Easy Cadet Hat Tutorial Boy Girl or Adult Lots of Pics!

Here is the pattern I came up with to make hats for my little kids at school (toddler age). It fit all the kids (though a little looser on some) and even fits my 5 year old - but I think he has a small head like me! :) They turned out so great I wanted to make one for myself. It was so simple, I made 6 in one night.

1. Use a heavier weight fabric like denim, corduroy, duck, decorator (apholstery), or twill. The blue owl hat is twill and the grey butterfly one is corduroy.

Here is what you need:

-enough fabric to make a band 4" x (head circumference) and a circle up to 10" in diameter. I always buy a yard of fabric, but I think 1/3 would be plenty. You could even use up scraps and make it kind of a patchwork hat.

-cutting mat and rotary cutter (optional but very helpful, you can cut out with scissors if you don't have these.)

-a compass or if you don't have one (like me!) then use a round object that is close to diameter you need - I used a plate.

-straight edge ruler for cutting and measuring the band part. -notebook for calculations and to write down sizes (sorry, I am making you do math!) you might also want a calculator.

-fabric marking pen (but I just used a plain one because it doesn't show anyway).

-paper or cardstock if you want to make a paper pattern for your hat.-soft measuring tape .-matching thread (and a sewing machine of course!).

-optional: embellishments such as buttons, ribbons, appliques, etc. fray check if you want to keep the inside seams from unravelling. 1/4" or 3/8" elastic if desired.

3. Measure the victim's - I mean recipient's - head circumference but wrapping the soft tape around the head at the forehead then angle down a bit around back and over the ears. Sorry, I didn't get a pic of this. If you don't have the person around to measure, just look up some "average" head sizes and go from there - it doesn't have to be perfect.

For the kid's hat, the circumference was about 20 inches or so - I went with 21 to add a bit for seam allowance. This was a little big on the 1 year olds, but fit my 5 year old great. Mine was around 21.5 if that gives you an idea. Just remember, I have a small head!

4. Calculate the diameter of the circle for the top of the hat. Remember "pi"? Well, this is what it's for! You take your circumference and divide by pi (3.14) and that gives you the diameter of a circle with that circumference. Again, this doesn't have to be exact. I fudged a little and went with:

Kids Small 21 inch cir divided by 3 = 7" diameter. The plate I used was actually around 6.5", so I just cut down the band a tiny bit to fit the circle when sewing.

Kids Large/Adult Small 24 inch circ divided by 3 = 8" diameter. I found this to actually be a little bit big, (remember my circ was actually closer to 22") but my plate was 8" and I didn't want to figure out how to draw a circle. You'll see how I made up for it at the end!

5. OPTIONAL - Make a pattern for your hat. Using your straight edge ruler draw out a strip that is 4" wide and the length of your circumference for the band. Using your template (aka my plate) trace your circle for the top of the hat piece. For the brim trace 1/2 of the circle, move the plate up so you have a 1/2 moon shape and trace again - make sure it is the width you'd like for the brim. That's it! Only three pieces to this pattern. (I told you it was easy.)

I didn't use a pattern, I just traced and cut directly on the fabric (cuz I'm lazy and LOVE to cut corners, he he).

6. Cut out your pieces - I love my rotary cutter for this step. For the brim, fold your fabric over so you can cut both pieces at the same time. You only need to cut one of the top and band. I like to fold it and cut so I get enough pieces for two hats at once - just remember you have to do 2 brims then.7. Stitch the ends of your band together with right sides of fabric together. ALL stitches here on out are regular straight stitches unless otherwise noted.8. Sew your brim pieces together - right sides of fabric together OUTER CURVE only. Then turn it right side out.9. Now this part is a little tricky. I hardly ever pin (remember when I said I'm lazy?) but it is very helpful on this step. We are going to pin the top of the hat (the circle) to the band, right sides together. It takes a little patience to pin a straight edge to a curve, but you can do it! Then stitch the pieces together and turn right side out. It's already looking like a hat! :)
10. Now we are going to add the brim. If there is a side you like better, pin it on with that side FACING the right side of the hat. I like to fold the hat and the brim in half and pin to match up the middles. Then pin the entire brim piece to the front of the hat piece and stitch together. Fold the brim down and voila!
11. Now, to hem the bottom start at the edge of the brim. You will fold the bottom of the hat under about 1/4" - on the brim part, fold the band part down slightly onto the brim and stitch down.

It's kind of hard to tell, but the first pic shows folding the band down slightly on the brim (sort of covered by my fingers) and the next pic is the underside where it is folded under.

Continue stitching making sure that the corner of the brim is stitched nicely under the band part. Keep stitching all around the hat, folding under 1/4" as you go. You could pin the entire thing if you prefer, I just eye-balled it.

