So, you don't want to put a plate on your head

Hello again friends! I went from no posts for 5 years, to 2 posts in 1 day! WOW. Please don't expect me to keep up with this break neck pace. You will just be disappointed.

It occurs to me that some of you may not want to put plates on your heads. "Rachel", you'll ask, "isn't there another way?" Well yes, dear reader, there is. Also, not gonna lie, it's a little creepy that you know my name. But I'll get over it, probably.

The good news is that once you great a template, you can reuse it pretty much forever since your adult head size isn't going to fluctuate nearly as much as your waistline. The bad news is that this is going to require the dreaded Math. Duh Duh Duuuunnnnnn.

So, this is really just a couple of circles. If you remember your basic mathematical formulas for determining circumference, and radius of a circle, hurrah. You're a better student than I am. I had to hit the google. Speaking of the Google, you can find a circle calculator that will math for you! Huzzah!!!!!

So, with that bit of info out of the way, let's get to it. For this project you're going to need a measuring tape, pencil, poster board (or large paper/newspaper/wrapping paper) and scissors. (oh, and the circle calculator)

Measure around your head. This is the circumference of your circle. This number will then be fed into the calculator in order to find the radius. My head is about 24 inches around, so that gives me a radius of 3.82. Now, I don't want this hat falling down around my ears. So I'm going to want a circumference slightly smaller than my actual head. I'm going to start with a radius of 3.5 (C=22) and adjust until comfortable.


Using these measurements, you are going to draw a circle onto your poster board. I like poster board best because it's large enough to not have to piece it together, and it's a bit more substantial that newspaper or wrapping paper. It's going to last a bit and stand up to multiple hat making endeavors. Wrapping paper will work in a pinch. But I like to iron the wrapping paper so it doesn't roll up on itself while I'm working (#ProTip #LifeHack)

Everyone has their favorite way of drawing circles. You can choose a center point and then measure out a bajillion tiny dots and draw a line to connect them. Or you can use the old pushpin-and-a-string method. Basically put a pushpin in the center of your circle and then tie a pencil along the end of a string that is the length of your radius. Lovely, even circle.

Now that wasn't so hard, was it? Basically painless! And you did a thing, way to go! I'm proud of you :)

Next step is adding the brim. We're going to make another circle with a radius about 2-3 inches longer. This can be accomplished by adding 2-3 inches to the string you used to draw out the 1st circle and  using the same push pin as an anchor.
Or you can measure a bunch of dots 2-3 inches out from various points along the perimeter of your 1st circle. However you do it, you should end up with 2 circles that look like this

Still with me? This is all pretty easy, right? It sounded intimidating, but you made it this far, and I'm proud of you. Next we're going to add in a seam allowance. Along the interior of the inner circle, using your finger as a guide (or a ruler if you wanna be fancy. It's .5 inch) draw in another circle. This is where you will actually cut. It is slightly smaller, because you're going to lose that .5 inch to seam allowance. If you cut along your 22" circle and then sew .5" in, that opening will jump to just over 25" which is kind of a huge jump. And it's going to droop around your ears like Fievel

Here's what your pattern should look like at this point. (minus the lines and numbers. That's just for your reference.) Go ahead and carefully cut along the dashed red, inner line, and the outermost line. You now have a poster board doughnut. Just don't eat it! If you feel the temptation is too strong, put your project down and take a break. You might even want to head down to your favorite doughnut shop for a tasty treat. I think you've earned it by now. Make sure you thoroughly wash your hands before picking your project back up.

And there you go. You've made your hat pattern. Try it on your head. Pull the blinds so the neighbors don't see. Otherwise they'll think you're a crazy person. And next thing you know, their kids aren't allowed to play with your kids, and they're crossing the street to avoid you when walking to the mailbox.
As you try it on, you can clip to the seam allowance every inch or so and bend the poster board up. That will give you a good idea of the size it will be when sewn together. Adjust as needed until you are comfortable with the fit. Remember, it should perch lightly on your head, not come down around your ears.

