Christmas Crown Tutorial

A rack of hats? A millinery of hats? A fascination of hats?  Choose your own collective noun! 

What I actually have is a dozen hats ready for Christmas, as we're moving away from Christmas crackers.

Time to write an outline tutorial, in case I find that I need to make some more!

The basic pattern is based on a sheet of A4.  To make your own, cut a 5" strip of the longest length of your A4 paper.

Fold a 1/4"  for a tab overlap at one end, and then fold the rest into quarters.  Mark 4 points for the top, and draw a line at 2/5" up the strip, and join the top points up with the line with 45 degree lines to make the crown shape.

You will use the pattern piece twice, ending up with a shape that is roughly 23.25" long and 5" tall, with 8 points and a tab at either end.

I drew round the template onto interfacing and interlocked the patterns (with a slight offset at each end so that the points interlocked).  I made six pairs.  It's economical for your interfacing and fabric to do this.

Next I ironed the interfacing onto  the wrong side of one of my fabrics, keeping the pair together.

Then, layer up with the second fabric, right sides together.

Sewing next!  Sew 1/4" in from the drawn lines, sew around the two hats, leaving a generous opening to turn through open along the plain edge of the crown.

When sewing around the 'tabs' I made one closed and one open.  Once the crown is turned through you can then turn  under the edge of the open one and slot the closed one into it.  It makes it quite easy!

Once the sewing is finished, cut the hats apart down the drawn lines.

Then trim off the points and clip the valleys, being careful not to snip through the stitching.

Settle down for a few minutes of hat wrangling, turning through to show the right sides of both fabrics, and poking out the points as well as you can.

Once it's turned through, it's time to slot those tabs together and make the flat shape into a round crown.

I might also iron the creases to make sure the seam over the turning gap stays neat.

Time to top stitch now!  

I start by making a row of stitches down the tab, to join the crown ends together.  Then top stitch around all the points, stitch again down the tab, and then along the bottom of the crown, which will sew the turning gap closed.

Done!  Repeat until you have sufficient for your needs.

I did also make one with a ribbon tie (sewn in at both 'tabs') so it could be a variable size, but after trying the sewn version on a variety of head sizes, I decided that I didn't need to do that.

I was going to decorate them with sequins and beads, but decided that I'd rather be able to wash and iron them easily!