recycled wool newsboy cap from simpleup

Such a great hat pattern and tutorial from Trish over at simple up. I found her blog one day while searching for recycled wool sweater projects. It was even featured on Craft (which used to be a magazine, one of my absolute favorites!)

Someday, my work will be featured there.

There were a couple of additions here - a recycled t-shirt lining and a cashmere band on the inside. The warmer the hat the better, so I used the same hat pattern pieces and cut them out of cotton jersey (nice way to say old t-shirt) and sewed them together. For the hatband, a recycled cashmere sweater cut out in the same size as the band and stitched to the outside band at the bottom. Then it was like the bread in a sandwich, with the hat and lining for the sandwich filling. I left the top edges raw. Oh, the brim also has a little stabilizer, cut a bit smaller than the sewing lines, so I didn't have to stitch through it when sewing it to the hat. Which I did with my machine, as well as the trim, since handsewing takes a little more patience that I have for sewing these days. I need immediate results that can be obtained within a nap's worth of time.

For some reason, the pattern only calls for five hat pieces. Mine could have benefitted from a sixth piece, even though I have a very small pea sized head. I used about 3/8 seam allowance, so a little more than recommended, only because it's tricky to sew anything with a 1/4 seam allowance. And that is coming from someone with years and years of machine time!


In closing, let me just share with you this amazing blog by Anna Maria Horner. I want to be her.
Selling my signed book and designing gorgeous lines of fabrics, doing crafts with other artists.


Well, her and about thirty other people, but I digress... here's the hat in action, right in front of my newly folded fabric stacks!