And that's it. Have fun, make hats, go to art school, invade Austria......wait. Um, maybe not that last one. Have another doughnut instead.

Let's make a hat!

Ok, so it's been a hot minute since I've blogged anything. I legitimately forgot that I ever even set this up until I found it today. That being said, probably no one reads this, since there are 4 posts from like 4 or 5 or 17 years ago. So, if you've forgotten who I am, I'm just your friendly, neighborhood crazy lady who makes stuff and does silly things.  (Usually late at night, hence the clever name of the blog)

So, back on topic, let's talk Flat Caps. I've been a cast member of our local Renaissance Festival for about 5 years. I've made a bunch of these neat little hats in a short amount of time. I like the versatility of them. They can be super simple peasant wear, or if you tart them up a bit, they can be a casual noble look.

Now that the obligatory background is out of the way, let's get to it, shall we?

Firstly, there are a few things you're going to need.
1. largish mixing bowl, or platter. It must be round, and a couple inches larger than your head
2. smallish mixing bowl or plate. It also must be round. But much closer to actual head size
3. Fabric. I feel like this is obvious. But yes, you are going to need some material to make the hat out of.
3.5 You also need some form of interfacing/structural do hickey in here. I like to use buckram because it makes me feel all fancy and legit. But I've also made these types of hat with iron on interfacing such as pellon. Once, as a proof of concept, I used 2 layers of canvass, and then sewed about a million lines of tiny stitches to mimic pad stitching. It worked, but it took forever, and was in general a giant pain in the butt. I don't want to discourage you, if that's your dream then you follow it. But if that's not your idea of a good idea, well.....learn from my folly.
4. Chalk or other fabric marking tool. I recommend tailor chalk. You can also use sidewalk chalk. I've even used Crayola washable marker in a pinch. If you're going to do that though, test it on a scrap of fabric first to make sure it's really going to wash out. Otherwise that will be awkward later.
5. Some method of sewing. Most people default to machines, but you can totally hand sew this or any other project
6. Scissors/pins

Whew, now that you've read 4 whole paragraphs and gathered a bunch of stuff you totally deserve a break. Go read a book, or eat a snickers, or run a marathon. Whatever relaxes you. Personally I enjoy naps and chocolate.




Step 1. Take your larger plate and trace out 4 circles on your fabric. I used this lovely dinner plate, but ultimately decided it was too small, so I tried again with a hat box lid.



Do whatever makes your pretty little head happy. I will say that your larger circle should be about 2-3 inches wider than your actual head. That excess is going to become the brim of your hat. And a brim of half an inch looks ridiculous. As does a giant 4-5 inch brim.
















2. Here is a pic of my Buckram. Notice the tic tac toe lines? That's to represent the grain/crossgrain of the buckram. A dear friend once told me that when using buckram, have one layer rotated 45 degrees on top of the other. That's supposed to help with the structural integrity, I think. Or it might just be witchcraft. Either way, he makes some truly magnificent things, so even if he just made it up, that's how I do it. You can feel free to ignore this advice, but be warned that if you do, you might bring a curse down upon your head.

If you are using iron on interfacing, you just need 1 layer, and it'll be ironed on, so no need for any grain shenanigans. When I use iron on interfacing, I like to iron it on to the base fabric before cutting the circle out. That way it's all lined up, and you don't have to worry about getting things just so.




3. This is where the Romeo/Juliet separation  begins (Don't worry this is going to have a much happier ending). 2 of your circles are going to be the crown of the hat and 2 circles + buckram or interfacing are going to become the brim of the hat. These star crossed lovers will eventually meet again. So don't be moved by their tears or protestations.

This lovely IKEA plate is the smaller plate I've chosen to use. You can see it is pretty much my-head-sized. Forgive my expression. I took myself by surprise with this pic. Oh, what a silly trickster I am, I never saw it coming!

4. Using the smaller plate, center it on your larger circle and trace. This is going to be cut out, and your head will eventually fit in this space.

