Have I mentioned how much I love sewing with wool? It is by far my favorite fabric. It does exactly what I want when I'm pressing and pinning! I love the look and feel, too. The fabric that I used is very, very soft; not scratchy at all. The weave is a mixture of brown and gray, so the look of the fabric is nicely neutral. I used coordinating left over polyester lining fabric for the lining.
The pattern went together fairly well, although I had a few head-scratching moments. I'm still a little puzzled about the sweatband -- the pattern calls for it to be cut on the bias, presumably so that it can be eased around the circular hat, but then the interfacing applied to the sweatband effectively prevents any "easing" from happening. I looked at the interior of a vintage 1920s flatcap that belonged to my great-great uncle and the sweatband does look more tidy. The vintage cap also had a stabilizer under the sweatband, but it looked almost more like a stretchy buckram. I'm sure there's something better than modern fusible interfacing that I could use next time, but I don't know what that would be. :) Ah well, as the problem is mostly just aesthetic, and is hidden whenever the cap is worn, I won't worry about it too much.
I wasn't sure if Edmund would like the cap or want to wear it very much, but so far he's been wearing it pretty much nonstop! It helps that he likes to pretend to be "Luther" (flatcap-wearing mouse from the "Theo" series). He's been very careful not to lose the hat and at bedtime, he put it on his bed so that he will know right where it is tomorrow morning. I love that he loves it!
I'm a 31-year-old Christian. My hope is to live a quiet life filled with home and hearth, family and friends, loveliness and simplicity. I'm wife to Douglas (married October 2008) and mother to Edmund (born November 2009), Lavinia (born May 2012), and Rosamund (born February 2014).
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