Donnez Moi Mon Chapeau

A while back I picked up a pith helmet. You might think this a strange thing to do, but I did so with good cause: the hat is designed very cleverly, using a rigid inner form (made of pith, unsurprisingly) covered in cloth, and uses a set of straps on the interior to suspend the outer shell away from the wearer's head, keeping the hot sun off while allowing a cool breeze to flow underneath.

This works wonderfully, unless by some twist of misfortune the glue on the inner lining were to fail, allowing the lining to collapse against the head of the wearer, blocking off the cooling airflow.

Turns out the glue they used isn't waterproof, despite the fact that this hat is specifically designed to be sweat in, and them even suggesting dipping the hat in water for further cooling effect. Indeed.

Well, we've got a problem, and now we've gotta fix it.

The pith material used for the inner structure is not entirely unlike leather, so I decided to use leather stitching techniques to pin the lining back into place.

The first step of this technique is to mark out the stitch line, to keep things nice and straight.

Then we use a leather stitching punch to pre-punch the stitch holes with a perfect, even spacing.

Looks perfect and even to me.

Then we can use a diamond awl to help clear any holes that might not have made it all the way through.

Peek-a-boo!

Then it's just a matter of saddle stitching my way up from the brim to the top.

Now I didn't notice it at the time, but while stitching here, despite my best efforts to the contrary, I hadn't managed to position the inner lining quite right. This was quite a difficult task, as the entire lining had become detached from the hat, and so I didn't really have any good points of reference to go by.

You can see some of the puckers here from where the fabric was getting pulled too far towards the brim.

But, blissfully unaware, I carried on.

I stitched up the side-rear seams.

Which are at least looking great from the outside.

But once I got to the front seams, I realized things had gone off the rails a little bit. The lining fabric was pulling way too tight, and I could see that the hole at the top of the lining wasn't quite lining up with the hole in the hat. So, I ended up pulling out the four seams on the rear and redoing them, making sure to get the fabric in a much better position this time, and then finished up the remaining seams on the front.

It may not be perfect on the inside, but it's at least much better.

And on the outside, things look pretty darn good.

And now finally I can donnez moi mon chapeau.