gives it a rather sloppy appearance.

The frog fits the scabbard in the same way as my Bowie knife frog:  The sleeve is slightly oversized for the scabbard and pops open when pressed from the sides so it becomes tall enough to slide over the button, allowing the button to be pressed through a round buttonhole, which is just wide enough for the button's neck but has a slit to either side to let the button through.  While I was test-fitting it after stitching, I found that the sleeve was a little too tight for me to easily get the scabbard back out.  So I had to finish attaching the frog to the belt itself with the scabbard encumbering it.

Most replica sword belts of this kind that I've seen are upwards of two inches wide.  This one is only 1-1/4 inches, in accordance with guidelines at Gentlemen of Fortune.  It chafes a lot when worn over only a shirt, but on top of a waistcoat or justaucorps it would probably be okay.  It's also a very functional design, in that when buckled tight enough, it allows you to draw the sword one-handed.

This sword is a Dixie Gun Works 1742 British infantry sword.  It's a nice sword for the money, but I'll soon be attempting to replace the hilt.  You'll see whether or not that turns out in another month or two.

All-purpose leather cap

A side project I made using this PDF pattern.  The shell is made from a leather remnant I got at a craft store, while the visor is some "blacksmith" leather I bought years ago and have never found a use for.  I would've preferred the visor to match the crown in color, but a number of experiments failed to produce a construction and finishing method that wouldn't bleed dye and deform when wet or "crack" when creased.  I wanted this cap to be functionally indestructible.  The blacksmith leather is extremely dark brown, but appears blue-black in the photos due to outdoor light (it was slightly overcast this morning).  For the same reason, it also has a smooth leather lining inside the band with a replaceable cotton sweatband hot-glued into place.

This is what the cap originally looked like.  However, after completing it on Sunday, I decided that the bright gold buttons and lacquered brass buckle were too ostentatious and military-looking.

Luckily, I had some antiqued brass-plated buttons and two of these 1/2-inch buckles from Tandy Leather, and an uncle of mine had given me a bottle of Blacken-It.  I sanded the lacquer off the remaining buckle, darkened it, brushed back the Blacken-It finish with steel wool (it's still darker than it appears in the photo), and put together a new chin cord yesterday.  The cords are just attached with twisted copper wire through a pair of holes on either side, so they can be easily removed and replaced with needlenose pliers/clippers.  The other cord will probably be used for a costume hat project.

While this style is recognized in the West as a Greek fisherman's or sailor's cap, it was common peasant or working-class headwear, especially in Eastern Europe, so it would also work for any early 20th-century costume.  And because it's made of leather, it also counts as a motorcycle cap.  I like to think the functional chin cord would also work better for that purpose than the simple chain that a lot of them feature.

I modified it in two ways:  First, the band is a bit wider than in the pattern, for more headspace, and second, I also made the visor wider from side to side.  This forces the ends to be pulled in more when stitched to the band, which causes the visor to curl down more, protecting the eyes better from the sun.

Into the Demilitarized Zone

Years ago, I got into wearing old European army coats because of their low price and retro appeal, plus the fact that, unlike American menswear, they're sometimes small enough for me to wear.  To avoid possible misunderstandings, I don't wear them when I go abroad, and I never wear anything that resembles current or recent U.S. issue.

While searching for a replacement for my worn-out Swiss army jacket, which I've been wearing as a winter coat for nine years, I came across a Slovakian army jacket on sale for 10USD.  Unfortunately it's too light for winter, but similar in weight to a high-quality sportcoat, and the extra-small is a pretty good fit on me.

It has one major drawback:  It is, at a glance, somewhat similar to an "alpha" jacket, the everyday non-combat uniform of U.S. Marines.  But I wanted a sportcoat, thus this project follows.

The first and most obvious step is to get rid of the sleeve insignia, which is accomplished quickly with a seam ripper and tweezers to pull out all the bits of stitching.

Next I removed the right breast pocket, which isn't normally seen on civilian sportcoats except those specialized for hunting.  The end goal here is a sportcoat derived from a hunting coat.

Unfortunately, the stitching that attaches the pocket to the coat also seems to be connected with the front dart.  This is going to need to be closed up at some point.

