Baby Hat Tutorial

These are super simple. You can easily whip up a dozen in an hour or so!

From a yard of fleece fabric, you can make 6 baby/toddler hats. If you want to make bigger hats, get 1 1/4 to 1 1/3 yards to make four teen/adult hats.

Your fleece should be approximately 60" wide. It will be stretchy between the two selvages. Keep that in mind, which way it stretches. We want the stretchy part to go around the circumference of our heads!

Here are directions for baby hats and heads. (I googled baby head circumference. 18"-20" is average for a baby head. For adult heads, measure your own and size up as needed!)

Trim off the selvage edges. Cut the fleece into two pieces, 60" x 18". Cut each 60" long piece into 3 pieces, about 19" wide. You should now have 6 pieces, 19" x 18".

Fold each piece in half, right sides together, with the 19" sides together. (If your fabric doesn't have an obvious wrong or right side, don't worry about it. However, just a little tidbit, if you gently tug on the stretchy side, the edge of your fabric will curl. The curl will point to the right side. Fascinating, eh?) Using a fairly large zigzag stitch (I used the size that my machine defaults to, w 5.0, l 2.0) stitch the seam up. You're stitching up along the non-stretchy way. Make sense? You can chain piece these, then snip apart.

Next, take each tube, and fold up a 4" cuff to the wrong side, matching the seam you just sewed. Again, zigzagging, stitch the cuff, just catching the edge of the fabric. (Don't stress too much, this won't be seen.) You will be stitching  the stretchy way this time. (For adult hats, you can go up to 5-6" on the cuff.)

Almost there.

Turn your hat right side out, and fold so that the seam is on one side. Take you scissors and cut a fringe on the top of the hat, about 1/4"  wide and about 4" deep, all the way across. (I didn't photograph these steps with the original hats, so my example below is a just a prop. You'll get the idea!)

Near the seam, take two neighboring fringe pieces, wrap one to the left, one to the right, scrunch up the hat, and using the fringe pieces, tie them together around your bundle of fringe to make a pom pom and close up the top. Fold up your cuff and you did it!

These would make a great charity/community service project. Easy enough for kids to get involved. Have fun with them. Oh, and did I mention, they're super warm and cozy? Bonus!