Hello Venture Cosplayers! It’s been quiet around here for a very good reason. My Fionna costume, despite its simplicity, was a really big hit at Dragon*Con and I’ve got a ton of requests for the following tutorials: how to make her sword, how to make Finn’s backpack, how to make a Cake plush, and how to make Fionna’s hat. I’m still working on a tutorial for Cake, but I’m happy to say I finally finished making the downloadable pattern for Fionna’s hat! So you can have the pattern in your hands in real life.

Since I was making the downloadable pattern anyways, I figured, why should I stop at Fionna’s hat? I’ve always wanted one of the bunny hats from Animal Crossing too. What if I made a pattern that offered 5 different bunny hats that you can customise to your liking? SO. That’s what I did. Kinda crazy!

This is a professional quality sewing pattern, like the ones Simplicity makes. Except unlike the ones Simplicity makes, you get to print it out on your printer at home instead of going to Wally World to buy one.

When you buy it you get:
• Professional Quality Bunny Hat Sewing Pattern to be Printed out at home on regular size paper in YOUR printer! (or a friend’s printer)
• Illustrated directions for printing and putting together the paper pattern
• Ten pages of fully illustrated sewing directions drawn with my hands for making the hat for your eyes only
• Envelope illustrations complete with garment flats OOOOHHHHH yeah I went there

Get it here, get it now.

£6.50
Approx. $10 USD

But! I’ll show you the juiciest parts of the tutorial for free BECAUSE I’M NICE!

Ok so. The most important thing you get is the printable pattern pieces. But I’m going to post a video version of the tutorial next week so everyone can see how it’s made. (See above!) Until then, I’m going to share with you guys the juiciest part of the pattern: how to get the ears to stand up. This is what everyone asked me about the most and what everyone seems to have the most trouble with.

The simple answer to this question is: armature wire! I think I mentioned this before, but this stuff is seriously amazing.

So in order to make your (awesome) bunny hat:

1. Purchase the .pdf pattern here from the Venture Cosplay store and print it out. The download you get includes directions on how to assemble the pages of the pattern.

2. Assemble the pattern according to the directions included in your download.

3. Make the hat according to the sewing directions included in the pattern!

4. Ok now here’s the juicy part, which is making the rig to get the ears to stand up.

You’ll need a thin headband about 1/4 inch (.6 cm) wide. The one in the pictures in this tutorial is a little over a quarter inch wide. You can get them at any craft store, on eBay, Etsy, or you can use one you already have lying around the house. If you want to use a wider headband, you will have to measure out more wire and it may be more difficult to work with.

You must absolutely under all circumstances use only armature wire (pictured above!) for this project. You can not use prissy wussy jewellery wire for this. And don’t torture yourself by attempting to use a coat hanger. You can not use any other type of wire. Armature wire works perfectly because it’s lightweight enough to bend with your hands, but sturdy enough to hold your ears up. I always get mine on eBay, but you can try Michael’s or A.C. Moore as well. I also sell it in my Etsy store sometimes. You don’t want to get anything too thick either, get some that’s around 2 mm in thickness.

Measure a length of wire about 24.5 (62 cm) long for the short ears or 30 inches long for the long ears. If you are using a headband wider than 1/4 inch, you will need to use a longer length of wire.

5. Fold it roughly in half as pictured. We’re going to make two of these and they are going to become wire ears that go inside the fabric ones. These don’t need to look perfect or even good, as they’re going to be covered with the fabric ears anyways.

Now, where you put the wire ears on the headband isn’t super important as long as they are the correct distance apart. But they should be roughly symmetrical. Following my pattern for the ear placement, they wire ears should be around 3 inches apart. However, the beauty of the armature wire is how easy it is to work with – if you’re finding your wire ears are too close together, too far apart, or too asymmetrical you can easily move them into the correct placement.

Line up the folded wire against the headband so that about 2.5-3 in of wire sticks below the headband, as pictured. As seen in the picture below, wrap that exposed section of wire tightly around the headband as many times as you can. You may find it helpful to use pliers to do this, but I didn’t find it necessary.

6. Do the same for the other side of the ear, but wrap the wire in the opposite direction for added stability.

Repeat this step for the other ear.

If you’re having trouble wrapping the wire tightly enough around, or if they won’t stay still, you can also apply some hot glue or other type of glue to the wire so it stays put.

7. If you want to, you can cover up the bottom of the wires by hand stitching little squares of felt (or any fabric) around the bottom of the wires. This is to prevent the wires from sticking you in the head. I didn’t bother to do this for Fionna because I knew I was going to be wearing a wig anyways, but if you’re going to be wearing it over your real hair, you might want to do it.

8. Insert the wire ears into the ears and that’s that!

9. If you want, you can stitch the headband in place by hand sewing it into place. Usually though, I don’t, so that I can remove the wires if I want to wear my hat with floppy ears instead!

10. Stitch or hot glue combs to the headband if you want to help it stay on your head (optional).

11. Wear with joy!!!!

I hope you enjoy my tutorial! I worked super hard on it so I totally appreciate it if you buy the pattern.

£6.50
Approx. $10 USD

{ Comments on this entry are closed }