                      

5. The careful reader will have noticed by now that I'm not the most somber or serious of instructors. That reader may not be shocked to realize that I don't always use the most technical terms, or specialty tools. If you've reached this point simply to be scandalized that I use my finger as a unit of measure, I apologize. And I suggest you look into procuring some smelling salts before proceeding.....I'll wait

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Ok, now that we're back. Let's move on. You'll notice that in the left picture I've made a dashed line on the inside of my traced line. For this hat, I wanted a smaller head opening. There are a lot of reasons one might want a smaller opening. For instance, if your plate is slightly too big for your head, or you like the compression because it makes your brain feel larger. In this case, it was for one of my children, so I wanted a smaller head hole. The dashed line was where I cut the fabric and the solid was where I sewed.

On the right, you can see I've made the dash line on the outside of the solid line. This is a hat for me, and I'll be putting it on my adult-sized head. Here the solid line is my cut line, and the dashed is my sewing line.
IMPORTANT NOTE!!!
*********If this is the first time you're making a hat like this and you aren't certain the plate to head ratios, I suggest that you start with a dashed inner line, and cut that. If will have a smaller head opening, but you can adjust. It's a law of nature, physics, and sewing that you can cut more away significantly easier than you can add back. So, start with a smaller head hole, and adjust til you're happy with it. On the plus side, if you have a decent memory, you can recall what you did the last time and skip the adjustment steps

  

5. I realize I already put a step 5. But I feel like I should be honest and own up to my mistakes. So, we're doing 5 again. Let's be real here, there's a lot of messing up and backtracking in sewing. Things don't always go right the first time, or even the second or fifteenth. And that's ok. We recognize, reconsider, and move on. Let's not dwell on past mistakes, ok?

(Also, side note here. My 11yo son was making waffles this morning. He forgot about the last batch and they burned something fierce. Like charcoal. I called him into the kitchen to have a quick chat about paying attention while cooking and the hazards of leaving appliances unattended. Poor kiddo was quaking. He kept apologizing, but I felt like he was more focused on not getting in trouble for making a mess than he was on recognizing what the problem was and how to avoid it in the future. I finally stopped and asked if I looked upset. I told him that I wasn't mad at all, I was trying to teach him something, and that no one is perfect their 1st try at a new thing. I didn't yell at him and I wasn't upset when he learned basic addition and proudly proclaimed that 2+2=5. There's no shame in mispronouncing a word you've never read before. Just teaching so that next time you do better. I hope I got through to him and that he realized that there's a degree of error in every new experience. I'm not upset when he makes mistakes, I just want him to learn.) I tell that story to illustrate that I'm not going to reach through the computer monitor and scream if you hit a hiccup. When you learn a new thing, stuff goes wrong the 1st time. And that's ok. Have some compassion for yourself. If you are the kind of person who would be horrified at the idea of me screaming at a child for a simple mistake, then you out to apply that same level of compassion towards yourself. And if you think I should have screamed at a child for learning something new, then I'm sorry for whoever/whatever has hurt you so deeply. Just know that you don't deserve the self-loathing you're suffering with.

Um, where was I? Oh yeah.



Step 6. Sew around the edges of both sets of circles. For the brim that will be 2 layers of fabric + buckram or interfacing. (Make a sandwich of Wrong Side up Fabric, Right side up Fabric, Buckram, Buckram.....or Wrong Side Up Fabric, Right side up fabric with interfacing ironed on to wrong side) Hope that makes sense. I'm breathing in a lot of burned waffle fumes today.

We're going to deal with the crown and brim separately for a bit here. This is the part where Romeo is banished for killing Tybalt. But he'll come back from Mantua soon enough.




















This brim has been turned right side out, and the inner circle has been cut from all layers.




The crown, on the other hand, has the inner circle cut from only ONE layer. This is IMPORTANT! Iv'e made the mistake of mixing up what I'm doing and cutting the circle from both crown layers. This results in a hat with a giant hole in it. And you're going to have to start over. So, be careful. Sometimes, when I can feel a bout of stupid coming on, I'll mark the crown and brim pieces with chalk so I don't mess up. There's no shame in being careful. It's better to ride a bike with training wheels than ride into a tree that then catches fire.

