Fiona - Part 2 - The Hat

As you may recall, I am working on a Fiona costume for my daughter for Halloween. You can see the first post here. Today I am putting together the hat.

When my daughter first decided she wanted to dress up like Fiona, I started thinking about how I would make the hat and the shape to use. I came up with something in my mind that looked a lot like a modified ski mask. Then it struck me, why not look up online to see if anyone else had come up with a pattern already? Duh. So I searched and found a few decent tutorials. The best one is here. And I have to say if you are going to make one of these hats I recommend you use this tutorial as it is the best I have seen and what I based my hat off of. The only thing I don't like about it is there isn't enough pictures. So I am going to show you how I made my hat.

The tutorial I linked above from Instructables has an awesome pattern already attached. I being the patience person I am could not wait to get access to a printer so I decided to make my own pattern (based solely on the photos not actually looking at the pattern posted there). It took about 2-3 hours to get the pattern just right and fit my daughter's head. You may be able to see in the photos where I had to cut pieces of the pattern off, move them over and tape them in place  (the shiny spots are tape - I first had the chin straps set way to far in, ie they weren't covering my daughter's ears, just her cheeks). I even made the piece too short to begin with. I probably should have waited to print the pattern from Instructables but I wanted to design my own.

Once I was done I ended up with a pattern very similar to the one from Instructables. However, mine was quite a bit smaller since I was making one for a head that is about 21 inches in diameter.

To make the hat, I gather my materials:

• 1 yard of white felt (piece I bought was 36 in by 36 in)
• 1 piece of velcro (forgot to buy some so I had some black pieces on hand)
• Sewing Machine
• White thread
• Lots of pins
• floral wire
• stuffing

First, I folded the felt in half. Then I pinned my pattern pieces in place. I cut two of each piece except the ears which I cut 4 of those.

Next I turned the pieces inside out and pinned them together. I pinned the short end of the Body of the Hat together for each piece, I pinned the ears together too. I did not pin the Top of Hat yet.

Next I stitched the short end of the Body of Hat. I stitched each piece separately (not together, I put those together at the end). In order to make sure the Body of the Hat was nice and secure, I added two straight stitches close to the edge. These stitches were about 1/4 inch from the edge.

Next I stitched the both sets of ears together making sure not to stitch the bottom (straight) edge.

Next, I pinned the Top of the Hat (circle piece) to the Body of the Hat for each set. You really need to take your time pinning these together to make sure that the circle is pinned just right so you don't get any weird bunching. I must say that half way through pinnning the top in place I started to wonder if I had cut the circle large enough (fortunaetly I had).

Notice I used a LOT of pins here. I was super worried it would come undone will sewing or I would get a weird wrinkle. I got neither of those things.

One thing I did note was you have the keep the fabirc very flat near the machine (see the wrinkling in the front). I sewed this seam pretty slowly in order to make sure I was keeping the material flat going into the machine plus I had to remove all those pins. -MAKE SURE NOT TO SEW OVER YOUR PINS!

Here's what mine looked like once the top was sewn in place. When you are done you'll have two of these pieces.

The next part had to be handled delicately. First, decide which of the hats will be the outside and which will be the inside. With the Outside hat inside out (seams facing out), mark the top (circle) to show where you want the ears to go. The ears will have to be inserted and stitched in place. I cut to slits about 2 inches wide (based on my ear sizing) about mid way across the hat and about 2 inches from each edge.


Turn the ears inside out (seams on the inside). To make the ears stand up, I used some coated floral wire I had laying around. I bent a piece in a bunny ear shape and placed that into one of the ears and cut off the excess floral wire. Then repeated for the other ear and then stuffed the ears.



I'm going to tell you how I secured the ears in place, but if I was doing this again I'd do it differently because my ears are floppy. WHAT I DID: Stitched the ears in place with the machine. Straight across closing the ears up. WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE: Hand stitched the ears such that the bottom was still open to the inside of the hat, this way I could have ran the floral wire down into the hat (giving more stability). I also think I should have used more floral wire.

Anyway, at this point I remembered that I needed to add my Velcro. The instructables tutorial ties the ends (chin straps) of his hat together. I decided when I started my project that I was not spending all night on Halloween tying and re-tying the hat for my daughter, so Velcro was my solution. The first thing I did was turn the Outside hat (one with ears attached) right side out. The other hat (inside one, one without ears) was still wrong side out. I stuffed the one with out ears into the hat with the ears. One piece of velcro was pinned in place on the inside (right side) of the inner hat about 1/2 inch from the bottom of the chin strap. The other piece of velcro was pinned in place on the opposite side of the hat on the outside chin strap of the outside hat (one with ears) about 1/2 inch from the bottom.

