I Can't Believe I Made This

I was flipping through Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing when I came upon the hat pattern.  I should have known better than to do another project from this book -- the instructions are notoriously sketchy, and many of the patterns have construction errors, like the pillow case or the pot holder that does not have nearly enough padding to allow one to hold a hot pot. 

But I have a big head and a massive amount of hair, so the only way to get a sun hat to fit me would be to make it.  But this pattern did not give dimensions, and was for only one size, so I'd have to adjust the pattern myself.

But I had the cutest line fabric just waiting to be used, that would make a great summery hat.

So I searched online, and found as I expected lots of blog entries about the problems with the pattern.  Which helped me figure out what to do.  I lengthened the crown piece and brim piece by one inch and used a quarter inch seam, so it would fit my head.  I used my old geometry knowledge and the pi function of my calculator to resize the circle of the top part to the right size (pi!  I love pi!).  I hacked off an inch and a half from the width of the brim, because many people said they could not see when wearing the hat.  I remembered what my Dear Jane instructors told me about sewing curves, that the "too small" curve should be on top so that the feed dogs help ease the fabric of the "too big" curve (thanks, Diane and Judy!).  And . . . I actually managed to put it together.

There are errors, of course.  I forgot that with directional fabric you need to, you know, take care with the direction when cutting out pattern pieces, and so the fabric for the crown was upside down.  There was not enough fabric to cut another crown whole, so I had to piece it.  There are a few tucks here and there, the fabric on the brim got a little bumpy in one section (not sure why), and the stitching is not particularly straight.

But I have a cute sun hat!