Step 7. Our Star crossed lovers reunite. But wait, they've changed. And poor Juliet is dead! What!?!?! Oh NO!........don't panic. Remember I said this was going to have a happier ending.

Since the inner circle cut is the same size on both pieces, they will fit nicely together. Do you know what that means? No Gathering! No PLEATING! It's just simple! Which means you've just saved yourself approx 117 hours. And I'm pretty sure that's enough time to teach yourself to speak Japanese.

***I've been informed by the aforementioned 11 yo  that you probably can't learn a foreign language in 117 hours. Sorry. You'll have to spend your free time in some other way. Maybe bake 117 cakes? Or just 50 cakes and use the rest of the time to vigorously exercise to combat your sudden and inexplicable weight gain.




Step 8. Our lovers are reunited! With the help of the Friar, Paris, Nurse, Balthasar, the Apothecary, (ok, really it's just straight pins. And no, I didn't actually name my pins. That would be insane)
Pin the heck out of this. There are a lot of layers, and you don't want shifting to happen. You're now going to sew the brim to the crown. This may involve some level of fabric yoga and manipulation to get it under the machine foot, but you can do it. I believe in you. Finish this seam in whatever way pleases you. You can bind it with bias tape, you can serge it, you can finish it with a zig zag stitch. Just so it doesn't fray and unravel and fall apart after all your hard work.



And just like that, you have a hat. You'll notice that this time I was much more alert. I din't have an opportunity to surprise myself like earlier.


VARIATIONS

We sewed right sides together on the brim and turned it right side out. This is the easiest way to do it, but now there's a bulky seam. You can choose instead of sew the Wrong Sides together, with interfacing/buckram sandwiched inbetween. And then use bias tape to bind the edge. Your bias can be matching, or contrasting for a sassy bit of color.
If you're doing the binding method, you can also choose to use millinary wire in the brim. Whip stitch this around the edge of the brim and cover it with your bias binding. Theoretically you can use a wide zig zag stitch to secure the millinary wire, however, I always break about 84 needles when I try this. So I find it easier to simply do that part by hand. The millinary wire makes your brim shapable, and a little more fancy.

Hatbands:
You can add a ribbon or some trim for decoration. This can be as simple as a bit of grossgrain ribbon, or it can be a sumptuous trim that's been beaded and blinged out. You can also add a feather or two depending on how saucy you're feeling.

Spunky Contrast. We used 4 circles of the same fabric for this hat. However, you can choose to use 3 circles of the same fabric, and 1 contrasting circle. That contrast is going to be the underbrim, and it can look pretty spiffy. All the steps are the same, you just need to make sure that when you attach crown and brim that the contrasting fabric is on the underside.

January create-a-day challenge

I decided that I need to get through some of my fabric and turn mountains back into molehills. It's a bit ridiculous how much unused fabric I have. And I still continue to get more and more and more. It's like an addiction. I'd join a 12 step program, but there's no crafter's anonymous. There really couldn't be either because if you had meetings, everyone would just make little favors/items/crafties for the other members.

But I really have a problem. In an effort to reduce my stash, I resolved to sew something every day in January.....I also resolved to use 6 yards of fabric for every 1 yard I buy. It's only Jan. 4 and I've already broken that one :-(. But I've been good about sewing.

So far this year I've sewn:
a curtain for the kids' puppet theater
2 pairs of pj pants for my brother
a reversible peasant dress for my daughter (total pain in the patootie. I've resolved to never try that again)
a twirly knit circle skirt for my daughter
3 pairs of pj pants for my little monster
2 pairs of pj pants for my SIL
jammies for my cousin
jammies for my husband
and a brown crinoline/petticoat underskirt for my daughter.

In 4 days I've busted through 31.5 yards of fabric!!!

