Fleece Child’s Hat: Archive Sewing Notes

This archived child-hat tutorial is for an adult maker. Keep scissors, pins, needles, sewing tools, buttons and loose decorations away from children; check that ties, fasteners and decorations are securely attached, and confirm that the finished hat fits comfortably without restricting the child’s face or neck.

You don't have to use new cuts of fabric to sew children's clothing and various accessories. Old children's clothes that kids have long outgrown with no one to hand down to work great for this. The idea of refashioning a fleece outfit into a girls' spring hat came after a friend visited me and lamented that her little girl was growing by leaps and bounds. Here is what came out.

Sewing a hat by simply tracing around won't work; you need to draft a pattern.

Measure the child's head circumference (running the tape above the brow line and around the back of the head) and depth (from the crown to the earlobe) + add the length of the ties.

Draft the grid for the top part of the hat.

And the bottom part with ties.

At the bottom of the ties, the width is 3.5 cm. Important: the photo shows the pattern for a 1.5-year-old child without seam allowances.

Cut out the pieces and remember to add seam allowances on the fabric.

Stitch the seams on the back of the hat. Sew the pieces right sides together. After turning right side out, topstitch 5 mm from the edge.

At the top of the hat, I decided to make small tassels. If you are doing the same, place the tassels between the two halves of the top pieces, positioned right sides together.

Join the top and bottom parts, and you get something like this :)

Finish the seam on the wrong side and topstitch on the right side.

As fasteners at the ends of the hat ties, you can use either hook-and-loop or buttons (it all depends on your preference and imagination).

There were little flowers sewn onto the outfit, so I decided to decorate the hat with them. That's pretty much it :)