Girl's Sassy Clothes - Hat "q"

What are kids like, hey? No sooner has my daughter outgrown something that she had previously refused to wear, and suddenly she loves it?! I'd made Hat "q" twice before (here and here in Flickr) and she was all over the brown wool version recently but it was too small.

I quickly got approval to make another, and yep, it could match her recent coat. When you get that kind of affirmation, you don't hang around, you get sewing!

Yes - that is lipstick. A recent gift that she loves from my MIL and I'm only allowed to remove that which is all over her face, not ANY from her lips. Sigh.

The hat comes from Girl's Sassy Clothes by Yuki Araki which is one of my very well used Japanese pattern books. This is one that I could happily make everything in the book. The hat comes in 3 sizes, 50cm, 52cm and 54cm. The first two I made were size 50cm. I measured her head at 52cm exactly but decided to go up to the 54cm size to avoid it being too small.

Looking back it was two years ago yesterday that I tried to photograph her wearing the first hat. Note the small food bribe and the hand poised ready to rip the hat off any second:

That picture reminds me that I have two cuts of flannelette fabric set aside for more winter versions of the Oliver + S Music Class Blouse. Mentally added to the very long list of things I want to make.

The brim is a really sweet shape with this narrow brim at the back and a lovely face shading width at the front. The brim pieces are cut on the bias and somehow this hat comes together so much more easily than others I've sewn.

The lining is an identical, non interfaced version of the main hat. Both are constructed and then sewn together at the brim leaving a 2 inch gap to turn it all right side out before edgestitching the brim. This is a nice way to sew a lined hat without having to do any handstitching.

I kept it simple on the side this time and just used a little bias tube of the same fabric to cover the join in the band.

Take note: the band pieces are too short to overlap properly. I added the correct seam allowance, but the pattern shows you turning the ends of one piece in, then tucking the other inside the tube of the first. Simply not possible. These only just meet and overlap enough to be stitched. Need to add at least another 1cm to each side in order for a prettier finish.

I should get around to hand stitching the band to the crown to prevent it sliding up like it has above, but also to thwart my daughter in her attempts to remove and lose the band.

So there's my happy hat model and happy hat news.

The sad hat news is that P's Straw Boater, which I had just entered in the Royal Show (for fun!) has had a hole chewed in it by the small furry monster (aka kitten) that is living with us temporarily. I had some leftover straw braid and thought for a moment I could redo the crown and save it, but on closer inspection he has chewed where the crown meets the lid and damaged both parts. It can be patched for wearing but it's not show worthy.

I shall have my revenge as I'm taking him in to work with me next week and will extract my pound of flesh! (so to speak, I imagine they'll only be about 2grams each, not nearly a pound!) :)