Harley Quinn Hat DIY

Those of you who know me, know that I am a life-long Batman fan. My nickname has been Joker since I was a small child for various reasons that have nothing to do with me being insane. LOL Really, it's my sense of humor and love of purple and green ... and possibly my creepy laugh.

Anyway, for a few years now I've wanted to do a great Harley Quinn costume. Much of what I could find online was very generic, like bodysuits that do not look good on most people. Or people put together their own outfits and didn't give instructions as to how they managed this. Some did and those were helpful, but I didn't find many. While I continue to perfect my own costume I realized that the next accessory I needed was a great hat.

So, I started looking for Harley Hats. Do you know that as far as I can find, no one manufactures them? I thought that was weird. I found a few (overpriced) on Ebay and thought, "I could do this myself."

I started looking for patterns and found that no one was willing to share a pattern for a Harley hat. BUT, I did find a few blogs talking about how to make a jester hat. I modified that a little and made my own hat.

It turned out so well, I decided to make one for my dog Roscoe too. LOL A good little minion should always match his evil mistress.

First, here's what you'll need. 

Red and black fabric. You can use something soft like fleece or something that will stand up better. It depends on if you want your hat to be floppy or stiff. Ha. Ha. It's up to you. My hat is made out of a stiffer wool. Yeah, I know that's not the technical name, but I can't think of it. I got a half yard of each color because I plan to make a pillow eventually too. You should have plenty left over.

Pom poms or jingle bells. You can get these at most craft stores or even at Walmart. I chose to use pom poms because I didn't want to jingle all the time.

Sewing machine is optional. It would be easier if you have one. I don't. It took me 6 hours to stitch my hat by hand and about an hour to do Roscoe's. The only reason it took me so long on my hat is because I had no idea what I was doing.

Black and red thread.

Okay, first you need to make your pattern. This is really easy. Measure around your head just above the eyebrows. My measurements was 56 cm. But, I wanted the hat to be loose, so I used 58 cm. as my measurement.

My hat is 52 cm. up the long/pointy side and 30 cm. down the short side. If you shorten the short side or lengthen the long side, you will get more of an extreme point. Likewise if you don't want your hat to be as "pointy" (Ha. Ha.) then you can shorten both of these measurements.

So, here is what I figured. 58 cm (circumference of my head) divided by 4 (because you need 4 panels). That equals 14.5 cm. That means that the base of my pattern needs to be 14.5 cm.

I measured this out on some "Happy Birthday" tissue paper and cut out my pattern.

Next, you need to cut 4 pieces of material using the pattern as your guide. You can either pin it to the fabric, or use a pen to trace it lightly. This will not show on the final product because your seam will be about 1 cm.

You need 2 black and 2 red. Make sure their slant all faces the same direction. (Wow. That sounds vaguely obscene.)

Take a black and a red piece and put their short sides together. Fold them in half and sew them together, but don't sew the "points." I hope that makes sense. I'm trying to be as clear as I can, but I'm no seamstress. 

Once you've done this, open them out and finger press the seam open. Repeat this for the other pair. 

Place the two pairs "right" sides together. This means the hat will look like it's inside out. Sorry if I over explain, but I need things simple. Now, you might find it easier to pin the hat together while you stitch. That's what I did. With the "right" sides together, start stitching sides (outside edges) together. Be sure to have a red side facing a black side so that the hat turns out with the correct "Harley" look. You may need to trim off excess fabric at the tips when you stitch them. Mine weren't perfectly matched. LOL The pic just above this paragraph shows the hat after both sides have been stitched together, but before I turned it right side out.

Next, lay your hat flat (still wrong side out) and trim off about 10-15 cm from the bottom, depending on how wide you want your brim.

Slide this band/brim over the bottom of the hat, aligning the cut edges. The wrong side of the hat (seams out) should be facing the right side of the brand/brim. Make sure your colors alternate. Now that all the seams match up at the bottom, stitch.

Turn the hat right side out. I used a pen to poke out the points of the hat as much as possible. Now, flip the brim up to the right side and tuck the very top (rough edge) under about 1 cm or more if you want a thinner brim. Pin it in place, matching the seams and stitch the top near the folded edge. 

All that's left to do is sew some pom poms or jingle bells to the tips and start getting your freak on with The Joker. HAHAHA!!

For Roscoe's hat, I measured his head and his ears and basically followed the same steps. I just used smaller pom poms and put straps on the sides, alternating colors. This pic gives a side angle of his little "points." They are custom fitted to his little ears, but because I was laughing, trying to hold a little dog, and take this pic at the same time, his ears slipped out. LOL

Have fun!

Something funny and a bit of good news

I've had a hard time writing lately. As some of you may know, my grandfather recently passed away. Since then I have had several other family members who have had health problems as well. Things are looking better last I heard for everyone. But, it's hard to write romance when you are concerned about things like that.

I'm just now beginning to clear my head and get back to work on that space opera of mine. Which is going quite well when I get a minute to work on it:)

I wanted to take a minute and thank everyone who has helped to make Bitten such a success. Bitten is continuing to climb over at Fictionwise and it's all thanks to you:) This is the most successful book I've written so far and despite everything else that has been going on, I am thrilled.

