Hats

Gemma has recently decided that she wants to wear a hat almost all the time.  Unfortunately, her favorite hat is actually her swimsuit bottoms from this past summer:

She insists on wearing it on her head though, and she even insisted on wearing it when we went outside to play with some of the other kids on our street the other night.  I was just a tad bit mortified when some of the neighbors were admiring her "hat" with its air-conditioning (leg holes).  Yesterday while she was napping, I started wondering if she just loves hats in general right now or that particular "hat."  So I scoured the internet for some tutorials on toddler hats to see what I could whip up from fabric I had lying around.

I ended up making her two hats and though she was reluctant to wear them at first, after I complimented her on how cute they looked, she has been wearing them pretty much nonstop although she seems to favor the green stretchy one over the pink fleece.

While looking for toddler hat tutorials, I saw a lot of instructions for converting an old ribbed shirt into a hat.  I ended up deciding to sort of combine this tutorial with this one.  I dug out an old tank top of mine that was too small and on which the hem had completely fallen out, and I cut a Gemma-head-sized rectangle.  Then I quickly sewed it up into a hat.  Since it was bright green, I decided to make it a bit more feminine (and less tank-top-looking) by [sloppily] stitching on a G I cut out of pink fleece.  I think the end result turned out pretty cute (and she is no longer wearing her swimsuit bottoms on her head, so I'm counting it as a success):

Amidst my searching, I also stumbled across this tutorial on an easy fleece hat.  Since I have a ton of hot pink fleece left over from the slippers I have yet to actually make for Gemma, I decided to give this one a try too.  I like this one better than the green hat (though Gemma doesn't seem to share my opinion).  It was super easy - it took me maybe 10-15 minutes to make, but I was really proud of it because I think it looks like a totally legit hat that you might buy in a store.

This was a really quick, fun project for me and it was great because I got to branch out into the world of stretch fabrics, fleece, and decorative stitching, none of which I'd really attempted before.  And now I am going to hide Gemma's swimsuit bottoms in hopes that her new hats will fulfill all her current headwear needs.  :)