Sinamay is a material used to make hats. Even if you don’t recognize the name, you would know the material if you saw it. It’s woven from abaca fibres and can be dyed in many colours – it looks similar to a loosely woven linen. It can be steamed and stretched and shaped. Think of all those fancy straw hats and fascinators worn to British weddings and you’re probably imagining sinamay. It’s sold by the yard/meter by millinery shops or as pre-shaped hat forms.

You might remember that I made some hats for the girls, out of linen and felt. I used the DBD Brimmed Hat pattern, which is no longer available for sale. Here are a couple of them:

I never thought about using sinamay to make hats for the girls until I saw a series of posts by a European maker in one of the doll groups on Facebook. She makes the most gorgeous hats for Silkstone dolls and posted photographs of her process in making various hats of sinamay. Wow! I knew I had to give it a try.

I ordered some sinamay from The Trimming Company in the UK – both ivory and black. I had to debate and think about the process for a while, then this week, I dug in.

For the first two hats, I kept things simple. I just went for a plain brim, and finished the outside edge with self-made bias blinding in silk. (This was in the instructions for the DBD Brimmed Hat.) The crown has to be steamed into shape and left to dry – I used a spice jar from the dollar store as a form. Once the crown and brim were secured together. I decorated the crown of the hat, which is good fun, then glued a piece of ribbon to the interior of the crown to finish that edge.

On the left is Silkstone Best in Black wearing an off-white sinamay hat trimmed in a floral cotton print. She’s also wearing the Danielle two-piece dress. On the right is Silkstone Lingerie #6 wearing a black hat trimmed in the black silk. The dress is Hankie Chic’s Simple Sundress. The flowers and ribbons on the hats came from my stash, including the flowers, which are paper flowers from the dollar store.

I decided that the crowns were a bit too deep on these two, so I trimmed down the crown for the third hat, an off-white sinamay hat trimmed in the same silk taffeta plaid as the dress worn by Lingerie #6. I did a better job on the join of the binding on the crown for this one, with the help of the plaid as a cutting guide.

These little hats are remarkably sturdy once they’re completed. Here are the three hats I’ve made so far:

I made the hat stands, btw, with more supplies from the dollar store. That’s a styrofoam egg, a bamboo stick and a wooden wheel. On the bottom, there’s a metal washer that’s just a little smaller than the wheel, to keep the hat stand from tipping over.

I really like these hats, although there’s plenty of room for improvement in my technique. They’re Ascot hats to me, or Kentucky Derby hats – or hats like Andie McDowell wore to weddings in Four Weddings & a Funeral. I’m going to try a few with even shallower crowns and do more shaping of the brims.

I’m now on the hunt for a slightly larger jar to shape crowns for the 16″ girls, and more flowers for decorating the crowns. I could probably make some smaller hats and/or fascinators – I have a LOT of sinamay to work with!