Hats!

I first started making hats three years ago. Or, rather, I made a bunch of hats then, wasn't totally happy, and didn't make anymore. The pattern I had been using was based on a round head opening. My head isn't round and I though perhaps that was affecting the fit. I had looked at the Melly Sews! tutorial back then, but couldn't really make sense of it. And then I saw the Sorrento Hat. I really wanted to like this one because 1) my daughter just bought a bucket hat 2) we're going on a cruise and the pizza parlour is called Sorrento's and is delicious and 3) it's free. As well, Patterns For Pirates also had a free sunhat with a little different shape.  Of all these hats, only the Melly Sews! uses an oval head shape. Apparently for smaller sizes, Oliver + S has a free bucket hat with an oval shape. Not big enough for me though.

First up was the Melly Sews! tutorial. I still struggled a bit with the directions. Some of the sewing steps are not well shown. The big issue is ease. This hat does NOT mention you need to add wearing ease! I measured exactly 22". In the pattern she used her husband, who's head size was in between sizes so she sized up which gave him the ease. Not a lot, but some. I went with the 22" crown and brim formulas. Yes, I can get it on, but I can't wear it.

A shame, cause I did a hack to make a pocket in the top of the crown, held closed with a snap. Like a Tilley hat though I used the snap because I wanted to put my ship card in it and wanted to make sure it was secure. I also made the hat reversible, unlike Melly's hat. Yes, then the pocket and snap are on the outside, but I dare anyone to try to steal from the top of my head. The white is a light twill and the inside is a blue floral curtain from the 90s.

Annoyed at having to do all the brim and body piece drafting myself, I moved on to the next pattern, the Sorrento bucket hat.

This pattern says it includes 1/2" wearing ease, so I went with the 22" size. Again, I created a secret pocket that isn't all that secret if I wear it reversed. It's the same fabric I used for the Roadtrip Slippers, and the white twill again. Appropriate for a trip to the sunny south again. I struggled a bit with getting the brim on, I think I just wasn't accurate enough though I had tried.

 Cute, eh?

I feel very shaded in this hat! The brim might be a bit longer than my daughter's bucket hat. This did get her approval. In an informal poll on my Facebook page, it also got good comments. I worry about white on the inside though! The brim is also the easiest to wear while sitting in a high back chair (cough lounger).

Last up is the Patterns for Pirates "Set Sail" hat. I really wanted to like this one! And I do, but I had issues. I was really digging in the stash for this. The pink and black fabric is from a dress I made Lucy eons ago. The black fabric is from some fabric from my MIL, which I used to make Lucy a pair of shorts. Don't know if I ever blogged those. I was whipping out shorts left and right for the girls the past couple years.

I'm told black isn't suitable for a sunhat. 

 Although it's reversible, I had issues with getting the brim on and the seams of the crown don't really line up exactly from one side to the other. So it feels a bit skewed when I wear it. I made the 4" brim

which is really generous--it was 4 1/4" after finished. Depending on how stiff you interface it, it is not a sitting in a chair hat. I like this design though, and can see maybe making the side or the top panel in a mesh of some sorts. I did not follow the directions to cut the brim as a full circle on folded material. I copied the 1/4 brim piece so I had a half brim and cut that on the fold. I figured if I needed to conserve fabric, I can do seams at the 1/2 way points on the brim. Also, if you want it to tilt down a bit, you need to cut a wedge out. The Melly Sews tutorial talks about this, and I did it with that one. This P4P one doesn't do that which gives it a floppier straight out look. I really wish this one had an oval body though. Just to make me happy LOL

The thing with me and hats though...even if they feel loose enough, I can still feel them for awhile after taking off. I'm just really tactile sensitive.

Rob and I went to the fabric store and picked out more fabric. I'm not sure yet what pattern I'll do. Maybe another Set Sail in the new fabric which is lighter coloured. Packing hats is never easy, so I want it to be as versatile as possible! 

Another Hat!

I wanted to make another sunhat and this time really pay attention to how I laid the pieces on the fabric to cut out.  I was at Michaels and saw their fat quarters.  I was drawn to reds.  I looked at one but felt it had too much white and the black I intended for the other side would show through.  I looked at another one but it was "too" red.  I settled on a red with small white polka dots.  Cute, but not "baby".  I had some black with beige flower embroidery on it for the other side.

I carefully laid out the pieces of the crown so the "stretch" would be going across.  One piece of the red fat quarter seemed a little stretchier than the other.  The black had less stretch because of the embroidery.  I also cut the interfacing in two pieces, with a small overlap.  I wanted to see if this worked on my own hat before doing it on one for someone else!  I totally think it worked.

 

I sewed the red brim on first.  I had pinned the 1/4 marks, and it went fine until the last 1/4 section.  I ended up with more than an inch extra brim.  Instead of panicking and ripping it out immediately, I set it aside and sewed the black brim on.  It went on almost entirely perfect, maybe 1/2" brim left over.  So I ripped off the red brimmed and tried again, had to try a few times and I think in the end I did have to take in the brim seam a little bit--1/4" from each side of the brim seam? (I left the outer edge the same, but tapered the seam towards the crown).  The brim looks a little pulled in a few places.  I didn't have a red thread that matched close enough, so I used white. 

 I did the first round of brim top stitching really close to the edge to make it easier to close the gap I left for turning.  I also clipped the seam in that opening to make it lay flatter while I top stitched.  I think I trimmed the entire brim edge seam before I turned it.  When I went to do the second row of top stitching, I couldn't find a marking on my machine at the right distance, so the distance from the edge to the 2nd row is the same as between the 2nd and 3rd, and 3rd and 4th, etc, but the edge top stitching in between the edge and 2nd row.  If that makes sense.  I opted to top stitch on the crown this time instead of the brim.  I thought this might look a bit smoother and prevent any tiny pleating if the brims were slightly off size.  I think it looks fine.  I think this might also be contributing to the smaller size.  Then I remembered to add a ribbon, so I had to unpick a bit and hand stitch it in, etc.  Whatever.  It's done.

