free summer hat patterns for children — Robin Mitchell Cranfield

Note: This was originally published on June 2, 2013 on hundreds.ca/notebook. Links are updated.

There are some cheap & cheerful children's hats at some of the local big box shops around here. But I just did some loose math in my head: It takes me about a couple of hours to get out to a shop and back and I don't always find what I'm looking for. Finding boy's things is especially tricky (unless you like sort of surfer-golf style, which isn't our thing). Now that I'm not pushing a sleeping baby around in a stroller, and instead have a wide-awake, running-around little boy, shopping doesn't fit in my schedule very well right now and we're not really enjoying it.

I have a few boxes of fabric to use up, so if I can do an item in under 5 hours, the extra two to four hours it takes is the cost of the item. So I've been doing little bits of sewing here and there instead of going shopping.

What got me thinking about this in the first place is that the store where we bought our summer hat last year was involved in a sweatshop incident. Overseas manufacturing is a complicated issue, and it's not that we'll never shop at a big box store again. But it's another reason I'd like us to buy less. We don't always know who is making our clothing, or in what conditions.

There are two handsome, free hat patterns available online: a unisex reversible bucket hat from Oliver + S (now updated to $8.95, sorry!) and a simple boy's hat from By MiekKe. They were simple and turned out fine. I used cotton poplin for the lining and didn't make them reversible. If you'd like my pattern notes (especially for the By Miekke, which is in Dutch) just visit Windy (this is an old and archived blog) later today to see them.