Gift Sewing 2

Recently it was a friend's little girl's 1st birthday and I wanted to make something personal to send to her.  I have made a few things for her big brother and wanted to make sure she got the same treatment.

I used the bucket hat pattern from the Little Things to Sew book by Oliver + S (this is also available as a free version here).  I made the small size and used some Liberty Lifestyle fabric I had in my cupboard.  The instructions say to make up the two crowns, then make the brim and attach it to one crown then hand stitch the other on top.  I didn't want to hand stitch, so machine stitched the two parts together and then hid the resulting messy join with a strip of bias binding which I hand stitched on!! Oh well, it makes a nice design feature!

I then decided to make a second version of the hat for a friend of my brother who had a baby boy earlier in the year.  This time I made two complete hats then stitched them together at the brim leaving a gap for turning through and then top stitched rows of stitching.  This way felt much easier, I would be interested to know the reason for constructing it as per the instructions.

This time I made the extra small size and used some hole punched denim with a bit of stretch for one side and purple gingham for the other.  The gingham was lovely and soft so should feel nice against a baby's head (I hope) and the denim lends it some stability.  The stretch element of the denim definitely made the construction easier and quicker.

I actually cut out and started constructing a third version of this hat using some leftover Liberty lawn and chambray.  I was going to make the medium size for my girl but I could not make the pieces fit together at the crown.  I tried to make this hat last year and had the same problem and presumed it was user error but this time I traced and cut the pieces out really carefully.  Having made the extra small and small without any problems I found this very frustrating, especially as I was using treasured fabric!  I think I will try to make the large and see if I have the same issues.

However, I am really happy with the two successful hats.  They use very little fabric so are perfect for leftover bits and I think they make lovely gifts, I just hope the recipients like them too!