A little birdie told me Wendi made a super cute version of the Reversible Bucket Hat! Check it out and get some appliqué tips! – Betz

Reversible Bucket Hat with Wendi - Sewing Collective

It’s garden season in my neck of the woods (the mountains of western North Carolina) and I needed a new hat. This isn’t a problem for most people, but I have a big head and I can never find cute hats that fit.

Enter Betz’s Reversible Bucket Hat pattern. It includes a HUGE range of pattern sizes (toddler through my XL adult head) and it’s super simple to sew up.

I made a couple of changes to the pattern.

1. Instead of using the recommended mid or heavy weight fabric for the outer hat, I used lightweight quilting cotton for both the outer hat and the lining. This gave it a little less structure than the sample on the pattern cover, but I wanted a floppier hat and – even more important – I wanted it to be as light and breezy as possible for sweaty garden work. 🙂

2. I added a bit of applique! If you give me a pattern with at least one largish flat piece, I WILL add aplique to it.

Reversible Bucket Hat with Wendi - Sewing Collective

I added two of the birds from my Chirp quilt pattern.  I shrank them down until they were 2 ½ – 3 inches tall and added them to the front crown of the hat. Easy peasy!

I love to use fusible adhesive for applique. It’s easy and fast and the newer adhesives are soft and flexible. My favorite brand is Heat-n-Bond. You can buy it off the bolt or in handy printable sheets – my favorite because I hate to trace. 🙂
I used Lite for this project, but if you want extra soft floppiness you might want to use Featherlite. If you’ve never done applique with fusible adhesive before, I have a video here showing all the details. I usually applique the eyes too, but not when the pieces get this tiny! I just drew them on with a fabric marker. 🙂

Reversible Bucket Hat with Wendi - Sewing Collective

 

I love my new hat!

It’s reversible, and I used a much lighter fabric on the inside so on super sunny days I can turn it light side out if I want to bounce the sun back.

I’ve already tested it out and it has just enough brim to shade my face and the back of my neck. And it was so easy to sew up that I’m definitely planning to make more. I might even make a quilted one to wear in the winter! The pattern says it’s not recommended for stretchy fabrics, but I’m tempted to try it in polar fleece for colder weather too. It’s a really well-designed pattern and I think it would work!

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This post is part of the Betz White Sewing Collective series. Content is written by compensated contributors expressing their own views and opinions.