Snow Hat- Boys
7:34 PM
It's been fun with RJ's developing imagination lately- he's 2 1/2.
For example, the other day he told me: "Elves have red poop mom."
He earned a gummi worm, and never ate it, but carried it around all day telling me it wasn't candy, it was a dead worm. He'd let me pet the dead worm, but that's all. It was "his pet."
Yesterday morning he saw a Gap add as I was checking my email and they had these kid hats that were animals. The shark was OK, but he really got excited about that red monster hat. I thought the racoon was really cute too.
I remembered I had a kids winter hat pattern, and pulled it out. I used McCalls M5772. The pattern kind of looks cheesy, but they always do right? I used version C for this hat.
He had specific ideas in mind for his monster, and this was so fun to make for him.
I showed him the red fleece I had in mind, but he picked out the orange fur from the rack of fabric. I was surprised because I thought he'd want the red. Everything has to be red lately, from his cup, shirts, pants, etc.
But he found the fur, I had kind of forgot I had it. It was $1 for probably 1.5 yards from a thrift store.
RJ actually picked/ planned most of it. I asked how many eyes his monster had, "just 2".
For the eyes, I told him to pick out a scrap and he chose the green.
He was really specific on having sharp teeth too.
He stood by me the majority of the time I was sewing, watching the monster come to life. When he saw the mouth, he was jumping up and down--pretty exciting.
I didn't take pictures of the process, because I didn't know if it would turn out, and we were in a hurry with a toddler on the edge of his seat. So here's what I did in case your little dude would love one too, or you have a little guy on your Christmas list.
The pattern is actually for fleece, but the faux fur had enough stretch I figured it would work.
I did line it with fleece though.
HORNS: Cut 4 fleece triangles that curved a little. Sewed 2 together, trimmed the edges and turned them right side out and stuffed them with Polyfil fluffy batting. I sewed them at the bottom of the side seams.
EYES: I hacked out 2 circles from scraps of white vinyl. RJ chose a lime green scrap for the little irises. I just straight stitched those on with a short stitch length, 1.0 I think. Then I hand sewed the little black button pupils on each eye. I had sewn the center seam of the hat at this point, and just straight stitched each eye on. They are a little off, not intentional, but look like a scary monster I guess.
MOUTH: I cut a oblong piece of the charcoal fleece, then zig zagged the white triangle scraps on for teeth. I attached the mouth with a straight stitch, then a small zig zag right on the edge.
At this point it was finished, and RJ told me he wanted "monster tails" too, the hanging pom-pom things.
TAILS: Looking at similar snow hats, most seemed to have braided yarn, with yarn pom-poms at the ends. I didn't have any gray yarn, and was trying to think of things to hang at the end that weren't so feminine as yarn pom-poms. So I ended up using the same gray fleece. For the strings, I took 3 pieces of fleece: 1/2" wide and 10-12" long and braided them tightly. I sewed all 3 pieces together on top of each other at the beginning and the end.
To make the "boy" pom-poms, I cut 2 pieces of fleece (4.5" x 6" each) into skinny 1/4" strips. So a single pom-pom string was 4.5" tall and 1/4" wide. I stacked them in a pile, then tied them really tightly around the middle with fishing line. I wrapped the line around a few times, getting it tighter and tying knots in the fishing line to keep it tight. The tighter around the middle, the more it looks like a sphere. I had long leftover ends of fishing line hanging off the pom-poms, which is how I attached them to the braid. I threaded a needle on the fishing line ends of each pom-pom and sewed up through the braid, and back down through the bottom of the pom-pom a couple times until I felt it was secure.
I was already done with the hat, so I had to unpick the bottoms of each ear flap, shove the braid in, and top-stitch the hole closed. But had I planned ahead, I could have just sewn it in the seam when I attached the lining to the hat.
So it was done, and my little guy LOVES it.
Probably because he helped plan it himself, and made most of the choices as we went. It was so fun to see him get so excited when it was finished. I imagine when I have older kids I won't get such a great reaction as his when I make them things.
We finished the hat and he wore it while he and his dad played some video games.
Then it was bed time and at the last minute he crawled out of bed to get the hat so he could sleep in it.
And while he did some chores.
He thought it was funny when Woody wore it.
Then we took out the trash and he actually got to use the snow hat for what it was made for.
of course Woody came too.
It was quite an easy little project, it took me less than an hour, and was such a hit. Especially considering these are $20+ from Gap, and I was able to just use scraps for everything. And he loved picking out all the details himself.
Now I'm thinking of other girly fun hats you could make too.
18 comments
Very cute! This is so cute and it is fun to look at the pictures but probably more fun to have been with the process. These are the best projects, especially when you have the fabric on hand. It looks so darn cute. Great job in the imagination dept. When they get older they still get excited by the special projects but it cannot comapare to the uncontained joy in a small child. what a day well spent with your little guy.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh that is so stinking cute!! You are just too talented for words.
ReplyDeleteI love it! You can totally start a replacement of the capes sweatshop with these hats. :)
ReplyDeleteSo cute! I love hats of every kind for me as for my son. And it just started to snow where I live...
ReplyDeleteJessica I LOVE this hat. I live that he slept in it AND I love that he then ate breakfast the next morning in it. You know how much he loves it if he won't take it off!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat job! Great Momma!
This is soo cute and it is so special that he helped plan it all! He is so adorable and I can't wait until Daci will interact even more with me. What a great mom you are!
ReplyDeleteThis turned out so cute! My 3 year old would love it!
ReplyDeleteSo cute! I love how much he loves it! That's the best part of making something for someone.
ReplyDeleteThis is seriously.adorable! Perfect for a little boy!! And darling pictures!
ReplyDeleteSeriously cutest pictures ever! I love that he slept in and then ate breakfast wearing it the next morning!
ReplyDeleteReally, really cute! So great that he loves it so much.
ReplyDeleteI have to make this hat. Right after I figure out how to get my 16 month old to keep a hat on for longer than 3 seconds.
ReplyDeleteOh man, I love the pom poms! Too cute. And the shots of the extended wearing of the monster hat are wonderful.
ReplyDeleteSuper cute. I have to make one of these for my baby. He's going to love it! I will be featuring you on our blog ziggycrafts.blogspot Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteOh, my word! I love it. I can't get my just 2yr to wear a hat, but maybe if I show him this and make it. How fun, thanks for the tut.
ReplyDeleteTana
Oh my goodness, that is so cute! I totally love it. And I love how much HE loves it too. :) Very creative. That is neat that you had him pick everything out himself. Darling!
ReplyDeleteWow, I don't know if I have the confidence to make this myself...but they boys would LOVE it. I totally see them sleeping in theirs, too. :) If you want to make another and post a more in-depth tutorial for fraidy-cats like me, I'd be interested!
ReplyDeleteJust come across this from a link in flick ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/37732171@N04/6804834117/in/pool-65756725@N00/)
ReplyDeleteGreat hat. I love the photos of him sleeping & doing chores!
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