Customer Reviews

Hats In Miniature

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Lyn Waring takes the reader through the process of making original hats for dolls, including basic and sports styles through fancy and historic styles that can be embellished however one likes, to oddball styles like top hats and chef hats. A real find--there are a few books on doll hatmaking but they tend to focus more on embellishing a single style, like the ubiquitous (and quite ugly) Breton bonnet. This book gives all the construction details one needs to get started designing and making gorgeous little hats.

This book is wonderful! It has a broad selection of hats to choose from (17 different hats); patterns for each hat type and ideas for variations; great color photos of the step-by-step instructions, as well as photos of the beautiful, completed hats. There is a section on making and using patterns and even a section on making piping (a type of trim). In the back of the book, there is a pattern for a very simple hat display stand and a useful conversion table (inches to metric & yards to inches). Also, instructions are given for enlarging or reducing the hat patterns. I do feel that the instructions should have been included for making the wood hat stands that were utilized throughout the book for displaying the finished hats. The pattern given is for a different type of hat stand and does not make the better hat display. I also feel that the book overlooked giving the "completed size" of the various hats. It only gives a one-size completed "collar size" of 10 ½" (this is where the hat meets the head, the circumference) for all the hats, but doesn't detail the completed measurements any further for the finished height, or crown top and bottom width (which does vary by style), nor the depth (how wide) each of the various brims are at completion. This would have been very valuable in choosing which hat pattern to make for a particular look, and for making sure one maintains the size ratio when enlarging and reducing patterns. Still, all-in-all, this book is still one of my cherished favorites.

I did not think making doll hats could be this much fun and by copying and enlarging on a copy machine you can make hats for any size doll or even little girls. This book showed me exactly how to do each step and from there it was easy. Now I am busy making hats of all sizes. What fun. Great book and I highly recommend it expecially if you are not sure on how to get started. I sew a lot but this just gave me the extra confidence I needed to get started.

Lyn Waring has given us a wonderful "beginning" millinery "how-to" book for dolls. She lays out creating miniature hats in a simple step-by-step process that anyone who has general knowledge of sewing can follow.

Lyn presents 17 styles of hats sewn with just a few basic pattern pieces. She includes some creative ideas for embellishing the hats as well.

This book is great for beginning miniature millinery. Once one learns basic hat-making, one may continue on to period hat-making and others.

Happy hat making!