Of course, JoAnn had their red tag clearance fabrics on sale for an additional 50% off. So I fell off the fabric abstinence wagon :-( I bought *mumble mumble 16* ahem...so, yeah. Not doing so great on that front. But the wool alone was worth it. I regret nothing. Nothing I tell you. Ok, maybe just a little. But seriously, 100% wool for $9/yard. I'm only human. So I only have to sew 64.5 yards worth of projects to get back to my 6:1 ratio. That shouldn't take too long, right? After all, my favorite projects are peasant dresses and jammie pants for the kids. And they use up a whopping 1.5/1 yard respectively. So it looks like I'll be sewing more for me and the hubster since our projects eat up fabric like crazy.

Story time: learning to sew

Well, it's 2am, and I should be sleeping. I could be hemming the elephant dress I made over the weekend. I could be finishing the Smurfette pajama pants I made for my sister-in-law eleven billion years ago. looking for the Smurfette pajama pants I made eleven billion years ago but still have to put the elastic waistband in.

But I'm not doing any of those things. I just finished the puppet theater curtain. Tomorrow I'll get a picture of that. I feel like I got off on a tangent. What was I saying again??? Oh yeah, I'm not doing anything I should be doing. Instead I'm thinking about sewing, and how I got started.

When I was a little girl, my mom sewed for me. I'm about 8 or 9 years old before I'm wearing a store bought dress in holiday/school/family portraits. As I got older, I got to help her. Every year Mom made something for the family reunion raffle. I remember aprons, blankets, quillows, pillows, etc. Every year she was sewing. A lot of the time she was still sewing (and sometimes swearing) the night before, or even the day we were supposed to be leaving.

The birth of a baby in the family was also a sewing occasion. Babies got baby blankets. It was just a fact of life. And when I finally reached high school, my mom sewed formal dresses for me. I eventually got to the point where I was cutting the pattern pieces, and pinning pieces for my mom, under her direction. I understood how patterns worked, but I never really learned how to follow the printed instructions that came with. Mom always did the actual sewing.

She said she didn't want to teach me, because she didn't do it "right" and she didn't want me to pick up her bad habits. I got my disdain for ironing seams, and laissez faire attitude towards pattern instructions from her despite her good intentions. And unfortunately, since she didn't want me to be a girly girl, I ended up in Shop instead of Home Ec. So I never learned the basics. I never learned how to sew a zipper, or do buttonholes. I still don't know how to do a blind hem. And the last time I tried to make a lined dress, I sewed each individual lining piece to the corresponding dress piece. So I had extra thick exposed seams, and kind of defeated the purpose to lining.

The first time I attempted to sew a dress with a zipper in it, I got so scared of actually putting the zipper in, that I put it off until Little Miss outgrew the dress. But I persevered. I kept trying zippers, and eventually I got pretty comfortable with them. Of course, it helped that my sweet, patient, and supportive husband bought me a zipper foot for Christmas. YouTube tutorials also helped a lot.

Then my sweet little girl discovered buttons. They're so "boo-ful" and Jo-Ann had them on sale for 50% off. So we grabbed a bunch, and I sat down to teach myself how to do a buttonhole stitch. I still can't figure out the stupid buttonhole foot, or the special buttonhole stitch on my sewing machine. But, with the narrowest, smallest zig zag stitch, I make do. The first time I decided to try a buttonhole, I didn't have anything to mark my fabric. So I raided the kids' art supplies and found a chalk stick. That was less than ideal as a marker, but it did wash out very easily. From there I moved on to a white colored pencil. And this week I finally remembered to pick up an actual, honest-to-goodness fabric marking pencil. I feel so grown up! :)

So, that's my story. That's how I came to the point where I am now. I mostly fiddle around and mess up a bunch of times until I figure out how something works and eventually get good at it. (or give up and vow never to go near knits again). And that's also why I can't just follow the dang directions. I have to muddle through, mess up, and try again in order to make my brain understand what's going on. Luckily this method gives me a good understanding of the concept and how to experiment and modify an idea. So now I can do some rudimentary pattern drafting, I can alter an existing pattern, and I can Frankenstein  together a garment with pieces from various sources. And that makes life fun and interesting.

