I like to wear a wide-brimmed hat during the summer months. I’ve been wearing the same hat hat since the mid to late 1990s. This year I wanted to upgrade my style and have a hat with a wider brim. It didn’t take long to find a few different hat tutorials on the internet. In this post I review the Lorenna Buck Designs Sun Hat Pattern. It’s a feminine style of wide-brimmed hat.

A link to the PDF pattern and instructions is available here:

Lorenna Buck Sun Hat

Note this project is for non-commercial use only.

For the purposes of my review, I’m going to summarize the tutorial, tell you what I did differently (if anything) and share my general thoughts about sewing the project.

The tutorial beings with a photograph of a finished hat. Next is the supplies list. Home décor weight cotton and quilting weight cotton are recommended for this project. I used poplin weight cotton and home decor weight cotton so my hat is lighter and more translucent than it would be otherwise. If I was making this project again, I would interface all of my poplin pieces to better approximate the weight and thickness of quilting weight cotton.

Step 0 Cut your materials

Initially I had considered making my hat reversible by cutting the lower rim and lining pieces out of the same fabric. When I realized how much lighter cotton poplin was compared to quilting weight cotton, I decided that I would rather add a removable neck strap to my hat instead. I cut some extra top pieces and used the six that were the most aesthetically pleasing.

Step 1 Sew top of hat

This tutorial is beautifully photographed and written clearly and concisely. Sewing the top pieces was surprisingly easy. It didn’t take long to reach the top-stitching step. I wasn’t sure how far from the seam I should top-stitch. My first attempt was 1/8” and it looked much too narrow. I top-stitched 1/4” from the seams before I ripped the 1/8” top-stitching and really like the look of two parallel rows of top stitching.

Step 2 Sew lining of hat

Sewing the hat’s lining requires repeating the steps used to sew the top of the hat.

Step 3 Sew rim of hat

I made marks ¼ of the way around the inner diameter of both rim pieces and the outer diameter of both the top and lining pieces. It was easier to sew the rims to the tops when the rim pieces were on top.

Before I repeated these steps for the interfaced rim and lining, I created my removable neck strap.

Create neck strap loops

I cut a 1” x 5” piece of fabric from my exterior fabric (cut it from the same fabric as your lower rim). Next I pressed it half length wise. I opened the strip then folded the two long edges toward the middle and pressed it again. I folded the strip along the original fold and pressed it a third time. This creates a 5” long strip that is 1/4” wide. I stitched down the long edges then cut the strip in half width-wise so that I would have 2, 1/4” x 2.5” long pieces.

Attach neck strap loops

I pinned the neck strap loops at the left and right marks of the interfaced rim with the ends of the loops lined up with the inner edges of the rim and the loops pointing toward the outer edge of the rim.

Create neck strap

You can either use a piece of premade cord (eg 1/4” wide flat cord) or make a neck strap from your fabric scraps. I cut a piece of poplin that was 1” wide x 26.5” long. I folded each short end over by 1/4” and pressed it. Next I pressed it half length wise. I opened the strip then folded the two long edges toward the middle and pressed it again.  Then I folded the strip along the original fold and pressed it a third time. Lastly, I stitched along the open edge then along the other three edges to create a strip that was 1/4” wide by 26” long.

Now I was ready to sew the lower rim and lining. I turned the interfaced lower rim right side up and matched the ¼ marks with those of the lining.

As per the tutorial, the next steps were sewing the top of the hat to the bottom of hat, turning, closing and top-stitching.

That’s it! There are only three steps.

Here are some photos of my completed Lorenna Buck Designs Sun Hat:

Conclusion

This is a great tutorial. The photographs and clear instructions made it easy make a sun hat. I look forward to making this project again. The domed shape of this hat’s top tents to be more popular with women than men. I’ll be reviewing a gender neutral, bucket style hat project in the future.

Have you made a sun hat? Have you tried this tutorial? Comment below and/or Pin me for later!

Tanya

 

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