Batman Chef’s Hat
This is my first completed sewing project on my sewing machine. Ravi and Jess threw a “Crazy Hat Party”, so I figured it was a good time to start a small project and complete it. I found a McCall’s pattern with both an apron (need one for the kitchen) and a chef’s hat (goofy looking, yet possibly practical), so I decided to make a chef’s hat but use an interesting fabric to make it “crazy”.
Materials:
1 yard of Batman Brick Wall 100% cotton fabric (most of it used) $5.99
30″ of 3/4″ wide Velcro (3″ used) $1.49
McCall’s Pattern M2233 – Chef Uniform Essentials $1.99
Red thread
Total cost: $9.47
I haven’t figured out how to organize the costs, since I obviously don’t use all of the material I buy specifically for the project. I think if I already had it before I thought of doing the project or mentioned it in a previous sewing post, I won’t include it in the cost.
This sewing project was very simple, as I wanted my first sewing project to be. The pattern basically consists of a giant circle for the poofy part and a rectangle for the base. Even though it was easy, I still made several mistakes as I didn’t know some of the terminology in the instructions, so there were parts where I winged it. I’m not sure how long it took, since I did this at my leisure over a couple days, but it wasn’t very long.
1. The most n00b and risky mistake I made was sewing over one of the pins. This is bad, as you risk damaging or breaking your sewing machine needle. (Some people do this on purpose, sewing very slowly to avoid damage, but generally it’s not good practice.) However, I didn’t just sew over the pin, I sewed over the head of the pin. Luckily, Sandra just convinced me to buy flathead pins, so in needle vs. pinhead, needle won. So I think my current sewing needle is fine, but I ended up sewing a pin to my hat. That was a bitch to rip out.
2. The next n00b mistake I made was completely ignoring the term “interfacing” in the instructions. Apparently, I was supposed to buy interfacing, which is a textile you sew into your fabrics to stiffen it. It’s what’s used to make shirt collars stiff. I didn’t notice on the pattern envelope that I was supposed to get this interfacing stuff, and I didn’t know what it was in the instructions. I was supposed to get some so the base of the hat would be nice and rigid. Oops. Thankfully, the hat still had decent form without the interfacing.
3. There was a small portion that required hand sewing. I still don’t have good hand sewing technique, plus I’m hella lazy, so the hand sewn part is really ghetto (loose, wide apart, ugly).
4. Originally, you’re supposed to Velcro the left flap of the hat over the right flap of the hat. My left flap ended up looking a lot uglier than my right flap (instead of having a nice edge, I accidentally sewed some the gather on the end, exposing the wrong side of the fabric), so I flipped the Velcro placing so the left flap would be hidden.
5. I was too lazy to sew finishing stitches around the edges of the base.
6. Tho the instructions didn’t say to do this, next time I’d sew the Velcro on before sealing the base. I don’t like the rectangular stitches that show up on the other side.
Yeah, those were the things I need to learn from in this project. It still turned out pretty okay; I mean, it looks like a chef hat! Now that I have a nice Batman chef hat, maybe I should actually start cooking…
Related posts:
