sweat band restoration: Help!

[LeeG]

Guys,
I recently acquired a nice pice of headgear (WWI British, actually) that has a nice condition, supple leather sweatband which has simply become unstitched from the cap. The connection is leather sweatband to cotton cloth which is then stitched to the fur felt hat material (see pic).
The sweatband is only stitched to the hat at about 30% of the location, and if I did a nice enough job 'restoring' the cap, it would look great. Any suggestions on how to go about this?
Thanks, Lee

[LeeG]

Any advice out there?

Maybe I posted this in the wrong section, but I figured since this is the predominant hangout of the headgear buffs, somebody must have some experience with this ...

[picone]

Hi Lee
personally I don't see this as a big problem. Go to eBay and get a spool of period thread and begin a stitch starting on the inside of the cap and then start threading to the leather in the same direction. Takes a bit of patience but not too dificult. -Mike

[BenVK]

Patience is the key. You'll probably make mistakes to start with but you can always undo the stitching and start again.

[Arran]

Try to pick up an old felt hat at a charity shop and practice on that until you're satisfied with the results first...good luck!

[espenlaub]

In my opinion- don't touch it, you will loose the authentic look after restoring, I think this is minor damage, and doesen't make your item cheaper