The hat began as a ladies straw hat complete with decorations!
Ben picked it up at a thrift store because the crown had the right shape he was looking for.
The first thing he did was cut off the rim leaving 2". He then coated the exterior of the hat with some oil based white primer we had around the house. This worked well for filling in all the gaps in the weave of the straw.
I have no idea why we did not take a picture showing this, but he also painted the rim of the hat, but left the inside of the crown unpainted.
The exterior and inside rim were painted with a very nearly black exterior semigloss (he had them dirty it up with a little bit of yellow to be more realistic).
The semigloss helped give the hat a nice shine.
Then Ben hand stenciled the name Surprise onto a polyester ribbon and tied it in the back.
We were to be on the HMS Surprise for the weekend, so the ribbon helped identify that.
The nice thing is that the ribbon is only knotted in the back so Ben can swap it out for another ship's ribbon if he ever needs to.
I think my sailor looks quite handsome, don't you?
If you'd like to read/see more about our adventures at this year's festival of sail go here.
Now if I'm good, I'll write you a post about my new spencer that I'm wearing and made for this same weekend!
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