I bought some yarn over Christmas to make a lace hat. I figured this would be a fairly quick and easy project, but I ended up making the hat three times before it fit right. The first hat was way too loose to stay on my head and the second hat was a bit too short. The third hat fit well, though, so I thought I would share the pattern modifications that I made.

I got the pattern here, but the yarn I used was a sport weight bamboo blend. Because of the smaller yarn, I also decided to use size 4 knitting needles. As the pattern suggests, I made eight repeats of the pattern despite the smaller gauge I was using. It fits close to my head, which is what I wanted since wind and “cold” usually go together in CA. Plus, this way I can wear it under a bike helmet.

The first change I made to the pattern was to make the ribbing border a bit longer than one inch: I just made 10 rows of ribbing. This change was purely aesthetic on my part. Next, because of the smaller guage, I repeated the lace pattern 11 times rather than the 7 suggested by the pattern. Other than that, I just followed the pattern. I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. And really glad to be done with it!

This one fits!

When my parents came out to visit last year, my mom was looking for a white silk shirt but was unable to find one she liked. She asked me to make her one and I have been slowly chugging away at it ever since. This is probably the most complex project I’ve taken on so far, but I think it turned out well in the end.

I didn’t have a pattern for a women’s button down shirt (I’ve made several for Lloyd), so I drafted one myself. I based the pattern on a basic long sleeve t-shirt pattern I had for myself and modified it to have a front seam and for size. I modified the sleeves to be looser and made up the rest of the pattern.

This is the muslin pattern that I made and pinned together modeled by my dress form. I didn’t bother making two sleeves since they are identical.

First, I found an off-white silk in a light weight that I liked. I had worked with a sheer silk before and it was awful so I was a bit nervous about cutting the fabric, but it was actually fine to work with. The only issue that I had was the silk frayed easily once it was cut, but that was pretty manageable.

I wanted all of the seams closed so I used a french seam for the seams in the body of the shirt. This meant that there were no raw edges exposed so fraying wouldn’t occur. I learned french seams for this shirt, so a few practice goes on some scrap fabric were required first.

Interior french seams.

I also used my fancy hemming presser foot that I’d never had an excuse to use before so I had to learn how to use that as well. I really liked the results and will definitely be finding uses for the presser foot in the future.

Such a tiny seam!

I reinforced the button area using fusible interfacing which, in a shocking turn of events, I’d never used before. I used the same interfacing on the collar and cuff bands. It made the shirt look a lot crisper and more finished.

It took a lot more ironing that I I thought it would.

I hand stitched the collar to the shirt because I haven’t found a way to do it on the machine that I really like. I’ve hand stitched the collars to most of Lloyd’s shirts as well.

The finished collar as attached.

For the cuffs, I had recently learned how to make corded loops and decided they had to feature in the closure mechanism. This required a new button purchase since corded loops require a button with a shank – which was not what I used for the front.

The cuff closure mechanism.

The cuff with the new buttons.

Basically, I got in over my head on this one, but I think I executed it well.

The finished shirt.

The back of the shirt as finished.

A few years ago, I made Lloyd a couple of pairs of cargo khaki pants. The fabric is holding up well, but the pockets have been repeatedly shredded. It turns out that pocket fabric just isn’t designed to hold up to heavy tools and rocket parts. In the past few months, I’ve been replacing all of the pockets with ripstop nylon. It was an easier process that I expected and yields much sturdier pockets.

The first step is to cut out the old pocket fabric and cut out a corresponding piece in ripstop nylon. This can be a creative experience depending on how many holes are in the pocket.

Pin the new pocket material in place. I try to leave about a 1/4″ of pocket fabric around the khaki areas and pin and sew to this.

Next, whip stitch the nylon to the existing pocket material.

Use a running stitch to attach the nylon to itself at the bottom of the pocket.

Now you have a finished pocket! This should hold up to just about anything.

During our Colorado road trip, Lloyd and I made an emergency stop in Moab to buy some sun hats and sun block after getting way more sun than we were expecting. The hats we ended up getting were pretty silly, but they blocked the sun quite nicely. Since then, they’ve gotten a lot of use, but are a bit too warm so I decided to modify mine to give it more ventilation.

The original silly hat.

First, I separated the brim (which I wanted to keep) from the top of the hat. There was also a band lining I had to take out in the process.

Then I took apart the top part of the hat and kept these two pieces as patterns for the new fabric.

I cut the new pieces out of athletic mesh that I had previously used for a Bay to Breakers costume.

After I had cut out the pieces, I sewed them back into the shape of the top of the hat and then attached it to the brim. Finally, I sewed the band lining back in place. The hat turned out pretty well and looked like it was made that way originally. I’m pretty happy with it – as a silly hat.

The finished product; it’s still a silly hat, but a much cooler silly hat.