*Note* If you don't want a raw edge on the bottom, you can hem once THEN add the brim, then continue to hem a 2nd time as directed here.

12. Lastly top stitch the front edge of the brim for a crisp look. And you're done! :)13. Unless you want to do more... You can add buttons, appliques, bows, faux flowers, etc.

14. Now, I didn't like how loose mine fit, so I added some elastic to the back half. I just stitched with a zig zag slightly narrower than the elastic, pulling the elastic tight as I sewed. (top pic is before, bottom is after, then the back view).

That wasn't so bad, was it? I knew you could do it! Enjoy putting your new hat on yourself or your little one!

Trying to Conceive Baby #2

Well, for some time now Erik and I have been trying for baby #2. Ash was easy enough (one try!) so we didn't think it would be a big deal. We were wrong.

After a year and a half of trying we finally saw a fertility specialist. In that time I learned to chart my cycles and track ovulation and learned a lot and made some great friends on the Baby Center website. I had my hormones tested and everything came back normal. I was ovulating late in my cycle, so we tried Clomid to shorten it and that seemed to work. Then I had a HSG done - and that found my uterus was completely blocked. The condition is known as Asherman's syndrome and it is caused be uterine scarring or adhesions. It most often occurs after a D & C but I've never had one, so must have been from Ash's C-section. A few days later we found out that Erik also has a low count, but the motility and shape are good. I will be making a plan with the RE (reproductive endocrinologist) on Tuesday and will update.

Trying and not conceiving can be very hard - and something not a lot of people understand. Some will tell you to "just relax and it will happen" in an attempt to help. Well, it doesn't help when you feel like they are telling you that it's your own fault because you aren't relaxed enough. Seeing pregnant women and babies can feel like a slap in the face. No one wants to feel like that. I am hoping that by being open about our struggle, I can help others understand the hurt and frustration a little bit more. If you want to know how to "help" someone struggling to concieve, then this is my advice. Be a shoulder to cry on, be sympathetic, and don't distance yourself just because you don't understand what to do. Most of us don't mind questions and it is very freeing to talk out some of the issues.

I welcome any and all questions about my personal journey!

I'm Ba-ack!

Well, life just gets away, doesn't it?!

I am happy to say I'm back to blogging and can't wait to share all kinds of fun stuff. I'll be taking some time off this summer, so should be updated all my sites and sewing a lot of fun stuff.

Can't wait to let you all know what's going on!

Home remedies: bugs, vomit and blood stains!

Hi all! Sorry it has been a while, you know, life and all...

Lately I've had quite a few "fun" experiences. I love looking up remedies online and am excited to say that a lot of the natural remedies work great! AND you may already have it sitting in the cupboard - which was great today. My son had a bloody nose and it's a blizzard outside (literally!). Well, here's the breakdown of what I've tried. Next step: clean the ENTIRE house!!!!

1. Get vomit smell out of carpet with baking soda

Okay, so for some reason the carpet in my son's room is off-white. I do not recommend this! In fact, go for hard wood if you can... One day he was sick with a pretty bad stomach bug. My husband told him not to wake up Mommy, so he didn't. Even though he had vomited all over the said white rug. So, when I finally found it, it was set in and smelled horrible! I scraped up the pieces that I could and then cleaned it with dish soap and cold water. That worked pretty well, but there was still a light stain and the stench remained. I went to the store and got some carpet spot cleaner for the rest of the stain and it still smelled horrible. I used Febreze which masked it temporarily. I tried the scented carpet sprinkle - then it smelled like flowers AND vomit - not exactly an improvement. My husband could still smell it when he got home from work. Finally I decided to try baking soda which I had read about online. It worked awesome!!!! I sprinkled it very generously on the stinky area and left it for half a day. Then I vaccuumed it up, and voila the smell was gone! No perfumy smells needed to cover it up either.

2. Get rid of lice with salt and a metal comb, repel them with tea tree oil.

Another day my son was sitting with me watching a movie and I saw something crawling in his hair - ewwww! He had gotten lice from preschool. Well, I went right to the drugstore for the pesticide shampoo that my Mom used when we were kids and followed the directions. It seemed to help, but the plastic nit comb to get the eggs out didn't work at all and I spent more than an hour picking the eggs out by hand. I also vaccuumed and washed everything (linens, hat, clothes, etc.) in hot water and dried on high heat. He still had some live ones, but a lot fewer, so I repeated the procedure as recommended by the product. A week later he STILL had them and managed to spread them to me as well! I have long thick hair, so needless to say, I was NOT happy! So I repeated the chemical shampoo on both of us and had my sister help comb my hair. Then I started reading up on other experiences and found that lice are becoming resistant to these insecticides. Not only that, but they are dangerous to humans and the environment. Tea tree oil was recommended to repel lice, so I bought some shampoo and conditioner with tea trea oil. I figured I would just use this and then get a good metal comb and comb all the little buggers out. Time consuming, but safer. Well, I couldn't find just a lice comb but I did find this stuff called Licefreee! which had a metal comb included in the kit. It is homeopathic remedy that doesn't use chemicals - it uses a salt solution to dehydrate the bugs AND the nits (chemicals only kill the adults). It smelled kind of wierd (like black licorice) but worked great! The metal comb gets out all the eggs and bugs and the salt solution worked on both of us after only ONE treatment. Now I use the tea tree oil conditioner on both of us to keep them repelled. I still use the metal comb occasionally to make sure we aren't reinfected - so far so good! I would definately buy the Licefreee! again but you could also make your own salt solution at home.

