Tag Archives: hat

An Early Christmas Present

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I was looking for something relatively easy to make for K’s Christmas present – his Mum has given me a great idea for a present I can work on for his birthday, but I needed something that would be a faster make for Christmas!

Enter the free Fleece Hat pattern from Fleece Fun – not only was it useful to make my own hat, but it has sizes all the way from baby to extra-large adult! I found just over half a metre of red fleece in my local fabric shop, along with a cute zebra iron-on patch just to liven it up a little.

I did modify the pattern slightly, making the hat a little longer than it’s meant to be, to allow for the brim to be rolled for a snugglier fit. I wasn’t too confident at how the patch would iron on (there weren’t any instructions on it), so I zigzag stitched around the outside just to ensure it would stay in place.

Hopefully we’ll get some seasonal cold weather, so K has an excuse to wear it!

Shock horror – it actually fits!

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I had fully expected this floppy sun hat to also be a flop, but much to my utter amazement, it actually came out better than that!

purple-hat1

It’s a pattern previously recommended by Love Sewing magazine, but the link they have to it no longer works 🙁

Luckily for me, my head measurements are identical to the person who wrote the pattern, so there’s no maths involved. I bought a metre of purple polycotton and some heavy iron-on interfacing (the previous hat pattern used sew-in interfacing which I found was too easy to rip as I turned the brim out). So far so good; the hat only cost me about £5 in supplies, but now comes the hard part – the sewing!

The lining is sewn more like an interlining for this hat – the seams are visible on the inside. That was great practise for faux overlocking, as the standard zigzag foot results in a tunnelling effect when I use it on the fabric edges.

Attaching the brim was an interesting process, as I had to add in a few pleats to make it fit…. but that was actually part of the pattern, so I didn’t feel I had made a mistake there.

purple-hat-inner

I chose to add a bias binding trim over the faux overlocked seam edges where the main hat piece meets the brim – it’s not something you should be able to see, but it should stop the seams irritating my forehead!

purple-hat-front

Overall, I think I’m actually quite pleased with this hat – I could do with adding another layer of interfacing on the brim if I make another, as the brim is a little too floppy for my liking. However, it fits (yay!!), so I’m happy with this one 🙂

purple-hat-head

Father’s Day Hat…. that also didn’t fit!

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I was struggling for something to get my Dad for Father’s Day last month – I’d asked him if there was anything he was particularly wanting, and was told “surprise me”…. not all that helpful!

I knew he’d been unable to find a decent summer hat in the shops, and I’d spotted a pattern on Melly Sews, which I thought would work perfectly. To start with, I made a pattern for a hat that would fit a teddy bear, and that came out pretty well:

black-hat1

(it does fit the bear it was intended for, but this bear is more photogenic…. it just has a larger head!)

I made a pattern from newspaper, bought the outer and lining fabric, and started pinning it together. After sewing the crown to the main front of the hat, I asked Dad to try it on…. and of course it was too small. However, it did fit me! So as I couldn’t make the hat any larger without starting from scratch, I decided to stick with the hat and make it for myself instead. I was almost ready to attach the brim when another relative asked to see it, and suggested that the main part of the hat was too tall. Cutting that down by a couple of inches, I pinned the brim to the hat and it still fitted me.

Buoyed on by my apparent success, I then machine stitched the brim to the hat, and guess what? Yeah, you guessed it – the hat’s now too small (ironically, it’s not tall enough over my ears now). I tried hard to stick to a really narrow seam allowance and it was pretty even all the way around. All I can think is that the original measuring is out a bit and maybe also the cutting.

I will try another hat for Dad before the end of the summer, but I think I will try a polycotton version first, rather than just diving in with the decent fabric next time!