You know when you see a pattern that appeals but think of all the reasons why you don’t need to make it – a whole pile of other hat patterns jostling for space, a need for more sun protection, the fact that bucket hats don’t suit me, and so on. However, that didn’t stop me from downloading the pattern when it was first released and having it sit around accusingly. I have to mention that this is the Sorrento Bucket Hat and is a free pattern from Elbe Textiles, and now I’ve made it, I want to convert the world!
I have seen so many of these hats on IG that I thought it was time I gave the pattern a fly and took it and a few scraps of denim, left over from covering my sofas (see them here), down to our holiday place where I knew the weather might be a tad unsettled.
I set myself up and then realised that the lovely silk scarf I had thought might make a lining was probably too light weight, so had a fossick in the shed where I found a box of unwanted tea towels. I have a thing about tea towels. I like them to be undamaged and clean, I also like high quality ones. The box of tea towels proved to be a bit of a treasure trove and I pulled out several likely candidates, settling finally on this linen and cotton one which was consigned to the rag box because of the hole in the middle. I could have fixed the hole and kept using it, but we have so many tea towels, it’s not worth it. However, as a hat lining, it certainly ticked all the boxes!
There were a couple of grubby marks which I was able to cut around and I managed to avoid the hole. I even managed to get a chicken in the middle of my head!
I set my little Elna Lotus up inside the Airstream that we live in down here, as it was too wet and windy to sew outside and too miserable to sew in the sewing tent.
I also managed to set up an ironing/cutting station on the kitchen bench, which proved to be the perfect height. This fold up board is the best thing ever.
Making the hat was a bit of a cinch but I didn’t like what happened when I attached the hat band to the brim with the overlap method. It looked really bad inside, in spite of pinning and tacking. So I burritoed it. Here I am with the hat in the process of being turned. Always an exciting time.
I had a few centimetres to sew down and then a bit of topstitching and voila! A hat!
I think a tea towel makes a great lining. I’m still not happy with that top stitching on the inside of the brim, and I already have the unpicker out ready to have another go at it, using a different coloured thread in my bobbin!
I was pleased with the chicken on my head. However, there is an orange headless chook in there somewhere…
More of these are planned, including a rain version to supplement my Vera hat. Apologies for the lack of styling in the photos, camping gear is essential!