A brief interlude ...

Over the weekend I sat down to sew. As I looked around over the clouds of netting, I realized that I had neither the desire nor the will to work on petticoats. So, in the time-honoured tradition of students everywhere who have term paper deadlines looming, I found something else to do. :)


For reference, this is the hat
in question.



A while back, my husband had asked if I would make a black Imperial Officer cap for him to wear around during an upcoming trip. I said, "Sure!", and then nothing else happened on that project. Over the weekend, though, this became the rough equivalent of the aforementioned student's realizing that the bathroom needs to be cleaned or the floor should probably be swept or perhaps those dishes in the sink should really be washed. So I dug through the fabric stash to find something that would work, and on I went...

IO caps are small and finicky, but they're really not all that hard to do. You just have to make sure you have all the pieces, follow the directions and take your time about it. In about 6 hours (with time out for dinner), I cut out all the pieces for two caps, did all of the interfacing for both and got most of one sewed together (in my defense, I only stopped because I was at the handsewing stage, and black on black at night is just not fun - there's probably only another couple hours to get it finished).

Fabric choice here depends on how authentic you want to be. Medium to heavy cotton twill or wool gabardine is closest to screen accurate, I'm told. These are a heavyweight cotton twill on the outside lined with a shirt-weight cotton twill (because that's what I had, and it will breathe :).

Roll photos...

I'm making two of these at the same time, so I thought I'd lay out the pieces in the tan one and show the sewn-together piece in the black. Here's the visor section. It has two pieces - one interfaced with a light or mediumweight interfacing, the other has a sewn-in heavyweight stabilizer.

Here are the pieces for the crown of the hat. Two pieces interfaced in the lighter interfacing and sewn together into a loop.

And the two flaps - one at the front, one at the back. Each flap is made up of one piece that is interfaced and one that isn't.

Note on the flaps: the standard IO hat pattern doesn't include something you can see on close-ups of the movie costume hats: a binding on the outer edge of the flaps. It's a small detail, and something you can add or not as you like or as your authenticity desires. :)

And the most important piece of all - the greeblie!! Without a greeblie, you've just got a cap. The ones with the notches cut out of them (bottom row) are the ones recommended for hats. The smooth ones are usually used on belt buckles. As you can see, we keep a small stock. :)




So, why, when the movie Imperial Officers are all dressed in gray or black (or occasionally white), am I doing one in tan? Well, it's for a group called the RSO (Republic Services Organization), which is like the USO but for the 501st. It's a way for the handlers (ie, the wives ;) to dress up too. So the tan one is mine.

And for those folks who'd like to try this, here's the link to the standard IO hat pattern. It has great directions - follow them, take your time, and you can't go wrong. :)

I'd gotten the crown and top sewn together, but I'd stopped at the handsewing required for putting the binding on the flaps (because I am that authenticity-minded, unfortunately). More when I finish them!

Happy sewing, folks. :)