Grams Made A Witch Hat Windsock

Grams loves to decorate for holidays. When my kids were at home I often took it to extremes. In fact, some of my neighbors used to call me the holiday lady. In recent years, I have cut back. I just don't have the energy to get it all out and put it all away for every holiday. With the exception of Christmas, now I only put out a few indoor decorations. But I always keep a seasonal windsock in the tree in the front yard and a wreath or other seasonal decoration on the front porch.

The windsock helps minimize the number of birds that roost right over my swing in the front yard. It cuts down on the bird poop on my swing. I've had quite a collection of windsocks over the years, but last year I noticed that many of them were looking worn and haggard, so I tossed those out when I took them down.

When I went shopping for a new Halloween windsock this year,

Saved

I couldn't find one that I liked. I decided to make my own. I went shopping for an inexpensive witch hat that would stand up to the weather. There is a strong prevailing south wind that blows right into my front yard, so it needed a rigid brim. I had a very hard time finding one that wasn't made of velvet or Pellon. I knew neither of those would take the wind and sun. I also had a hard time buying just a hat. Wal-Mart and HEB only had the entire costumes. I finally found a suitable hat at Family Dollar and it only cost $3. BONUS!

The hat is made out of a rip-stop parachute fabric and has a sheer overlay with a silver spiderweb print which also hangs off the brim and makes a ruffle about 4 inches long. The purple hat band also came on the hat.

All I did was add four lengths of black tulle spaced evenly around the brim. The tulle is 6-inches wide and I cut each length to about 48 inches.  Then I added four lengths of black ribbon, also about 48 inches long. I sewed them to the brim of the hat on my sewing machine. Then I knotted the tulle every 12 inches or so to give it weight. I used hot glue to attach small craft mirrors back-to-back every 6-8 inches down the ribbon. The mirrors were left over from another project so I was happy to use them up and get them out of my craft closet.

Finally I attached 8 inches of black ribbon in a loop, which I stitched across the tip-top of the hat. Since the wind is very strong, I added a swivel hook to the top which is used to attach it to a hook in the tree. The swivel hook came from the fishing tackle department at Wal-Mart.

I'm really pleased with the finished product. The mirrors really look good in the sunlight. They create a moving array of little spots of light all across the yard and the front of the house. I took several pictures, but it was difficult to photograph. This is the best picture I got.