Tutorial: Making a half bonnet from waist ties!

Hello everyone! I have my first tutorial for you all today :D! Usually, when I craft I always forget to take pictures during the process x~x. Luckily, today I remembered so I'll be sharing with you how I made my new half-bonnet!

This is the second bonnet that I've made, the first one I made from a straw hat for AWA, and though it was cute, it's basically impossible to wear anywhere other than a convention or costume party xD.

So today, when I got off the computer to clean my room (obviously, thats not what happened;;;) I found the waist ties to my bodyline carousel skirt. I never, ever use them, since the blouses that I own wouldn't show them. ...So what could I do with them? Instantly, I thought to make a half bonnet! Spring is coming, and bonnets are always darling in spring! I've always really liked the look of flimsy half bonnets as well x3

What you will need

-Waist Ties of a dress or skirt

- Seem ripper

-Scissors

-Iron

-Sewing machine (or needle and thread)

- Pins

-Coordinating Fabric

-Headband

Steps

1) Due to my bad habit of not taking pictures while crafting, I totally forgot to take pictures of this step! Basically, all you need to do is rip open one of the side seams so the waist ties become a square of fabric. Cut off the bottom of the waist ties (the part with the lace and ribbons or other details) to use as bows later. Iron it all out!!

2) After you have two squares of fabric, you're ready to construct the base of the half bonnet. (Sorry, I didn't take pictures of me doing this part either x~x). Basically, with scrap fabric, fold it in half and cut a shape like this

Put it on top of your head to fit and see how long it is/wide/how it fits. Adjust this piece with pins until you find the perfect shape. After you have that shape, fold one of your squares of fabric from the waist tie on the seem (the other side seem that you didn't rip out) and cut that shape out. Stitch it in place and now you have the base on your bonnet!

3) With the second rectangle of fabric you have, cut that in half along the seem and then re sew the pieces back together horizontally (finally started taking pictures!). You need this part to be twice the length of the base so that you can ruffle it!

4) Pick out and cut your lining fabric. I just used some scrap fabric I found that happened to be the right length. You only need enough to cover the long rectangle you just made. Match it up to that, and cut. After you have this piece cut out, its time to attach it to that long rectangle. Put the printed side of the waist tie fabric, and the right side of your lining fabric on top of each other, and pin all the way around, but leave an opening for turning this inside out later.

5) Sew the long rectangles of fabric together, leaving that opening. After that, turn the fabric inside out, iron it, and stitch around the edges.

Turning inside out~

Ironed and ready to ruffle x3

6) Now comes the fun part! Gather that long rectangle of fabric to the base of your bonnet. I folded, pinched, and then pinned the fabric together to get the ruffles to look the way I wanted. Make sure you pin the waist tie printed side on top of the right side of your base.

After you've got it pinned, stitch it. This might involve some frustrations between your machine and you ( ;~;) , but if you have patience I promise it will work out fine.

7) Now comes the REALLY fun part! The decorations! Remember the edges of the waist ties we cut off at the beginning? It's time to make those into bows and stick them wherever you want. I won't go over how to do that, because there are lots of places you can find out how to make bows online ;u;. I put mine on the bottom sides. If you want to put lace or ribbons or anything else on your bonnet, you can do so now.

8) So now your half bonnet is done! Except it won't stay on your head. There's a really simple fix for that, though. Grab yourself a head band. Any headband you can use. On the bottom of the bonnet, attach three little rectangles of scrap fabric so that you can slide the head band through. Heres a picture to see what I mean

Now you're all done! Go enjoy your new half bonnet! This was my first time ever making a half bonnet, so if you find any ways to do this more easily, then of course feel free to! You can probably move some steps around to make everything go by faster as well, this is just how I did it ;u;. Also, if you had any troubles understanding a step, you can ask me about them in the comments. I'll answer you as best as I can!

~Pictures~

Finished bonnet!

Here's what it looks like worn~!

And heres the coordinate I came up with to match it~

Last but not least, I took a really cute picture of myself LOL. I want to share that as well x3

So what do you think? Will you be making yourself a half bonnet from your gently used waist ties? If you do, I want to see!!

Thanks for looking~