Leather Hat Feather

In this instructable we are going to go step by step through the process I used to make a Leather Feather to put in my hat! I recently purchased this hat to protect me from the sun while I am working in the garden this year, but I wanted to personalize it some how so I ended up making this feather! I liked it so much I thought that you might want to make one for yourself!

Leather ( I'm using a scrap piece that is fairly thick but what ever you have is ok)

Acrilic coating (to make the leather waterproof)

Thick thread (I'm using synthetic sinew)

Rag

Pattern (I'm using a real Turkey feather but you can just print a picture or a silhouette of a feather off the internet if you need to.)

TOOLS

Strait edge

Dropper

razor knife

Craft knife

Lighter

Small victoranox classic (or any small scissors)

Needle

Ice pick

Ok so for this project I am actually going to be using a real Turkey feather that I found in my woods. This is sort of a old beat up feather so I decided to make this leather feather a little beat up looking too, which turned out great! So the first thing I do is take the tip of the pattern feather and trace it out. (You can make your feather as long or short as you like.) I use my razor knife to cut off the bulk then use the xacto knife to cut out the small shapes.

Next I take the bottom of the feather and trace a terrible outline (lol) of the feather and quill just to give me a idea of what it looks like. Halfway through cutting it out I decided that cutting it strait at a angled so it would look like it was actually stuck into the hat would be the best.

Now that we have our shape cut out we need to make it look like a feather. So first I cut about four slits randomly on the feather, then I use a edger to make the feather look a little cleaner, and a small pair of scissors on my swiss army knife to cut the points off the slits. To imprint the rest of the marks I use the back of my Xacto knife (be careful to not let your finger slip onto the blade) I also used a square to make a line going down the middle of the feather.

To make it look more like a feather I again use the unsharpened back of my xacto knife to make angled lines coming off the middle line. Then I use a lighter to burn off the fuzz on the edges

To finish up first, I sign my work. Then I put a light coating of acrylic leather coat on the top and a heavier coat on the sides and back this will protect it from water, I then use a small dropper to put the same coating just in the lines let it sit then wipe it off, this will make them darker so you can see them! After it drys Punch some holes in the bottom and this feather is done! (I ended up punching a extra hole above the middle hole for extra hold.)

Ok so the holes in the bottom of the feather are for sewing the feather to the hat directly or to just the hat band. This is a fairly inexpensive hat so I am going to sew it straight to the hat. I folded the inside liner down so after I finished I folded it back up. And that's it! I think this is a very unique way to personalize your hat! Thanks for reading my instructional if you enjoyed it please leave me a vote in the leather contest!