Now, for the something funny I promised. Watch at your own risk. LOL Here's the basic story ... Batman is here to end Joker's crime wave ... but he had too many shrooms. Hey, I said I'd been trying to clear my head, comedy helps me do that:)

Hunting Season and Batman

No, I'm not hunting Batman. Although ... that could be interesting:) Actually, I hate hunting season with a passion. It provides me with some time to myself, however, it often wakes me up at the buttcrack of dawn. And I'll be honest, I'm not that fond of buttcracks. Dawn's or anybody else's. LOL

So anyway, I was up obscenely early this morning and ended up watching Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. It's an old show (1993) but I'm not going to give anything away if you haven't seen it. I used to watch the old animated series regularly, but I never got around to watching this before today. I loved it. Yes, it's animated but that doesn't stop it from being better than most live-action movies.

Seeing as how I'm such a huge fan, I'm surprised I hadn't watched it before now. Well, not really huge ... I'm only five foot four. hahahahahahahaha Sorry, not enough sleep and NO caffeine. Bear with me. When my brain gets sleep deprived for long enough I turn into a comedian. Or at least, I think I do. Other than that I'm just a jerk. Nice combination:) So now I'm a sleep deprived jackass who finds my own jokes funny. Ah, feels just like junior high school all over again.

I think my favorite part in the whole show was when Joker picked up this huge piece of salami and started beating a woman in the face with it. *snort* Come on, doesn't anyone else see the awful pun besides me? LOL Surely I'm not the only one thinking of numerous meat beating jokes even as I type:) And in the FACE? HA!

If you don't think it's funny, that's alright. (*sniff* But you hurt my feelings.) Trust me, it's best that I get all the bad jokes out of my system now before I start writing. Oh yeah, I started a new book Wednesday night. I'm calling it Wicked City. So far, I'm completely in love with the bad guy. As usual. I'd better hurry up and introduce the hero before this story gets really messed up. It's going great though. This is another urban fantasy along the same lines as Eden (April 09). However, to my knowledge some of the stuff I'm doing in this book has never been done. I'm throwing in whatever fits with the "dark and brooding" feel of this story. It is by far the darkest thing I've ever written and I've only just begun. I mean that literally, the city is suffering from power outages. hahahahahaha

Seriously, it is sort of creepy. But I like it that way. Oh, and did I mention there's lots of hot vampires and a few drool worthy werewolves? Oh, yeah. It's time to get to work ... and to the coffee pot.

I can't sleep so I'm talking about Batman?

Insomnia is a hell of a thing. I don't suffer from nightmares or delusions or stomach upset or any other numerous things I could imagine to keep me up. I feel fine, other than being so freaking sleepy. There is absolutely no reason for me to be up this damn early. None.

However, when one cannot sleep, one tends to find interesting things. Or maybe I'm just so tired that I think they're interesting. Anyway, I found this interesting thing because a friend of mine emailed it to me. It's an article about why Batman matters and I really enjoyed it. I also really enjoyed The Dark Knight. Don't worry, I'm not going to give anything away.

http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/07/21/why-batman-matters/

The article makes a good point. We are in need of a hero and it's about damn time that someone stepped up to the plate. I have long disagreed with the people who feel like there are no such things as heroes or that we as a society do not need them. Some people will argue that heroes make us feel bad about ourselves or that we aren't sheep so we don't need someone to follow, that we are our own leaders.

I don't think heroes are meant for any of those purposes. We all, myself included, need something greater than ourselves to aspire to. I will freely admit that I can see The Joker's point of view. Hell, that was my nickname way back when:) Now, don't panic. I'm not going to start wearing purple and killing people. Okay, so I already wear purple, but you get my point. Take this in context. My point is that my first response to many stressful situations is ... chaos for lack of a better word. My gut reaction is often not pleasant in the slightest. But if I give myself one moment, just a second or two to think about it I end up doing the right thing. Even or maybe especially when I don't want to.

Why? Because I think of my heroes both real life and in the comics and know that they would do the right thing. Knowing what they would do sometimes makes the right thing easier to spot. We need more people to help figure these right things out. Otherwise, I'll let you borrow my purple robe:)

Holy crap I need some sleep! LOL

The New Face of Joker

Yes, my obsession with the Clown Prince of Crime led me to go searching for photographs of his latest impersonator. AND, be still my heart, Heath Ledger is even more grotesque than I had imagined he would be. Of course, considering that we're talking about the Joker, that's a compliment. I like Heath anyway. Something about him makes me want to hurt him and ... well, I like that. I also dig guys who wear makeup. LOL No wonder I find Marilyn Manson so attractive! AH, in my own accidental psychoanalysis I have figured it out. The very first man in makeup that I had a thing for was JOKER.

Personally, I like that whole psychotic, "I don't want it on straight" approach to his makeup. Besides, after having acid in his face has it ever occurred to anyone that he can't SEE well enough to put it on straight. I wouldn't. If you're already screwed up that bad, why not REALLY give people something to look at, eh?

Let me know what you think about the pictures. They're pretty raw compared to what we're used to seeing of Joker. I cringe at the thought of Two Face.

p.s. Did you know that yahoo spell check considers the f-word a proper word? ahahahahahahahaha Hey, you wondered what I did when I wasn't writing, right?

This is my favorite. This is how I always pictured the Joker when I read the comics years ago.

Yikes!

This is definitely the most disturbing.