hats – Worbla Thermoplastics

Laser Cut Jester Hat

Posted on February 21, 2017January 20, 2020 by Amanda

SmallRiniLady used Worbla Mesh, Finest and Black Art to create this adorable jester hat, with the details laser cut! She shared the process below.

I love Mini hats, so I’m making my own mini jester hat for my HarleyQuinn outfit

I wanted my hat to include her signature diamond pattern and some white bubble lace similar to her 90’s collar. I built up my design using Microsoft Expressions and imported it to a SVG file.

Because my hat doesn’t need to fit “perfect” I scaled to approx. 10 inches in width. I used an Epilog Helix laser cutter to cut my pieces. The cuts came out smooth, but with a little bit of burnt marks on the edge.

I found it hard to adhere the Worbla TranspArt with the other worbla types so I ended up switching out the 4th panel with another Worbla FinestArt piece.

My pieces are all cut and ready for assembly. Let’s start forming our flat Worbla into a hat.

To give my jester points a nice rounded shape I looked for a ball shape mold to use, that happened to be a foam head. To get matching pieces symmetrical I would form the adjacent pieces on the left/right hemisphere.

As I attach the edges together I reinforce the seam lines with thin strips of Worbla.

While working on this I realized my jester points would be too skinny with my current pieces so I cut out an additional third segment for some width.

Back to the foam head for some forming and giving it a lip to attach to the inside of the side pieces.

Time to add some color; acrylic paints, sparkle glitter, bead glitter, and glass glitter.

I want it to be obvious that the checkboard pattern is indeed cut through instead of just a fancy paint job, so I used a bright white on the inside. For the outside I painted a base coat of red and black and covered them using the different glitter types.

Time to build my lace.

After some experimentation I learned. Avoid heating thin pieces as it will sag, lose its shape, and break (you can see on the left two floral elements). Larger elements will be more stable so heat activing it and laying the fragile pieces on top with added pressure to ensure that the position is secured together. Once you know the two pieces are connected add additional heat to guarantee the bond is throughout both surfaces.

I painted lace trim base with white acrylic and used a dry paint method to add the black for dimension.

To attach the lace I heated up both the back of the lace and the bottom edge of the hat PLUS big strips of worbla reinforcements in the inside to secure the lace through the all those layers of *sparkles*

Last to add some soft elements, I’m using fluffy pompons to decorate the tips of my jester points.

My wig is actually three pieces. The main wig plus two pony tail clips. The hat sits securely over one of the pony tails.

For more of my projects check me out on Facebook!

Making a Pillbox Hat

Posted on November 7, 2016December 14, 2017 by Amanda

Have you wondered about making a hat with Worbla? Well Isabella Josie, a West Sussex based Milliner, used Mesh Art for the first time to create a pillbox hat – and shared her experience and process with us!

I’m very excited to be writing my first blog post about experimenting with Worbla Mesh Art. Worbla’s Mesh Art is a thermoplastic which when heated to 90 degrees Celsius becomes flexible (and tacky) so it can be easily moulded – it’s often used to create amazing Cosplay costumes. Worbla Mesh Art is smooth and shiny on the ‘right’ side (shown in the photo) and reinforced with a flexible mesh on the other side to makes it less easy to tear.

This post is about my first experience of using a thermoplastic product (and a heat gun!), many thanks to Cast4Art for the sample. I must admit I was pretty nervous about working with this new product, I looked at the sheet for days before summoning up the courage to have a go. There are probably lots of different (and better) ways of working with this product that I’ve yet to find out about – I would love to hear about your thermoplastic experience. For any ‘wanna be’ Worbla users, I would recommend checking out the tutorials and how to guides on the Worbla website before you get started.

Are you ready to see the making of my thermoplastic Pillbox Hat?

Step 1: Preparing the mould and cutting the Mesh Art.

Worbla Mesh Art was easy to cut with scissors – for any milliners out there it felt like I was cutting through 3 layers of Sinamay. For a hat block I used an upturned 1970’s wooden bowl on top of a small cup. The bowl / block was covered in aluminium foil which made it easier to separate the Mesh Art from the block once the shape was created.

Step 2: Heating the Worbla Mesh Art

When Mesh Art is heated it become sticky and pliable and the heat gun gets hot – you will need to mindful of yourself and the work surface you are using. Remember to check out the health and safety advice on the Worbla website. I initially heated the Worbla Mesh Art with my heat gun on its lowest setting until it was soft and pliable. I moved the heat gun in a circular hair dryer type action. Once the Worbla Mesh Art became mouldable I popped it on top of my hat block and pushed the sides down. In a couple of places there were some ridges/fingers marks which a wet / damp sponge were able to smooth out.

Step 3: Moulding the rest of the shape.

Once I was happy with the appearance of the top of the Worbla Mesh Art, I reheated the side of the Worbla (whilst its was on the mould) and pressed and smoothed the lumps and bumps out with the wet / damp sponge. I concentrated on a section at a time until the sides were lovely and smooth. Once the Worbla Mesh Art was completed cool (after about 10 minutes) I removed it from the hat block and trimmed the bottom.

Step 4. Adding the fabric covering.

Once the base was trimmed to shape, I popped it back onto the mould and reheated the top so that it became tacky. I then popped the fabric over the top and trimmed the sides so there was a small overhang.

Step 5: Adding Hat Elastic.

As I was making a Pillbox Hat, I had to figure out the best way to keep it on my head, with normal millinery materials you would catch the elastic and fabric with a few stitches. My ‘work-around’ involved heating a thick wool needle and using it to puncture two holes in each side of the hat band. Thread was then bound between the holes to create an anchorage point I could slip the elastic behind. The two photos below capture the idea.

Step 6: Covering the side of the hat in fabric.

For this I used more of a traditional ‘tip and side’ band millinery technique. As the fabric was quite thick I found that I needed to add some interfacing behind the fabric to stop a side ridge forming (the first photo is without interfacing so you can see the ridge). I left the side band fabric longer than the hat base to give me something to sew the Petersham ribbon to. Excess fabric was then trimmed off and the Petersham ribbon tucked under to give a neat finish. The inner sideband was heated until it was ‘just tacky’ so I could press the fabric into it. I used a tiny bit of UHU glue in one place where it didn’t stick.