Two Little Monsters

I've been wanting to make some fleece hats for the girls. The requirements: something silly, with extra coverage around the ears and neck. A friend's son had a cute fleece hat, and it only took a moment of looking at it to realize, "Hey, that would be easy to make!" Of course, my sweet bit girl dreamed up what she called a "dino hat," which essentially meant that I sew on two extra buttons and put a bit of jagged edging on the top of the hat. Same idea, though.

I was thinking about putting together a tutorial, but in truth, it's just too simple for that.

1. Make the four pieces for the top of the hat by tracing the top of an existing hat like this (in other words, you'll cut out two of each of these pieces):


2. Using the same hat, sketch out two longer strips that will be the bottom of the hat. It will look something like this (you'll want to hold up this piece to your model to make sure that the chin strap reaches all the way around):


Now, I am no expert sewer, but here's how I assembled the hat.

• Sew together the bottom seam of pieces E and F (I'll call it EF now). Flip right side out.
  
• Next, sew together part A to B (I'll call it AB now), and part C to D (I'll call it CD now).
• Sew the outside seam of the hat by placing the right sides of AB and CD together and sewing the two outside edges.
• Finally, pin the right side of the top of EF to the right side of the bottom of ABCD, and sew (you will be sewing through three pieces of fabric).
  
• Sew a button for the neck strap, and make a button hole on the other end.
• Check on your model and make adjustments as needed.

Whew, does that even make any sense (if not, I can snap some pictures while I'm making another one of these)? It really is easy to whip up-- under 30 minutes, I would say. And fleece is an absolute dream to work with-- no fraying, and so nice and warm. The thing I love the most about the hat is that the ear cover part is two pieces of fleece thick, which held up for a morning at the park even in today's freezing temperatures. It certainly feels like winter around here!