Hats....ewwww....

Okay, my least favorite things to embroider are hats. Hooping them hurts the fingers (yes really!) and up until now, I didn't have the knowhow to create the foundation stitching and move the stitching order where I need it.

You know that seam in the front center of your hat? Well, you have to fill that up with stitches before you can do a design. If not your design gets sucked into that groove and disappears.

Anyway, another thing about hats is....you have to dismantle your machine to put on the hat hooping dohickie. See the arms on the left and right side of the machine connected with the long plate in the back? Well, that has to come off.

This medieval looking monster is hooked to the embroidery stand in the kitchen. I don't have room for it in the sewing room right now. I'm proud that it's the only thing that has sneaked into the non business portion of the house.

Anyway, you slip the hat on that, cinch down bill and front. Then remove it and put it on the dohickie that replaced the arms of the machine.

This thingamadoo. It's tricky to put on because you don't want to damage your needles. It's like watching a ballet as I try and slip it on.

See that junk? That's the underlay before I stitch the design. It helps flatten and stabilize where the design is going to sew out. I made it a little too big and had to do some gentle stitch removal from the finished design.

The underlayment didn't show up on my practiced sew out but did on the actual hat sew out. That's another live and learn thing.

I think a goal for me would be to have one machine always set up for hats. I don't want to get into doing them because they're hard on my arthritic fingers but it sure would be nice to have a dedicated machine for them.

Most embroidery shops set aside one or two days a week just for hats. My machine is actually very easy to convert to doing hats. The Brother 9 & 12 needle machines are a major chore. I hated doing the switchover when I worked at EM.

Here are the finished bags and hat I did for a business called Garlic Gold. The bag in the middle and on the right are in the original design format of the business. Nana came up with the design on the left with the black garlic overlapped by the yellow g of the gold. I think it's much nicer than the current logo. I had to adjust the name on the hat. It was spaced way too far apart and wouldn't fit. I like the wording with a smaller space and moved closer to the mortar and pestle.