How to Make Hats & Accessories
Instructions for Making 1940s Fashions
by Vee Powell

CONDITION: new, softcover, crisp and glossy covers, 2009, 143 pages, unabridged, size: 6.69x9.61, published by Bramcost Publications

Originally published in 1946, this book by Vee Powell shows you how to make fantastic vintage accessories including hats, gloves, hand bags, belts, muff, muff-purse, and parka hood. Chapters detail:

HATS

• equipment and basic materials.
• making a hat wedge, decorative tubing trim, hat linings, covered hat pins, sequined hat pins, bows, felt trims, felt feathers and French-room trims.
• how to sew on flowers, veils and sequins.
• makings hats using hat patterns including a bonnet-type hat, forward worn hat, forward-or-back worn hat with recomendations on which pattern pieces to use for each hat type.
• step-by-step instructions and illustrations for making a fabric hat including cutting, wiring and assembling frame, sewing top crown and side crown, cutting materials and seam allowances, covering crowns and brims, assembling brim and crown, and trimming/finishing. 
• making a hat from straw braid including pinning and sewing the braid, circling the hat with braid and properly laying the braid.
• making hats from wool felt including cutting out, sewing brims together and adding wire.
• making hats using fur felts including pinning pattern in place, cutting out and assembling the pieces.
• five sample hats with instructions and recommended pattern pieces for making.
• working with blocks.
• how to make a buckram skull crown which then enables you to make hundreds of types of close fitting hats.
• how to make half hats.
• blocking with felts and straws.
• using ready made frames.

ACCESSORIES

• how to make gloves including material recommendations, pattern tracing, material cutting, adjusting the fingers and assembling. Full size patterns are provided for both a large and small hand size glove.
• how to make a square, oblong, rounded or rectangular flat underarm bag including recommended fabrics, measurements, laying out the fabric, reduced size drawing/pattern, cutting the material, assembling and sewing in a zipper.
• reduced size drawing/pattern for a felt pouch bag along with step-by-step instructions for creating.
• how to make a muff with measurements and step-by-step instructions for lining and sewing.
• making a muff-purse combination which includes a zippered pocket for storing money, gloves or cosmetics.
• how to make decorative belts from an existing belt including covering in fabric, adding eyelets, and 10 examples of decorative belts with design details.
• making shoulder pads including cutting out, stitching, and a full size pattern.
• reduced size drawing/pattern for making a parka hood and instructions for completing.

Over 200 illustrations and full size patterns for basic hats, gloves, shoulder pads, and flowers are included. The book also details remaking hats, reusing trims, and how to clean hats.

Please see images for the book's contents page, index and sample illustrations. Be sure to check our other auction listings for more vintage millinery books and magazines.

Bramcost Publications is your publishing resource for vintage lifestyle books and patterns. Our books/patterns focus on the way our foremothers and forefathers lived, laughed and loved in their everyday lives. Beauty, fashion, millinery, entertaining and handicrafts are the building blocks of our book/pattern offerings with an emphasis on VINTAGE:

• makeup, hairstyling, beauty
• sewing, pattern drafting, fashion design
• knitting and crochet patterns
• millinery, hat construction, hat patterns
• beadwork, jewelry making
• ribbonwork, embroidery, embellishments, quilting
• weddings, bridal interest
• paper dolls, doll books, doll clothes patterns
• Christmas, Easter, Halloween and Valentine?s Day holiday celebrations