Changing Up the Bucket Hat

I'm so excited that I won this week's color challenge in Project Run & Play!! The competition was truly stellar this week, every look was fantastic. Who knew the people loved persimmon so much? 

It's incredibly encouraging to me that I have so many of my readers earnestly rooting for me in this. You guys are awesome, and I love to see you being so excited for me. Thank you! We are almost to the home stretch in this thing... so anxious to show you what I'm working on for the movie challenge!

Anyway, I will be making a tutorial for the super simple halter top that will be up Wednesday on the PR&P site. But I've had a lot of comments on the hat, so I just wanted to pop in and tell you how I changed up the Oliver & S Bucket Hat pattern to make this. 

The hat pattern is originally from the Little Things To Sew book (which you guys know I'm a big fan of!) but now you can download it FREE right here. It's perfect bucket hat making time- so do it!

I made the small size, but you could make the same adjustments on any size. All I did was take the brim pattern piece and extended the outside curve by 1.5." So all the way around, 3" are added to the hat width. Do this by tracing or printing out the original pattern piece, then measure 1.5" out every couple of inches along that curve, marking with dots. Connect the dots and you have your new pattern to cut the brim pieces with. 

The two fabrics I used are just quilting weight cottons, so I interfaced every piece with fusible shapeflex by Pellon. Every brim piece I fused two layers onto, so the brim has 4 layers of interfacing total. I've found this gives the hat the best shape and feel out of all the times I've made it. I opted not to do the topstitching all the way up the brim, which also can add structure, so the shapeflex made up for that. I just didn't want it to look too fisherman-ish. 

I also constructed the hat a little differently than the instructions. I made the two sides of the hat separately, then put them right sides together and sewed around the brim leaving a small opening to turn and then topstitch. I have a picture tutorial here. This avoids hand stitching the cap onto the brim in the final steps of the pattern. Although, I do understand why it's written that way, because the two layers of the hat stay evenly stitched together a bit better that way. I just like to avoid hand stitching because I'm not the best at it. The hat still looks great on either side though. 

So there you go, a small variation on a great pattern that really gives it a cute vintage-beachy-look. 

Several of you also commented on the cardigan in this look. Mine was based off this pattern by Owly Baby. One day I'll have to share a tutorial with you on how I did it, but this week, I've really got to sew my tushy off... like NOW. Bye!