You could also wait until the very end to add the Velcro if this makes no sense. Then I stitched both pieces in place.

Last thing I did was put it all together. I turned the outside hat inside out (ears in) and the other hat right side out (seam side in). I pinned both hats together taking special care not to pin the ears (I stuffed them in the side wear the chin strap was). Next I sewed both pieces together around the entire perimeter except for about a 2 inch long opening near the bottom back. I left this to turn the hat right side out through. Once everything was turned the way it should be, I top stitched the opening closed.

The hat was a perfect fit on the Little Sewing Ninja. But like I said above, my ears flopped. So I have added a few hand stitches on the outside to help them stand up. My husband has suggest some cardboard, so I may add that to the rear to give them more support.

 

Fabric Gift Bags

I have become obsessed with fabric gift bags lately. The only design I could come up with was a fairly simple lined bag and I was certain there would be some awesome tutorial online to show me. How to make a snazzy bag. Nope. Everything I seemed to find was a one layer bag without anything snazzy.....So I decided to make one.

 Pretty meh so I made another but this time with boxed ends.


I put a box of goodies in this bag to show the boxed ends


 A little better but still not snazzy.

Then I took out some left over christmas fabric (used it to make a basket inset long before my little one was born) and got the red leftovers from a stocking project.  And I stitched up a snazzier bag. Much better.

So far these are my favorite. One even has a silky feeling liner.

 I even decide to make a draw string bag. It didn't go quite as well though. I wanted the drawstring further down on the side.

Oh well, guess I'll have to try that one again. I'm thinking next go around there needs to be some sort of ribbon trim around the top .... maybe with an elastic middle. We'll see what the fabric stash holds. Maybe a tutorial is in your the future?

Cleaning Your Sewing Machine

Since I finally have a machine with lots of functions and parts, I am having to learn about properly cleaning and maintaining it. Just when I was about to hit the books, Ashley at Make It and Love It posted a great article on how to clean your machine (or at least hers). Check out her post here.

Fiona - Part 1 - The Skirt

So the monkey girl has decided that she wants to dress up like Fiona from Adventure Time this Halloween. This means we need a teal shirt, blue skirt, bunny hat and green backpack. We found a teal tshirt on clearance. The other items we are going to make.

The first item is the skirt. I bought 1/2 a yard of royal blue knit material and 1-1/2 inch wide elastic. The material was about 18 inches wide so I decided that would work for the length for now (I can hem it later). I cut the material twice the size of the little one's waist (42 inches). I cut the elastic to 21 inches. First, I folded down the top about a 1/4 of an inch and pressed that in place. Then I folded it down a little more than 1-1/2 inches to make a casing for the elastic. I pressed and pinned this in place. I top stitched around with a zig zag stitch. I hooked a safety pin to the end of the elastic and used that to help me guide it through my casing.

Top of Skirt with top folded down and top stitched in place

Side of Skirt - Wrong sides out, elastic in place

Once I had the elastic completely through, I pinned the end together. Then I put the right sides together and pinned it the material in place close to the unsewn edge. I stitched the side with a zig zag stitch and went over the elastic a few times to make sure it was secure.  And viola! One Fiona skirt.





Zipper Foot

Who would have thought that a $5 purchase would have made me so happy. I finally received my zipper foot. YAY! Now I can sew close to my zippers on all my projects.

Doesn't it look just awesome on my machine? I think it's time to sew something new and add a zipper to it.

Showing off

So Ive made several items lately. You could say I've been bitten by the sewing bug.  Below are some of the bags I've made.

This box bag was inspired by the tutorial on Three Bears and modified based on the tutorial on Sew Like My Mom. But I didn't use any sort of vinyl. I used a sew in interface between the two cotton layers.

Here are some tissue carriers. They still need some work though. Once I get it the way I like, I'll post a tutorial.

And here are a few other items I made too. Enjoy!

Introduction

I started this blog so I could show some of the items I am making and to share some knowledge I have gained through these projects. I wanted to be able to help someone else out that is just starting their own sewing projects.

I've sewn off and own for years. Most of my sewing has been by hand. My mom taught me many moons ago this useful trait. At one point she even gave me her 1970 ish sewing machine. However, it's cord was damaged and well it had one stitch. It was even a bit bulky and I had no easy place to keep it where I could use it when I wanted too.

This year for our anniversary, my dear husband bought me a simple Singer 2263 sewing machine. Its pretty basic, but has many stitch types including the ability to make button holes (which I have not tried yet).

I have to say, as soon as I received it, I went crazy sewing items. The machine itself and I have had some disagreements (I think it should make stitches and it thinks bobbin jams are fun). But all in all I am truly enjoying sewing. I am even teaching my little one how to use the machine. I hope you enjoy this blog and the items I have made.