Steampunk Pirate: Three Hour Zouave Hat

After looking through a number of pictures of Zouave Vivandiere and Zouave troops, I was slightly obsessed with the soft hat I kept seeing. There were quite the array of hats that Zouaves wore--everything from fezes to kepis. The soft cap with tassel, however, really caught my imagination, and so I decided I would make one for my upcoming pirate costume. (Click on the image for a link to a nice blog about Victorian era military units and the Zouave Vivandieres in particular.)

While I could not find an image that gave me a really good view of the construction of that soft cap, I thought I had a general enough idea of its shape to make my own. It reminded me a bit of the cap worn by the Greek Evzones. I was able to see a little more detail on some of those caps so that informed my design decisions in part. Once I had staked out my mental image of the design, I spent about three hours putting the hat together. It was a fun and easy project.

There are a few things I might change for a future version, but overall, I am quite happy with my little hat. Since that's the case, I am going to share a step by step look at how I put this together so my dear readers can make their own little cloth cap if the desire ever arises.

I started by hitting my fabric stash for some scraps that were the right color and weight for a soft fabric cap. I picked the same fine wale corduroy that I used for a pillbox hat not too long ago. I measured out a sizable rectangle of fabric-- the circumference of my head with a little ease plus 1 inch for seam allowance and 10 1/2 inches for the height. I tracked down some linen-cotton blend fabric in the same pile of scraps to be the lining and cut it to match the outer fabric.

I sewed each rectangle along the short side to make a tube. This would be the body of the hat and lining. I used a 1/2 inch seam allowance which is not quite standard but I find it is easier to measure consistently than 5/8 inch when I am putting together something quick like this. Once I had the seams done, I pressed them open.

I matched the two tubes, right sides together, along the seams, and pinned around the bottom edge. I sewed this together and then pressed the seam allowance toward the corduroy. I also folded over and pressed a half inch around the two remaining raw edges of the fabric tube. All of the machine stitching was done and it was time to sit down to do a little hand sewing.



I decided I would gather the linen-cotton fabric and then simply pleat the outer corduroy fabric. I used a dark-brown matching thread to do the pleating and ran my stitch through the crease of the pressed fold on the lining fabric so that it would be invisible once I was done. I pulled the gathers closed and ran a few quick stitches across the small hole to tie everything together. Large gathers worked best so this portion went by quickly.

Pleating the outer fabric was a little trickier. It took me a few tries to get a feel for how wide I wanted the pleats to be and what angle they needed to follow in order to make a nice circular shape. I made a solid stitch through each corner of the pleat to tack it into place as I went. When I got to my last pleat or two, I sewed in the tassel with a few solid whip-stitches which I then concealed under the final pleats. Once the pleats were in place, I took a few last stitches across the small hole to tie everything together as I did with the lining, tied it all off with a French knot and then covered the opening with a button in my stash.

The final test was putting it on to see how it fit my face and how it draped. It fit reasonably well. In future, I plan to add an extra 1/2 inch for more ease around my hair and more length to the short seam so that it drapes a little more dramatically. Also a note of warning, check the tassel length. Mine is a little on the dangerous side length-wise as it can swing right into my nose and mouth while I'm walking. A little longer tassel would certainly avoid that issue. Fortunately for me, I've never balked at a little tassel to the nose.

~La Cucitrice