Fun out of the sun

For some reason, on Friday I was bent on getting Luke a sunhat. I thought I'd pre-shop on the internet before actually venturing out to a store, but wasn't able to turn up any hats that I actually liked - most of them were pink, or ruffly, or elastic, or just plain ugly. And none of them could be had for less than $15, and many of them were only available online. So I decided instead that I would dig out the sewing machine that my parents gave me for Christmas when I was in college and make one!

I picked Luke up from day care and we circled back around to JoAnn Fabrics, where I browsed the cute cotton fabrics and vowed not to spend more than $10. I ended up with half a yard of blue fabric with white polka dots and half a yard of brown fabric with white polka dots, and some blue thread to match, and spent about $7.50. (I think the thread was the most expensive part - isn't that always how it goes?)

I liked the look of the tulip hat, and the fact that it only had one pattern piece. All I had to do was measure Luke's little head, do some math, draft the one pattern piece and voila! I'd be stitching in no time! Well, that was true - I drafted the piece, cut out 6 of the blue and 6 of the brown, and in about two hours I had a finished hat. That was way, way too small. It was probably slightly larger than a beer koozie, except it wasn't flat on the bottom, so I couldn't even use it for that. (In hindsight, I think I neglected to leave enough for seam allowances.) So, into the trash it went, and I went back to the drawing board.

I also liked this little bucket hat, but again had to measure his head, do math, and draw some pattern pieces. But, there were only four pieces to cut out of each fabric, so there was a lot less margin for error. I was kind of grateful that I'd warmed up with the too-small tulip hat, since the bucket hat involved pinning and stitching CIRCLES. Oh, man - I hate that. But after a minor mishap in which I sewed the brim on wrong (and at Ryan's suggestion, ended up leaving it on and sewing on another piece, stiffening the brim), I finished it in about three hours.

And the result was this:

Okay, so it isn't perfect by any means, and my zigzag stitch is horribly uneven and the brim may be just a tad ruffly, but it actually turned out kind of cute.

I need to take a better picture of Luke actually wearing the hat, but I was pretty pleased with my efforts. Last night I took another crack at the tulip hat, but it ended up being way too big. I guess it's not meant to be.