I finally finished making a hat band for my hat. This hat band is constructed a bit differently than most hat bands that I have seen. What I usually see is a long loom beaded strip that ends with some ties to tie the band to the hat. The ties allow the band to fit any size hat.
What I did is cut a long strip of leather and put snaps on the end to make the strip fit the hat. I thought that would be simpler than ties and it gives me a long leather canvas on which to create the art.
The first step was to make the front of the band. I beaded up a long strip using size 11 Delicas in a triple diamond pattern. I selected a bright orange color for a bold contrast with the black and white beads.
To make the strip I used the square stitch technique. A lot of bands use loom beading but I don’t care much for loom beaded projects. It seems that no matter how hard one tries to hide them, the threads are always visible. Loom beading is much faster because several beads are added all at once. Square stitch beading requires sewing each individual bead into place one at at time. Square stitching results in a tight strong strip and no visible treads. I used six pound FireLine (fishing line) for the thread.
At the ends of the beaded strip I sewed some small thin bone hair pipe beads and after that I sewed on another short beaded strip. I finished off the back of the band with a single row of half inch bone hair pipes with a silver ball at each end.
I do like the way it came out. It is maybe a bit busy but I still like it. This particular band is not for sale but I think I will make some other bands using this technique but with ties on the ends for a more universal fit. In the mean time I hope you will visit Sirocco’s Trading Post on etsy and look at some of my other beaded creations.
