Tutorial Tuesday - Recycled Wool Cardigan Hat!

Please excuse my lousy lighting self portrait above. I assure you the hats look much better in real life! This hat was inspired by this fab tutorial, but alas, I am lazy and decided there had to be an easier way! Are you ready for the Resweater lazy version? ;)

Step 1 is to find a felted wool, or cashmere, cardigan with buttons down the middle. I know a cool place you can get one, if you don't have a cardigan to work with ;)



Next, I sewed a little between each button, just so it wouldn't gap open. I used a contrasting thread to show you, but it's still a little hard to see... sorry about that.


Next, Cut the biggest circle that your sweater will allow. The bigger the sweater, the bigger the circle (the sweater I used was a women's medium for a reference).


Now take a piece of very stretchy felted ribbing, and cut it to fit your head the way you want it to. It can be the ribbing from the sweater you cut the circle from, or you can take some from another sweater like I did. I like the contrast.


Sew your ribbing into a loop. I used my new machine's fancy stitch to get a flat seam (love it!).


Sew your the unfinished edge of your ribbing to the edge of your circle, wrong sides out, s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g the ribbing (not the circle!) as you go. I can stretch evenly as I go freehand, but if you are not sure, you can pin it at different parts, so you know if you are stretching enough or too much. Now turn it right side out & you are done!

Because of the stretchiness of the ribbing, these hats will fit both children & adults. A word of caution: Boys don't like to model girl hats.