finally, we have a hat!

It seemed like a good idea at the time. One hat, one month. How hard could it be? And so I signed up to be part of Carmel’s hat sewalong. I downloaded the Oliver+S bucket hat pattern. And there it languished until around the 20th of the month, when I had a sudden “oh drats” moment when I realised we were due to go on holidays very shortly. So I printed the pattern. And yet, I still seemed to lack impetus. A week or so later, a lazy four days prior to holidays, I wandered down to the fabric store and bought fabric for six hats. And there ended the month, and the official deadline for the challenge. Fail. But still, I hooked in, and soon the various pieces for all six hats festooned my cutting table. The pressure was suddenly on. Six hats. Three days. Could I do it?

Um. No. All six crowns and linings were sewn. Two brims were assembled. But there wasn’t actually a whole hat in usable condition. We used various existing hats for the holiday, and the hat pieces were shoved unceremoniously aside in favour of the dolls quilt.

Until the heat wave hit, and I realised a certain little girl had grown out of her hats. With a trip to the farm planned for the weekend, it was bumped up to “urgent” and so I sewed during rest time instead of tackling the mountain of folding that has taken over my lounge.

I had to machine the crown lining into place, instead of hand stitching, and there are a few puckers in it, but overall, I’m happy with it. And Butterfly is refusing to take it off, so that has to be considered the most important measure of success, don’t you think?