Time For a Trim

 Looking for a quick and easy project between sewing tops and putting off sewing together a machine knit cardigan, I decided to do a slight update to my Panama straw hat. It was fine the way it was, but I was in the mood for a small change.

I started out with this: 

The only change made to the purchased hat was an added beaded butterfly. The band around the hat was a simple leather strip. It was purchased from Goorin Bros. I've gotten a few hats from there; I like the fact that most of them are available in multiple sizes. 

I thought it might be nice to have a wider band, so I bought some lovely silk ribbon from Etsy seller SewVintagely. I went with 1" wide black ribbon, and because I wanted to do some manipulation I got three yards -- which turned out to be a fairly accurate guesstimate.

I used a technique I had done before on a sewing project which is known as a double shell ruffle. It's quite simple to do, and I think it gives a nice effect.

As long as I was doing this, I decided to change out the beaded butterfly for a different one. And here's what I ended up with:  

For anyone interested in how to do: a basting stitch (I do by hand but it could be done by machine) is run down the length of your trim in zigzag fashion, like this:

I marked the top edge of the ribbon with a chalk dot at 2" intervals. On the bottom edge I made the same mark at 2" intervals, but offset them by one inch so that they fell exactly between the top marks. You can use whatever measurement that suits your material -- the important thing is to have your basting at crisp right angles. 

Baste away, pulling the stitches every few inches so that you are gathering as you go. For the hat band I pulled them up fairly tightly. As I was sewing the ends together for a circular band I left them straight edged -- for using as a trim on a garment it would look nicer to miter the ends into a point when you've completed the gathering. 

As noted above, I had purchased 3 yards of ribbon and I ended up with 20" left over, so as you can see it does eat up a lot of ribbon/fabric. For reference, the length of finished trim needed (plus seam allowance to sew together was approximately 24".

I have used fabric for this too -- for trim on a voile cardigan I used a tube of the voile about 1.5" wide and basted exactly the same. I wouldn't try this on anything too heavy or stiff, but it worked beautifully on the silk ribbon and the voile.