Child’s Newsie Hat (and my tips for making your own)

Standing in the kitchen, I surveyed the debris left by the explosion of dinner prep, planning the best course of action to deal with it in the least amount of time while the small people finished up their meal. Somewhere between “that pot won’t fit but it really needs to ‘soak’ anyway” and “Butterfly, please just eat your carrots and stop chopping them into tiny pieces”, came the first warning signs of trouble.

“Mummy?”
“yes, Bear?”
“I’m so excited about my excursion tomorrow”
“It’s not tomorrow, honey, it’s Thursday”
“No, it’s tomorrow”

I raced to the diary. Bugger. Yes. Of course the elephant child was right. Despite having it written correctly in my diary, for some reason I had it in my head that it wasn’t until Thursday, which meant my plan to sew the hat he needed for his costume, on my 75%-child-free Monday, was suddenly thrown out the window, along with my Sunday night plans.

With all the children fed, bathed and bedded, I hunkered down in the studio, and while the pattern printed, I started scrounging for the denim I was sure I had. I’m sure *you* can see where curveball number 2 was coming from, but I didn’t until it hit me and rolled away. Of course I couldn’t find it. The flexibility that is unique to a crafty mama on a stupid deadline kicked in, and I found some curtain fabric (that, to be honest, I can’t really remember buying), and got cutting, after calling a still-reading Bear from his bed for a quick noggin measure. A smallish bit of quilters cotton made for the perfect lining, almost. I didn’t have the width to cut the band on the bias, but wasn’t overly worried – the pattern did say the bias cut was only a suggestion.

I started assembling and here comes number 3. That bias suggestion was there for reason, and the band only *just* made it around the crown when I was putting together the lining. Joining the inner and outer together, I managed to stuff up again, and instead of just top stitching them together, I had used the bands the wrong way, and didn’t have nice neat pre-pressed edges to topstitch. Joining and turning and then topstitching did the trick though. I also ended up not adding the elastic as Bear was on the upper end of the sizing range. While it fitted fine, it also wasn’t as slouchy as it should have been. But it looked sufficiently old-fashioned for both his liking and mine.

But of course, nothing could be that easy. The next morning brought rain, and while I saw an alert from the school app pop up on my phone, I assumed it was just a reminder, and put down the phone and continued on with my morning. But you know what they say about assumption, and it was only after dropping a dressed up boy at school that I realised it wasn’t a reminder, it was a note that the excursion was postponed. Oops.

Which brings us to yesterday, and off they finally go. I pick them up with the intention of heading to the park for a couple of quick photos, but I’ve forgotten the camera. No worries, it’ll only take a few minutes to swing by home and grab it. Camera on board, arrive at park, unload everyone, set the boy up, light is perfect…why are you blinking at me, camera? No darn CF card. Of course. It’s still in the card reader from where I was working over the weekend – and all the spares I normally have were in various states of temporary archiving waiting on jobs to be finished. So back in the car, home, memory card collected, back to the park, out again, and race through some photos all the while cursing the light that is no longer as good as it was.

At least it looks like it was intended to…

~~~

The pattern I used can be found here on Etsy. I found it a nice easy pattern to follow, and it came together quite quickly, curveballs and all – somewhere between half an hour and an hour.

My tips for making your own:
* When the pattern “suggests” you cut on the bias, take the hint. It makes a difference (especially if the lining is bias and the outer isn’t).
* Make sure you are attaching the right edge of the band to the crown – the pattern says to press one edge for a reason!
* I did the topstitching of the crown segments one they are all together, because I’m lazy and couldn’t be bothered changing my presser foot after each seam. The pattern makes a note of this option.
* If you are making a hat for a child on the upper edge of the measurements for the size you are making, it sits perfectly fine without the elastic if you are worried about it being tight.