I’ve had this book, Simple Sewing, by Lotta Jansdotter for a while now and haven’t done more than look through it. While sitting out in the sun the other day, I realized that this might be the summer to invest in some kind of hat. I remembered seeing a pattern for it in this book and thought it was high time to make something out of it.
The pattern is pretty straight forward and simple and you can easily make this with about 1/2 yard of fabric for each the outside and the lining. This fabric is Aneela Hoey’s Little Apples that I had leftover from this outfit that my darling daughter refuses to wear. The inside is some Riley Blake leftover from her Easter dress last year (that she also refuses to wear…do you see a trend?)
Overall this hat came together really easily. The brim was a little monotonous to sew line after line, but I love how it looks and feels now that it’s done. I did have a few snafus matching up the brim to the top and the lining didn’t go in well either. I don’t know if this is something I did wrong (more than likely) or if my seam allowances didn’t all match or what.
One change was that I did not hand stitch the lining in. I serged it because I can and because I am too lazy to sit and sew something like that. I think if I make another hat, I will put the outside and the lining together first and baste them, then serge them both to the brim at the same time. There is a lot of bunchiness on the top which I think would be alleviated by doing it that way.
This is a great book though. It has some really cute (and simple…tee hee) pattern ideas inside it and the directions are well written even for a fairly novice sewer.
