If the cap fits, please wear it!
This post will confirm whether or not any of my family read my blog. The assumption is that none of them do.
I stumbled on this pattern via Twitter. I was just generally scrolling through my feed, and saw reference to a free pattern for a cap. I recalled my mother telling me recently that ‘your father never goes out without a cap’, so a surprise handmade cap seemed like a good idea, especially as I thought I would use some of the leftover Barbour fabric from my raincoat, as a prototype.
The pattern is a free download from Waffle Patterns, and the whole thing is very easy, although there are some tricky bends to cope with, and some thick fabric to sew through. There are 3 pages of A4 pattern to trace, for each size.
In fact that’s the hardest part. ‘Please can I just measure your head’ is a rather odd question to ask! Hence, if the cap fits……
I took a sneak review of his cap collection whilst visiting Leeds, last week. Sadly there were no head measurements to help, but I did note that one was a ‘large’ size, so I have made the larger of two sizes. There will be 4 grown men around on Christmas Day; it must fit one of them, and then I can start measuring heads if I get more orders!
A few comments:
If the friend who gave me my tailor’s ham ever wondered what it was for, well it was invaluable to help press the rounded edges of the lining and cap itself. I may even show her this picture. So, OK, easy to make but a tailor’s ham is pretty useful.
In the same way that I always tack sleeves in place before I sew, so I tacked the bends of the lining and fabric. I highly recommend you do this, but once firmly attached to one another, a bit of precision sewing will quickly give you something that is starting to look like a cap.
When I made my raincoat I was careful to waterproof some of the seams, and tried not to put holes in the fabric. You can see I have pinned and tacked in the seam allowance, and in fact, that part probably got trimmed off in the end. Adding waterproof tape would be difficult.
If you follow the (mainly picture) instructions exactly, you could end up with raw edges inside the rim of the cap. In the end I took two measures to prevent that. Firstly, I overlocked around the edges once the lining and outer layer were joined.
Secondly, I bound the rim with petersham ribbon. Now I was taught petersham stitch on my millinery course earlier in the year, and I did not really fancy using that time consuming intricate stitch on something that might not fit anyone! So I cheated. I folded the tape over the edge and used the sewing machine – just as you might do if you were stitching bias binding. It was quite tight to corner at the centre of the rim, but taking care and sewing slowly worked.
It really didn’t take very long to make this. I will try to get some pictures on Christmas Day, and perhaps up date the blog with the results of who the cap does actually fit!
One Week, One Pattern
Me Made May 2016
Me Made May 2015
Simplicity Competition
Sew Over it Patterns
all my own work by ann 