Blinged out dresser of awesome!

So, Little Miss has been in need of a new dresser for a while. One of my husband's aunts gave us a dresser for her, but it's too light, and easy for Timmy to drag down on himself. It was the dresser that gave Timmy 9 stitches.

This new one is shorter, wider, and heavier. So hopefully it's less tippable. So I began to search and search and search various Goodwill stores. And my searching paid off. I found a nice, new-to-us dresser for only $20. Unfortunately, it was ugly. Dark brown, with a chipped drawer. Yuck. It would have been fine, but I knew it could be better.

So I decided to spray paint it. I've never painted furniture before, and I don't have a ton of experience with spray paint for that matter. But I did know that it could be done. So I jumped into the van, headed down to Walmart and picked up spray primer, purple, pink and green paint. I had a hard time with the dang dresser knobs until I stopped being lazy and finally unscrewed them. It was much easier to paint them separately.

That's the finished product. Pretty, right? Well, I thought it was a bit pink-heavy. The original "vision" was a purple dresser with pink accents. So I put my thinking cap on and decided to bling it out.

I super glued purple, plastic gemstones onto the drawer knobs. While I was reminding myself why I don't use super glue, I let Courtney put the pre-adhesified mirrors onto the drawers. It makes me a little twitchy because there's no rhyme or reason, or balance to the mirror placement. But that's what happens when you let a 3 year old go to town and then glue your hand to the driveway.

Final result: AWESOME! Courtney loves her new dresser, and it required both me and my husband to carry it, so I've got my fingers crossed that Timsy won't be able to use it to aid in his self-destruction.

Cost:
Dresser: $19.99 - 20% off coupon = $15.99
Spray paint: 3 @ $3.67 ea = $11.01
Mirror decals: $4.87
gems: had 'em on hand

Total: $31.87

Not too shabby! :D Little Miss has an awesome new dresser that she loves. She spent most of the day rearranging her drawers and moving her clothes around. I don't understand her system at all, but as long as her clothes are off the floor, I'm a happy momma.

Whew, let's get this party started!

Ok, so I used to blog like 70 bazillion years and 18 kids ago. Well, maybe more like 5 years and 2 kids ago. But it's me. And if you can't handle some exaggeration embellishment, we're not going to be friends :(

I've been reading a lot of blogs and sharing a lot of stuff on facebook lately, and I had one of my late night great ideas. I decided I'll start a new blog. My idea is that I can share the fun stuff I've been up to, and also make goals that I have to get done because a blog will give me accountability. If I tell the blog I'm gonna do it, well then by gum I'd better not let the blog down. The blog is counting on me.

I'm not going to lie, most of the stuff I put out here is going to be a bit odd. That comes from being an oddball, combined with primarily posting after midnight when any sane person would be asleep. Or at least, any sane person with 3 kids who are going to wake up at 6am, no matter what time their crazy mommy went to bed.

It's currently 1:30 a.m. and I just finished a new dress for Courtney. I swear, that child keeps me chained to my sewing machine. But she has the most fabulous wardrobe, if I do say so myself :) I started the bright elephant dress yesterday, but I decided I hated the way the bodice was coming together. So today after church I made a new one from various pattern pieces I Frankensteined together. And I decided that since I have some freaking adorable elephant buttons, I should use them instead of a zipper (like the pattern wanted me to use. What can I say? I'm a rebel.) So I modified the Franken Bodice. I still have to hem the dang thing, but since it's basically a circle skirt, it needs to hang for a while.

Tomorrow I'll try to get pictures of the dress up. Or maybe the next day. It might be too dark for pics by the time I get it hemmed. (or actually tomorrow since it's after midnight and currently technically tomorrow, which makes tomorrow the day after tomorrow) And on that note, I'm off to bed.