During the process, a few people mentioned it looks like Minnie Mouse.  Then, when it was finished...I realized that I also have a red nightgown with white polka dots.  Yup.  My sun hat matches my nightgown.

Summer!

Finally, it feels like we might have a summer.  If it stays just slightly warmer than it is now, I'll be happy.  Weather like this calls for a floppy sun hat!

 This was made for my niece's 10th birthday coming up.  She's very active, hiking and living in New Mexico, summer camp in Ontario.  A hat that travels well is perfect for her.  I chose this fabric because it was young but not childish and the colours work well with her blue eyes and with the other gift I made her that I'll blog about later.  It's two fat quarters from Wal-Mart!  I've never really looked at fat quarters, but I see how people get addicted to them!

 The inside of the hat is another fat quarter.  I'm not keen on green for the inside, I'm afraid it will reflect off the skin and make the wearer look odd.  But there's also pink in there.

 As soon as I laid out the first pattern piece on this fabric, I discovered a big issue.  The hearts were just slightly bigger than the pattern piece, and when you take into account the seam allowances, it would be hard to tell it 's a heart  :( I can "pattern match" at  the seams, right? 

 Well.  Apparently pattern matching works only for straight seams! 

 I did the best I could, trying to match up the top parts of the hearts.  I knew there would be no way I could match up piece six with piece one, so I didn't even try (below).  I had trouble sewing the pieces together--I had labelled each edge A/B, B/C, C/D, D/E, E/A.  Except....there are six pieces!!  I got that sorted out as best as I could.

 The sixth piece.  Well.  Due to the very large repeat, and the hearts being in rows of one row upright, one row upside down, I couldn't get the last piece to fit anywhere where it could match up with piece 5.  I couldn't even get it to fit somewhere so the heart would be at about the same level as the rest of the hat!  I decided to piece the last piece.  That took some trial and error, and the top of the section (below) worked better than the bottom corner (above).

 I was a little disappointed in how the top lined up.  It's not too noticeable with all the print, so I left it.

 The green gave me no troubles, in the cutting and sewing together.  Until it came time to sew the brim on.  The blue side went together pretty well, it was just off a little bit.  The green?

Ugh.  I eased it, I stretched it, I finally restitched the seam.  I was just too big.  The whole hat feels a bit smaller than mine.  I think what happened is that the green pieces were placed crosswise to what they should be.  There's no grain line on the pattern.  You'd think, small pieces, it's just a hat with cotton....it doesn't matter.  But one direction, the fabric has a bit of natural stretch.  And I guess I got it wrong!  Hopefully it still fits.  She has a big head, but much of that is hair, LOL!  I added a pink ribbon and the white slide lock from my hat.

I really like the pattern and the end result, though it really eats fabric for the brim!! I bought a meter of the stiff interfacing (maybe it should be woven interfacing instead of non-woven), and I'll be able to get only two hats (with some left over).  I wonder if I can cut the pattern piece in half, slightly overlapped, and do that.  I am going to take about 1/4" off the brim length (each side, so 1/2").  Three out of four brims have been too large, so I think it needs it.

Sun!

Winter got to a late start, and really didn't make much of an appearance this year.  Spring has been even slower.  So much so that even on May 1 we were still wearing winter coats in the middle of the day!  I finished this hat a week or more ago, and haven't even had a chance to try it out until yesterday!

If you want to check out a picture of me in it, see either my facebook page or Instagram page.  And while you're there, maybe hit the "like" or "follow" button?

I got the pattern from Craftsy.  I don't remember if it was one of their emails or on Facebook.  The actual pattern can be found at http://blog.lorennabuck.com/p/patterns-and-tutorials.html.  The pattern is very good, though myself, and others on line did find the brim was a tad big when sewing onto the crown.  In my own case, it could be because there were no grain lines on the pieces, so I didn't pay much attention to that when laying out the pieces, and I might have had some stretching.

Also, I didn't have heavy fusible interfacing.  I figured I could use the sewn in stuff I had.  Then I had an idea to use the lightweight stuff on the other side of the brim, and for some odd reason thought I'd be able to iron it to the sewn in stuff.  Well, yeah, I could fuse them together...but then it still needs to be sewn in.  I had some fusible webbing but not enough to do the whole brim.  In retrospect, I could have used the light stuff on each brim piece.

I used a 50-50 poly/cotton sheet I had bought at Value Village a while ago.  For $5, it's a LOT of fabric and although not as heavy as what Lorenna recommends for one layer, it's still good choice.  The inside is a quilting cotton.  I chose it so the soft pink would reflect onto my face and make me look good :)

I read a blog after I finished mine, that suggested topstitching each time you sew top pieces together, rather than after.  I'll try that next time.

I was really impressed with myself, until time to sew the brim on.  The first time, it was much too big.  So I folded it in quarters and did that method, and the first three quarters worked well, but the last one was still giving me troubles.  I eased it in as best as I could.  And then topstitching.  I was going to do more rounds along the outer brim, but it was starting to wrinkle.  But I'm okay with it, for my FIRST sewn hat!!  The ribbon and the slider lock were in my sewing desk.  I keep all those little notions when taking apart wrecked backpacks!  It's been so nice making things entirely from my stash of fabric and supplies.  However....a certain young girl is having a birthday soon and that required a fabric shopping trip!!