The epaulettes are made from thick, stiff, laminated layers of canvas with a self-fabric facing.  They can't be simply cut off; I had to open the seams to remove them.

I'm not used to sewing fabric or buttons, so I had to ask my mom for instructions on some of the following steps.  She told me to close the seams up with a blind stitch, but I really failed at making it "blind."  It should hold the sleeve on, though.

All the buttons are replaced with leather ones.  (Well, faux-leather, since we're on the cheap.)  Since major retailers like Jo-Ann don't sell this type individually, two cards of the larger buttons are required, plus one of the smaller.  They're stitched heavily with button/carpet thread and tied off several times.

Elbow patches are essential on a creaky old professor's jacket.  This is a small garment piece from Tandy which I ordered after a brief conversation with the store clerks, who were nice enough to e-mail me a photo of their recommendations, and luckily one was an almost identical color to the buttons as well as having a nice aged, grainy texture.  I actually bought several pieces, as this coat will have a shoulder patch as well.

I based the dimensions (4.75 by 5.75 inches) on those of an old Orvis travel jacket.

The Tandy piece, which is 8.5 by 11 inches (same as a standard sheet of copy paper) was a bit too small to cut two patches that were exactly the same size as the Orvis one, so after some consideration I went for making mine the same length but a half-inch narrower.

The pattern is cut along straight lines, folded into quarters and trimmed to try and make it more symmetrical.

It's then traced onto the flesh side of the leather and cut in the usual manner.

The pattern shifted in and up a hair more than 1/8 inch for the guidelines, and holes pre-punched.

The patch is centered horizontally on the sleeve seam and vertically through trial and error by checking where the elbow is located along the sleeve along a range of movement with the arm bent.

Sewing without going through the jacket's lining is trickiest, but sewing through the lining risks misaligning the lining and distorting the jacket's fit as well as exposing the stitches to internal wear.  So on the whole, you want to do the former if at all possible.  The leather is folded with the shell fabric pinched between.  I then reach into the sleeve and pull the lining out of the pinch.  Then I slide the needle in pointing a bit backward until it goes through the shell, orient it so the point presses against the shell and slowly drag the tip back until it's pointing at the next stitch hole in the leather, and push forward again.  This way a bit of the shell fabric is caught in the stitch.  I did have to redo many, many stitches along the way, and the needle often winds up exiting the leather a tiny bit in front of or behind the pre-punched hole.

The shoulder patch is the last major alteration.  (It's strange if you think about it, because the shoulder patch is meant to protect against wear and tear from firing a rifle, but I've never seen one on a military jacket.  I suppose combat jackets are expected to wear out all over and be replaced before that becomes an issue, while sportcoats are more curated, and obviously dress jackets like these don't need any such thing.)  I cut the pattern to run all the way from the sleeve to the crease of the lapel and collar, and estimated its length based on several photos of sportcoats found online.  I cut it to the maximum length seen in these photos, which is roughly two sevenths of the jacket's length.

As you can see, this is kind of large.

After examining a few more photos, I re-trimmed the leather to a length that's closer to two ninths, and made it a tiny bit narrower so that it would be easier to fit between the sleeve and collar.

The shoulder patch is punched and sewn in much the same way as the elbow patches, except that just below the collar were several points where the coat's layers were sewn so close together that the whole becomes extremely stiff and it wasn't possible to go through only the top layer, so the patch stitches go all the way through here.  Luckily, the tight assembly in this area means that sewing all the way through won't cause distortion or affect the fit.  I may, however, hot-glue some thin patches of material here just to protect the stitches from internal wear.

Although not an alteration per se, closing the dart is the final important step.  With more coaching from Mom, I tried to do a proper blind stitch here, but still decided to knot the ends on the outside, which leaves them visible.

 

English country attire!  The finished product is fairly close to a half-Norfolk jacket, although it lacks the "action pleats," bellowed pockets and loose fit around the lower body and so isn't quite as functional as an actual hunting jacket.  Besides patching over the internal stitches, the only other alterations I'd consider would be shortening the sleeves a little and adding cuff buttons.