How to Make a Simple Fleece Hat

For my halloween costume I needed to make a simple fleece hat so I would have something to connect the felt hair to (you'll see what I'm talking about when I post my costume). I also made this kind of hat for my fiance for valentines day, embroidered with Batman and he loved it. It's super easy to make, warm, and depending on the kind of fleece and embellishments you use it can be super chic as well. (I'm assuming that you have a sewing machine and know how to use the basic stitches)
Here is my finished product:

(I didn't do any treatment to the bottom hem because it's going to be covered for mine, but I will explain different options of what to do)
First of all you need the supplies:

1. Sewing Machine*
2. About 1/2 of fleece
3. Matching thread
4. Measuring Tape
5. Fabric Pencil
6. Scissors
Step 1
First you need to get some measurements. First measure around your head at the part where the hat is going to rest (in other words measure more around your hairline than going across the forehead). Now take this measurement and divide it by 4. This hat is comprised of four parts so this will be the length of the bottom of each piece.
Now measure from in front of your ear to the crown of your head. This will be the height of each of the pieces. Measuring in front of your ear ensures that the hat will be large enough to cover your ears. What good is a hat if you have cold ears?
Step 2
Now you will draw out the pieces using your measurements. Make a straight line the length of measurement 1. Now find the middle of that line and draw a straight line the length of measurement 2 perpendicular to it. Then draw curved lines from the top of the second line to the ends of the first line. You'll have a shape that looks like this:

Step 3
Cut out this piece and use it to create three more. Now you have all of the pieces of your hat!
Step 4
The sewing. First of all take two pieces of scraps of the fleece and practice sewing on it. Fleece can be a little bit tricky to sew on.
Now for the real ones. Take two of the pieces and lay them down, with the right sides facing each other. With fleece it's hard to tell which is the right side and which is the wrong side, so if you're having a lot of difficulty it means it doesn't matter since no one will ever notice.
Start at the bottom of the hat. Make sure to sew back and forth when you start so the seam doesn't come undone and slowly and carefully sew along the curve, leaving about a 1/4 inch seam allowance. When you get to the point stop and sew back and forth a few times again.
Do this with the next piece and one of the pieces you just sewed on. Do the exact same thing.
Now do the same thing with the last piece. The only difference with the last piece is that when you sew the final seam you will be closing the hat. When you do this turn it inside out and you'll have a hat!
Step 5
Try it on. If it's too loose just sew the seams again leaving a larger seam allowance this time and cut off the excess. If it's too small you'll have to start over (I've done this many times, it sucks but luckily the hat doesn't take too long to make).
Now for the hem the easiest option is to just fold the hem underneath to the length you want. Another option is to use a stretch stitch to hold the hem in place. Don't use a straight stitch or you won't be able to stretch the hat to get it on your head. The fanciest way is to use a decorative stretch stitch to hold the hem in place. But really, with this hat just folding it works fine and it stays while you're wearing it. And if it ever gets really cold you can unfold it and try to cover as much of your face as possible :-).
Step 6
Now you can embellish the hat. You could glue on rhinestones or sequins. In the past I've made batman ears out of the left over fleece and sewed them on. I've also embroidered a batman (my fiance really likes Batman if you couldn't already tell). Really it's up to you. This is a great base to put your creativity onto.
Congratulations! You now have your very own hat!

*This can be done with hand stitching it will just take a bit longer. Exact same process though.

My Guide to Blind Hemming

I recently got a brand new sewing machine with a blind hem foot! Extremely excited to use this new tool I put it on and looked in the instruction manual. What I found was the most cryptic explanation and diagrams I had ever seen. It took forever to even figure out how to fold the hem in the correct way, and afterwards realized how simple it really was! So here is my hopefully simpler explanation of how to make a machine blind hem.
The first step is to fold the hem over first about .5" and then again however large you want the hem to be, mine is about 1.5". You then pin the hem all the way down.



After doing this fold the entire hem the opposite way so only 1/8th of an inch is showing.



This is when you move to the sewing machine. The blind hemming foot for your machine should be easy to pick out as it has a guide to butt the hem up against and ensure that all of the straight stitches go into the correct spot.



Your machine should also have a special stitch just for this, for both stretch and non-stretch fabrics. They'll look similar to this:



Now you sew. Make sure that the needle just barely catches the left edge of the fabric to allow for the least amount of thread showing on the front. You can adjust the stitch width to correct for this, or adjust the screw on the foot itself. Also, make sure that the straight part of the stitch is only on the right side of the fabric. Everything's very close so go slowly and keep a close eye on it. It is a pain in the neck to rip out if you mess up, believe me.

Here is what it will look like when you're done sewing:



The back of the fabric after unfolding the hem:



The front:



Notice that all you see are the small ticks from where the needle caught this side of the fabric. It's noticeable here because I used a contrasting thread but if you use a matching thread it will be barely noticeable. At this point you would also press the hem flat. I definitely recommend practicing on the fabric you'll be using but it is surprisingly easy once you figure it out and makes everything look much more professional and finished. Good luck!

Purple Woven Headband

Lately I have become obsessed with making my own headbands. They're a great way to use up fabric scraps, plus I can make the stretchy kind which doesn't give me a headache. It's so hard to find stretchy headbands that are cute and not meant for children. I got the idea for this one after I got a sewing machine with an automatic button hole maker and wanted to practice making button holes. In the end I made 14 button homes on this headband and definitely got the practice!
In total this project took about 1 1/2 hours, probably less if you're already a buttonhole master and more if you're using it for the first time.
The first step was to cut out the fabric for the top part of the headband. I used purple satin. It didn't stretch and I wanted the headband to lay flat so I made the back part, which you don't see since its under the hair, elastic. For this part I cut out a rectangle 18" by 3" so when finished it would be 1.5" wide.

Next I folded it in half the long way, right sides facing each other, and sewed up the edge. After doing this I turned it inside out so the nice side was facing out and all the sewing was on the inside.

After doing this I probably should have pressed it, I'm sure it would have made the button holes a whole lot easier to do but the iron was upstairs and I was lazy :-). So I started right on to the button holes which I would use to thread the ribbon through in the end. I put one hole each inch and made sure to mark where each hole would start so they were even. After using my awesome automatic button hole maker to make all 18 holes I threaded the ribbon through and secured it on each end.

Done with the pretty top part! For the rest I needed 8 more inches to fit my head so I cut out 7" of elastic and a 10" by 3.5" rectangle of black fabric. I sewed the black fabric the same way as the purple and then put the elastic through the middle. I then sewed the elastic onto the edges of the top part and then folded the edges of the black and connected it to the top part as well. This way the top will stay nice and flat and the bottom part with the black fabric will stretch and scrunch up.
Finished Product!