Our Hats Off To You'all!!

Hi Everyone,

Everytime you see a picture of a Nigerian woman (almost always), you will see that she has a head covering and if she's at church, her hat will most likely be elaborate and colorful. My new friend, Dorcas, who lives next door, invited me to come to her house this week and she would show me how EASY (I've heard THAT before - grin) it is to make a Nigerian hat.

You can make the hat two ways. One, you can use an upside down coffee can or mixing bowl (the size approximately of your head) and shape your hat on your lap or you can put the material on your head and get it wrapped just right, then take it off your head and tweak it then on your lap. I tried both ways, but liked the second option better.
The material you use for the fancy hats feels almost like paper but Dorcas said it is a polyester blend. But it is very stiff and you think you're going to rip it as you work with it, but you can't.

The most important thing as you're making the hat is to get it really tight around your head and to get the knot you've made in the back, very secure. From that point on, you truly just "play with it." Dorcas would tuck here and tuck there and then change her mind and start over again. There was no pressure and she just worked on it until she liked what she saw. She had her mirror handy and a few pins, if it would become necessary to use a pin to keep something in place within the hat. She had many many different colors of fabric which she keeps on hand and on Sunday mornings she just whips something up to go with the dress she is wearing. Don't you love the pink hat I'm wearing in one of the pictures. It was gorgeous material.

I wish I could say "I'm a hat person", but I'm not. After just a few minutes of wearing one, my head begins to itch and I get a headache. But Dorcas looks stunning in every single hat she showed me that she had. When I go to church on Sunday mornings, I just take some material and twirl it around my head and tuck it in the back and that's it!

But, creating a hat makes for a great morning of enjoyment when done with a friend.

In-Joy,

Eileen and Crist