Following on from Hat and Hat the second, I give you... Hat the third! This one made for Teddy, as he needs a hat to leave at nursery for sunny days.
This hat marks the second finished and photographed item for Kids Clothes Week. I'm making slower progress than I would have liked through my KCWC list, but at least I've finished a couple of things, and I'm hoping to have at least one more complete garment to show tomorrow. I was getting a little bit cross with how little I've been able to achieve this week, but Jennifer's post (and Meg's before it) really reminded me that (a) it's OK if some days all I do is keep my kids alive, fed and relatively cheerful and (b) there are other ways of being creative with and for your kids. With that in mind Teddy and I had a very long and involved imaginary birthday party on Friday afternoon (with sand cakes and twig candles), I made extra effort to involve him in preparing food this week (he usually participates in some way, but this week I made sure to involve him in every step that he seemed remotely interested in) and this morning I took the time to prepare the things we need for one or two craft activities in case we are at a loose end next week.
Much as I hate to drag you away from my parenting insights for the week... Back to that hat.
Project notes for Hat the third:
- Again, I used the bucket hat pattern from Oliver + S Little Things to Sew. I love this pattern (and the book)
- I made a medium, which theoretically fits age 3-5, and it's a shade snug on my ginormous toddler, aged two years and eight months (weighed and measured this morning out of interest. He is on about the 91st percentile for height and weight on the charts in that red book they give you in the UK to make sure that every health professional you see for the next five years can make you feel guilty about your kid being too short/tall/fat/thin/not gaining quickly enough/gaining too fast/being breastfed/being formula fed/whatever). Along with being tall and broad, Teddy also has a huge head. That means if you have a normal sized kid the medium hat pattern should be fine, but Teddy will probably need the next size up by the end of the summer, if not before (well, actually now, but he'll live with this hat for a week or two, then it can be put by for Jasper). If I'd actually measured his old, slightly snug sunhat, I could have worked this out without sewing an entire hat.
- The cloud fabric has been kicking around my stash for years, as has the denim, which I think I actually liberated from my mother's loft a couple of years ago.
- I top stitched the last 'hat' portion, rather than hand stitching it, causing a wonky line on the denim side. And then had to blind stitch it by hand anyway as the denim didn't lie totally flat. Lesson: just take the time and do the hand stitching if you want both sides of your hat to be pretty.
- I should have top stitched the cloud side in a lighter blue - the one I used was so dark that I was scared to do the suggested lines of top stitching around the brim, as any wonkiness would have stood out like a sore thumb.
- I used a denim needle on my machine to sew the hat. Well worth it - there were no skipped stitches or broken needles.
- I offset each seam (and notch) by 1/4" when sewing each piece of the hat to another. I don't think it's very noticeable in the finished hat, and means not having to sew through three layers of seam allowances at any time - particularly handy with thick denim fabric.
- Teddy's nursery stuff has to be labelled, so I added one of his name tapes in a rather nifty way. Behold:
It doesn't matter that there's no surname visible as there are only 30 or 40 kids at Teddy's nursery, and the only other Theodore is called Theo.
Have I mentioned that I love this pattern? Fabulous design and instructions. I'm actually midway through sewing a pair of sailboat pants for Teddy, and I cannot get over how great Liesl's patterns are. The designs are gorgeous, the instructions clear, and the fit great. I just can't wait to get started on some of her grown up patterns! Incidentally, if you're looking for Oliver + S patterns in the UK, I recommend Raystitch.
By the by, I do appreciate that I'm beginning to sound a bit stalker-esque with my constant praise for Liesl's designs, but seriously, everything I've experienced so far puts her designs way ahead of most commercial patterns I've come across. Does that make me sound less alarmingly obsessed? No?
