Small cute reversible hand made hat from scraps of fabric

Back in the 80s and again in the 90s this kind of small hat was everywhere. My first few I bought but then I started to make them. I even sold a few. Then I suppose I just got bored with wearing this style and I have not made one since the early 90s. 

But I have all this fabric left over from my projects and you know you can only make so many hairbands and scrunchies and pocket linings. Yes  all are very useful and you do lose the odd hairband or scrunchie in life but I have not only got a drawer full of hair bands and scrunchies I also have a plastic bag full of half made ones yet to be finished. I will keep them because as time passes I will make them as I need them but I am not so keen right now to add to what is already a rather large bag of half sewn hair ties. Then it struck me. Winter is coming. Why not make a hat. Not a big brimmed hat - though I do have the patterns for them, but one of these small and very useful easy to stowe in a bag or pocket hats.

 

 Brim down 90s style

 

Brim folded up at front 80s style!

To make one of these is pretty easy.  And I do like a challenge and the sewing of this intrigued me for a few days.

You cut a circle for the crown and strip to fit your head circumferance and then sew together. Join the strip to make it a circle before adding to the crown. Easy basic hat.

OR a clever way ( I think so anyway!) to make a reversible hat with minimal sewing:

 

So first to find a circle to use as the crown. Ikea sell mats for use in the kitchen for hot pans. They are made of cork and looking at them I reckoned they will be about the right size for my purpose. 

So yes not science here at all with regards to hat sizing. Its all done by eye and previous experience.

To make a reversible hat: You need two circles of fabric cut this size and in different fabrics. For a simple non-reversible hat just cut the one circle. 

I used a piece of my cotton lycra jersey skull fabric teamed with my cotton lycra sweatshirting and by sewing the hat as shown - leaving a  small gap for turning, I get a rather cleverly made hat I think.

So once you have your circles, measure your head circumferance.  Measure round the circle. If there is a huge difference you will either need a larger or a smaller circle. If not much difference so say maximum of about 1cm smaller then you can stretch your fabric to make it fit or ease it in if bigger. In fact my strip was the same size as the cicumferance of the circle and I was lucky because it fits great. 

This was just an experient though and its great it worked but I was really just having a play with scrap bits of fabric so if you have some very precious fabric you want to use for a hat I would first make a practice one to check it all fits ok.  Take photos of what you do and you have a really good record so its easy to repeat with your good fabric. Or to write a post for a blog etc.

I added 1cm seam allowance to the end of the strip of fabric. Then I joined the ends into a circle. Then pinned to the first half of fabric crown so in this case the same fabric as my strip. Then carefully I folded the strip which is now pinned to my first crown inside the circle and I pinned the second crown over it.

Unfortunately I never took photos of this. I will add them next time I make one of these which will be soon. Overlock very carefully round the outside leaving the last 3cm or so to turn the hat.

Now you shoudl have two circles with the brim ( strip) sandwiched between them on the inside of the sewn circles.

I have one side that is patterned and the other is grey sweatshirting ( with glitter!)

Turn them rightside out and you get this:

Sew up the hole used for turning. I have sewed because I cannot see another way to do this neatly. Unfortunately I find I still need to do some hand sewing! You need to sew both the different sides closed - so grey circle side ad the red circle side.

I only had to sew about 3cm by hand ( each side) to finish this so it was a very fast project.

And it fits perfectly!

I have another hat cut out and will eventually get that one sewn as well. I need to wait to find a fabric for the reverse of the crown first but I am sure I have something useable.

This took much longer to figure out how to make it so its better than my old versions from years ago than the actual cutting and sewing time, so its a very quick project to do if you wanted a hat for winter and of course you could make it without it being reversible so that would be even easier. I like the reversibleness of it. Saves space when storing. But if of course I lose it, I actually will lose both sides whereas if two different hats I would still have one of them. 

Photos of my hat:

Have a lovely week and I really wish you all have better weather than we ( in the Midlands UK) have right now because its very cold and raining and not at all like summer!

Have a great week and thanks for popping by my blog. See you next week,

Bracken