Wednesday, January 27, 2010

preparing for kindy

Lily has her first day at kindy next week, and as I mentioned yesterday, we did a little bit of preparation sewing for it.  She really needed a new sunhat, well ok maybe didn't really "need" but I thought a new sunhat would be nice, but as part of a crazy challenge I have set myself but not yet shared, I can't buy one.  So it needed to be made.

After seeing Peta's lovely sunhats over here , I really wanted to give the Lazy Day Hat a try but as part of our down change I knew I really should use one of the hat patterns I had here already *sigh* so off to search the patterns, and I came up with two to test drive.

Lily selected this beautiful Jennifer Paganelli fabric 'Dance With Me' for her first hat.  Together we looked for a fabric to go with it, she wanted green but the yellow and white spots just sung together. So she gave ground.



The pattern for this came from Ottobre Summer 3/2009, "Hermoine Sunhat". I made the largest size and it is a great fit with room to grow. I love the shape and the way it gives such great coverage.



The instructions were incredibly easy to follow and produced a really professionally finished hat, truly reversible.

Lily was so happy with the first hat and declared it the best hat she's ever had, far better than any bought hat *bless her*.  She then asked me to make her a mermaid hat.  We upended the fabric tub looking for the elusive mermaid fabric. She has an incredible memory and knew it was in there.  It teamed nicely with a Timeless Treasures I'd had tucked away forever.



The pattern was a more commercial one from Spotlight, I won't bother telling you what it was as I'm going to dis it ;)




It had errors.  I made the largest size, which is to fit a 21 inch head. Lily's head is only 20 inches and this is a tad too small.

The instructions weren't clear, it instructs you to leave a 1.5cm seam allowance unless otherwise stated. The crown pieces clearly have a smaller seam allowance written on them but the brim did not. If I had used the 1.5cm seam allowance on the brim, it would have been too small to go around the crown.  I wasn't particularly impressed with using a piece of ribbon to hide the raw edge where the crown and brim join on the inside either. Ok, so it's not meant to be a reversible hat, and I didn't use the kind of ribbon they suggested but a better construction could have given a neater finish there.

Anyway, of course it's Lily's favourite.

So now she's set for kindy hatwise. The only question is; how do I put a name on a reversible hat? Or do I just chance it?

And isn't it amazing how still she is for these photos, nothing like fresh peaches picked from our groaning tree to tempt her into submission.  Check them out.



And look how much she loves them!!!! They are the tastiest peaches I have ever had, you really can't stop at just one!





9 comments:

  1. i love the first hat. your right about the spotlight hat, it is just not as nice a shape as the first, but the fabric saves it and makes it look cute (the adorable girl helps too).

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  2. Oh the Otto ones are gorgeous - she is more than ready I would say and best of luck xx

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  3. the first is my pick too tik, with the yellow spot to suit your sunshine child. Asher is gearing up to start on Friday, he is so damn excited. We bought him a new backpack today with planes on it, way cool, i think he'll still be using it when he's a teenager. Tully went back today, we missed her terribly.

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  4. I love the kindy hats, and would definitely popping a name on there... surely you could find a suitably cute way to do it? Another vote for the first hat, could you possibly make me one??
    I hope Lily LOVES kindy, I tend to think she will do great :)
    There will be a very sad person in this house next week over the whole kindy thing (um, me!) but tonight there was talk of starting preppy in Mossman which makes me happy again... we'll see!
    Oh, sorry, back to you... Lovely!

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  5. I love so much about this post - the sewing hats rather than buying them, the coverage of them (man! They're great - you can't buy hats like that anyway) and those peaches - YUM! Everytime I read a post about you and your sewing it makes me wish I both had a machine and knew what to do with one.

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  6. Love the hats Tik, especially the first one. I'm guessing Lily's kinder is pretty small. I didn't label a single thing for Mandy for 3 or 4 yr old and her hat in particular was the one thing we had no chance of losing. As it was also handmade and very diff to any other kids hat the teachers (and the other parents) learnt it was hers so it always made it's way back very quickly. It was a small kinder though only one grp of 15 for 3 yr old and one grp of 22 for 4 yr old

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  7. Beautiful hats! You've done some nice sewing again. Boy those peaches look tasty.

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  8. lovely hats! If my 'wish to do' list wasn't already long LOL I'd add these to it - you've done a great job :)

    mmm to your peaches too - we got one (doughnut peach 'Angel Peach') this year LOL Yours look luscious! Do you use any thing 'on' them in the growing time?

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  9. Love the hats - they look great - I ahve been a making hats this week too - I gave the Figtree Amelia and Me a go and it loks terribly like the spotlight one with vage instructions and the binding to hit the opposite side - not happy jan - Amelia chose the pattern wen we went for a girly morning! Off to make a Lazy Days Hat (also have that already in my stash - Opps:)

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