Fan-Girl Sewing: Bofur Hat

(This could also be part of Throwback Thursday posts, but it seems to fit better under the fan-girl label.)

Can you name all the dwarfs in the Hobbit? Can you tell them apart? Okay, can you at least tell me you know the dwarf that has the hat that looks like it wants to defy gravity and take off flying? Okay, good. That's Bofur, and he's probably my favorite dwarf in Thorin's company (with Fili close behind). But isn't his hat the best? I :had: to have it.

So I started shopping around. Unfortunately, the only ones on the market were either expensive or cheesy. I figured I could make one, I mean, really, how hard could it be to make a hat? Granted, I never recreated something from a movie before or made a hat before. This is going to be an adventure! 

With all the farming craziness of summer all finished, I had more time to dedicate to geeky sewing experiments. ^_^

Looking at the hat, it looks like a bomber hat (I hope you didn't read that as Bombur...) with some serious dramatic dwarf flair to it.  But there's one problem: there aren't any bomber hat patterns. Anywhere. I did find a video tutorial on youtube, but still no pattern to work with. Drats. Being my stereotypical, crazy, crafting self, I jumped right in with making my own. Maybe one of these days, I'll get around to making a tutorial and printable pattern to share with y'all to fill that empty place in the cosplay universe.

 After making up the first draft for the pattern and then making the pre-mock-up mock-up out of some thread-bare, old sheets that I had stashed away for the sole purpose of being a mock-up, I felt comfortable moving on to the mock-up. (Wow, that was a run on sentence with a sad lack of vocabulary diversity. Ahem, anyway.) So I made the daring move to start working with the curly brown faux fur that I had  found at the fabric store.

"Perfect chore hat," says I, "It'll be wonderfully warm for doing those winter tasks."

 The final product certain had a Siberian hobo feel to it because of the fabrics I used. ;)

And that's why they call it a mock-up. It's comfy and that's all that matters.

It was finally time to move on to making Bofur's hat. I sewed up the leather exterior (it looked like a vintage football helmet), embroidered the crown seams, jimmy-rigged a frame/system to use to hold up the ear flaps. But I couldn't find the right kind of fur for the lining. Anywhere. Seeing a trend with this project? I checked the fabric stores in the area. Nada. Etsy? Zilch. Unless you wanted to pay an arm and a leg. Amazon? Same story there. :sigh: Then my brother played the Weird Al song, "eBay." Inspiration can come from anywhere I guess. So I checked the online auction house. Lo-and-behold, FUR! And I had choices too! And it was a 'purchase now' listing. Oh happiness! Guess where my perfect fur came from. South Korea. It was funny seeing my mom's face when she handed me the gray plastic package, 'Uh, what are you getting from South Korea?' 'Oh chill, Mom, it's North Korea that has nukes. It's my fur!' It takes a while to ship things across the great wide Pacific and to my front door step. I finished the rest of the hat that afternoon. 

Good luck trying to convince me to take it off. I LOVE it!

With the recent snow 'storm' that came through, the hat proved its metal (or fur). It's fabulously warm, and the pleather-like material that's on the outside is pretty water resistant. ;) 

My dad was asking about my recent 'obsession' this bomber hats. I shrugged. 

A friend showed me a link to where you can purchase the official movie replica. Guess how much it cost. Just guess. $50? Nope. More. $100?! Nope. It will cost you $200 to own the replica from the movie. That makes the money that I put down for this look like pocket change. (actually, it was, everything was either discount or clearance!) Maybe I could turn it into a business of some sort. Hmm...

Until next time!

SG