3. Drown fleas in soapy water and vaccuum them up

Then... my cat got out, for like 30 seconds, and ended up with fleas. Well, the metal comb gets the fleas out great and then you dunk them in soapy water (they jump right out of regular water!) If I had the patience, I would just keep combing her, but she really freaks out. I wanted to try the tea trea oil, but found out it can be toxic to cats. I also didn't want to traumatize her with a bath. Some people recommend using dish soap, but cats' skin and livers are so sensitive I didn't want to try it. In the end I went with the vet recommended chemical spot treatment and vaccuumed really well. I did not want to use the chemical sprinkle for the carpet and stuff, though, and just vaccuuming seems to work. The vet told me that vaccuuming eggs from the carpet will make them hatch, so be sure to get rid of the bag right away. I also read about sprinkling some DE (a dust sold in landscaping stores) but it sounds like it might be dangerous as well (inhaling dust) and you have to let it sit on your carpet for like 24 hours. Still waiting to see if they are all gone, she just got the spot treatment 2 days ago.

4. Get blood stains out of carpet with salt and hydrogen peroxide

So my most recent adventure consisted of getting the blood out of my son's carpet (yep, same one he vomited on) and also our living room. My husband got to deal with this one, but when the carpet spot cleaner didn't work, he gave up. And it just sat there.... until I finally decided to clean it myself. So, now it is nice and dried in. Back to the internet to see what other people had tried. Again, I'm trying to keep the house safe and environmentally friendly so I wanted to avoid chemicals if possible. I found that table salt and peroxide both seemed to be widely recommended, could be used together, and I had both in the cupboard! So, I sprinkled salt directly on the stains and then dipped a washcloth in a 50/50 water/peroxide solution and rubbed the stains out. The salt absorbs the blood - I think it works better when the blood is fresher, though. You know how peroxide bubbles on your skin? It does the same thing on the carpet and seems to eat the blood away. I noticed a difference right away! There were some tougher spots that required more than one go at it, and I think some of it got rubbed in too far in the fibers, but it is gone in most spots and barely visible in others. It got the stains out of both white and blue carpets. I was afraid the peroxide might fade the color, but it didn't at all. After it all dries, you can vaccuum up any excess salt.

So, there you go! A few easy home remedies to try out. Good luck, and I'd love to hear from you guys any great tips you might have!

I made my own wool soaker longies!

Okay, so I didn't get so much sewing done the last few days... :-( BUT I did make some wool longies for my 4 year old, yay! He still wets at night sometimes and he doesn't like all the layers of a cloth pullup cover and pants. This way all he needs is the pullup and the wool pants that protect the sheets if it leaks. They turned out pretty cute, but the sweater arms were a bit too baggy so it looks kind of gathered at the leg seam. Anyway, he likes them and it was a great project. I can't wait to try and make some more! Oh, and I made them out of a second hand merino wool sweater and they are SOO soft! If you think wool is too rough, you gotta try merino. I hope to work on lots more this weekend and will be sure to post pics soon. Hopefully my son will be feeling much better. He still had a fever of 101 last night, but seems to be acting okay. If he still has it tonight, I'll call the nurse to see if he needs to be checked out. Happy weekend everyone!

Nicki

New Bib and Hat Sewing Patterns

Hi all! I am so excited to try some new ideas I got for making baby bibs and knit hats. Thank goodness I have two sisters with babies, LOL. My 4 year old "baby" is sick, so I'm looking forward to sewing tonight/tomorrow while he recovers. I will be sure to post back to this when I get them done. I'll show you all some pics and the directions are super easy, so I can post those too. I've got belly-dancing tonight, then on to sewing! Chat at you later.

Nicki

My New Blog

Hello all!

Welcome to my very first blog post!

I am a working Mom trying to earn a living from home to spend more time with my son and possibly another baby soon. I recently opened my first webstore to sell the hand made cloth diapering items I sew. I also sell many things on eBay.

In this blog I will talk about my products, transitioning from working to working from home, being a working parent, parenting in general, cloth diapering, and other natural baby items.

I welcome any and all comments and suggestions. Thanks for checking me out, and enjoy!