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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Awesome photos of Edmund!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bethany!
DeleteAbsolutely adorable! My sister sewed a cap like this for her son when he was a newborn baby, and at two he still loves wearing hats. : )
ReplyDelete-Sarah
Wow, sewing a newborn size would be a challenge! So tiny! :) Edmund was gifted a few hats in this style when he was younger. They do look so cute on little boys!
DeleteIt looks so professional; you did a fantastic job. And Edmund is such a little man modeling it. :) Makes me kind of want a little boy so I could sew a little cap and work with lovely wool like that!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Janel! I'll bet you could find some gorgeous New Zealand wool fabric!
DeleteYou did a wonderful job, Laura! The cap looks very cute on Edmund; I could be biased since he's my nephew, but I'd say he's the cutest little boy I've ever seen! :)
ReplyDeleteAwww, thanks Louisa. Bias, what bias? ;-)
DeleteOh, I couldn't say, really! ;)
Deleteso sweet! I bet my son would love one of these, especially because my husband loves and wears these caps (he calls them Kangols, which is a British brand name) but if you were puzzled by the pattern. . .
ReplyDeleteMatching son-and-father hats would be so fun! As for the pattern, it's a well-designed pattern and goes together just fine; I was just a bit confused by the instructions. It depends on if you're a very visual person or not... the instructions are thoroughly written, but accompanying pictures are sparse (and as they are hand-drawn, a little hard to interpret). I feel like for a project of this sort, where most people are unfamiliar with the basic construction, actual photos and more of them would be helpful. Sometimes I try to read through the instructions before a project so I can get an idea of where things are headed, but I had a hard time visualizing what I was reading. So, I just did things step-by-step, sometimes re-reading instructions several times, and no major mishaps ensued. There are a few things I would do differently next time, but that's often the case with first-time sewing projects, anyway!
DeleteVery cute hat!
ReplyDeleteI've never made a hat, but you can get both woven and knitted interfacing. Woven will have stretch if cut on the bias, and knit usually has stretch on the cross grain. Here's one example: http://www.joann.com/pellon-easy-knit-fusible-tricot-interfacing/1540442.html