Neccessity breeds creativity: A Summer Hat Sewing Project

It was a Sunday and it was sunny so we finally decided to make a start on the garden. After a quick trip to the garden centre we were ready to roll. Piper was eager to get stuck in, but then we realised that we didn’t have a sun hat for little miss P. Even with factor 50, I wasn’t prepared to take any risks. Hhhmmm, what to do?

Here’s what – grab an old pair of pre-pregnancy PJs that no longer fit and use the material to fashion a sun hat!

I wasn’t aiming for perfection, I was aiming for an ‘any old thing that will stay on her head and protect her from the sun’. And to be honest, that’s what I got. My original plan was to just throw it away but I thought I would have a go at rescuing it and I am happy I tried – I am delighted with the final result!

Here’s how it came together: I cut the fabric into four squares and then measured Pipers head. I lay the fabric on the cutting mat at an angle so it looked like a diamond and then i drew a bell shape onto the fabric. Two things to note: instead of a curved top I kept a point- the idea being that when i sewed them all together the four (roughly) 90 degree angles would come together, and secondly- the width of the bell was slightly more than 1/4 of the circumference of P’s noggin.  Once I had one bell shape cut out, I folded it in half and trimmed it down so it was symmetrical and then I cut all four pieces to the identical shape.

Whiirrrrrr, whirrrrrrrr, whirrrrrrrr! After about three minutes I had sewn all the seams and created a shape that resembled a hat. I didn’t even stop to change the purple tread in the sewing machine. It stayed on and did the job.

The next day I traced around the bell shape and cut four more panels using a floral fabric, stitched them together to create a hat shape. Then, when I had more time I carefully pinned the two hats right-sides together and stitched along the seam, leaving a 2 inch gap. Once i turned it the right way round I top stitched in purple along the edge.  This made the whole thing a lot more sturdy and also means that we now have a reversible sun hat!

Job Done!