Emma Garry

This year I’ve a few summer hats, mainly for a friend who has been having chemo, they came out pretty well so I decided to try making myself a couple of winter hats.

I used a pattern by Emma Garry for a reversible bucket hat. She’s based in Ilkley, just up the road. When I bought the pattern it was Emma herself who was serving me, she happened to mention that it works well in winter weight fabrics such as tweeds, I decided to try fleeces first.

The pattern goes together really easily and it’s also easy to adapt to vary the shape slightly. Having made the hats in the summer I knew I wanted the brim slightly deeper, I added about 1.5cm to the depth. The fleece was from B&M fabrics in Leeds market, two half metre lengths cost me all of £4, my original plan was to make a navy one and a camel one but I decided instead to make it reversible by using both fleeces. Having stitched the hat together I top-stitched round and round the brim in a spiral until I reached the main hat, I find it gives a bit more structure to  the brim.

I was pretty pleased how it came out as a general-everyday-going-on-the-bus sort of hat however my OH didn’t look over enamoured with the look, ‘…but you don’t do hats!’ was his response! He did look a bit happier when I shaped the brim down on one side. I do have to admit that in these photos I do look a bit of a mad woman!!

Undeterred I decided to try another hat. Again the fabric was from B&M, but this time it was a gorgeous black fur, it feels fabulous and soft, but boy, the fluff gets everywhere!!

I’ve not sewn with fur before and I have to admit I won’t be rushing out to make a coat anytime soon, even though I just love the fabric. I used a walking foot and lots and lots of pins, but it still wasn’t easy to work with. The pattern calls for edge-stitching round the crown, I did it but it was impossible to get the neat look I was after. I went round the stitching afterwards to ease out the fur which was flattened by the stitches. When it came to the brim, I still wanted to at least top-stitch once round but I decided to hand-stitch round instead which worked pretty well.

I varied the pattern a bit for this one, I made the crown deeper as I wanted it to keep my ears warm and I made the brim a bit deeper still. I love this one, I wore it last week to my daughters Army Passing Out parade, after 2 hours on a cold parade ground my feet might have been frozen but my ears were toastie warm!

One Very Proud Mum!