Plaid Sunbonnet III: Putting it all together

Continuing from parts I & II. I did most of the hand-sewing at Living History events (read: Ft. Nisqually), so there's aren't may pictures of the process.  Nonetheless, here's how it went:

First thing, I corded the brim.    The rectangular brim piece was cut with the front on a fold, giving a double layer.   The first cord was paced between these two layers, snugged up against the fold, and held in place with a small running stitch.  The next cord was sandwiched between the layers--snug against the previous row's stitching--and was secured in place with another row of running stitch.  Following some quilting advice, I concealed the thread-ends in the cords, which proved a tidy arrangement.  I opted to do twenty rows of cording over the front brim (the inspiration bonnet only has 11, but seems to have used a thicker cord).  For the second set (5 cords, up from 3 in the original), I ironed the brim flat, and marked a stitching line 3" away from the finished cording. After doing a running stitch along that line, I continued cording as before.

The brim prep complete, I trimmed the side edges even and prepared the other pieces.  A wider running stitch was made along all sides of the crown piece, so as to gather it (one thread was used along the sraight edge, another over the curve, so that the two could be gathered separately).  The curtain was cut with a selvage along the bottom (so it needn't be hemmed), but the short edges both needed to be finished with a small whip stitch and the top needed to be gathered.  The ties were narrow-hemmed along three sides (both long, one short).

The pieces, ready to be assembled.

First up, I sewed the brim to the crown--the curved side(s) of the crown to the back edge of the brim, parallel to the cording.  I marked the centers of each piece with pins, then sewed then together with a half-back stitch, adjusting the gathers in the crown to fit.  Despite the added fabric in the crown, these pieces fit together smoothly, with less gathering of the crown than expected.  I blame the bias-cut brim.

Next, I tried on the crown/brim piece, and adjusted the back gathers on the crown (on the straight edge), and tied down the gathering thread to keep them in place. Then, the gathered, raw edge of the curtain was pinned & sewn to the raw edge of the brim/crown piece.  Again, a half-backstitch was used.

Lastly, the ties were added.  The raw edge of each tie was folded over twice, then attached to the inside of the brim with small stitches.

Voila:

Finished Sun Bonnet