I wanted to make a Santa hat to match my Tiki jacket and found out that Spoonflower sells a velvet material. So I got a yard with my tiki pattern and went to the internet for some research.
The internet was chock full of simple hats with two seams, but I only wanted one seam. I did find one YouTube video showing how to sew a hat with one seam and I decided to follow their instructions for a one-piece Santa hat. Luckily I decided to make the pattern on an old piece of material first, because it was wayyy too small. I noticed that there were a couple of measuring mistakes when watching the video, but thought that it wasn’t such a big deal at the time.
So I got some butcher planning paper from my shop and made several more prototypes until I finally created a pattern that worked for me. Lina says I should start a YouTube channel called “Sewing for engineers” where I can show people how to make sewing projects much more complicated than they need to be. The special challenge after getting the sizing nailed down was making a nice clean seam where the fabric and fur meet and touch your head. All of the online patterns I saw had an ugly seam around your head, so I had to figure out the configuration that would made a nice clean seam on the head side of the hat.
Once I got the pattern, then I made another prototype with some of my mom’s old fabric and it turned out OK. Except that I used the fur that Lina chose for the prototype and it is a bitch to sew properly. I also got cocky and sewed the last fur seam upside and backward. Luckily I had a lot of extra and was able to figure out how to get it right.
I started on the matching hats for me and Lina with the different furs I chose and they turned out great! Then I made one for Rene with a third fur the next day, but forgot about the trickery required on the last fur seam and screwed up. Luckily I was able to save it and Rene’s turned out great too!
I had some extra material and was going to make stockings, but I didn’t realize that I needed to reverse the pattern for the different sides and wasted the rest of the material. Oh well.
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