Raising the hats

 So when I last posted about the Toad hats I had cut them in half because I wasn't happy with the proportions.

The original hats

To make the hats taller I added around 10 cm of a foam where I had cut them up. 

I didn't just glue a piece of foam in the gap, I glued the foam strip to a larger foam strip, and it is mostly that one that is glued to the inside of the hat that keeps the foam strong enough. An unexpected result of this extra piece was that it helped to make the hats more round.

I think the husband actually looks a bit scared of the hat.

The next step was to cover the hats in wadding, to hide all the ridges in the foam. I started with glueing the wadding sheet to the middle of the hat. I used wood glue for this, worked perfectly.

I then folded the fabric over the edges, and where there was extra fabric I pinched it, like when you make a fabric dart, and simply cut the excess fabric off.

With the increase in height and the extra wadding the hats are now quite heavy, so I've stalled the project. I need to come up with a good way of fitting the hats to our heads as comfortable and stable as possible, while also making sure that we don't stress the hats too much when wearing them, or taking them off.

And here are the hats in their current state.

I couldn't even fit the hat in the frame when I took a selfie.