How to make a bunny hat

This is my first sewing tutorial and it’s a looooong one.  Sorry.  I may go a bit over the top with detail, but I’m sure it’s better I do it this way, than put up some quickie instruction sheet that leaves you scratching your head and cursing my name.  But, on the plus side, it is totally worth it.  Please, PLEASE make sure that you read these boring instructions in their entirety before you begin, and then again before you undertake each step.

This hat fits a baby with a 42 - 44cm (16.5 – 17.5 inch) head.  My little model is four months old in this picture, but I have it on good authority that she has a big head for her age.   There's plenty of growing room left in this hat for her big head, and I would say this hat could fit a baby anywhere from four to twelve months of age depending on how petite your child is.  Which mine is not.

You will need:

40cm x 50cm fur fabric
40cm x 40cm jersey fabric for lining
Scrap of whatever fabric you desire for inner ear (I used some towelling scrap I had)
Ribbed knit fabric 45 cm long (inc. 1cm seam allowance) x 6cm wide
80cm of 20mm wide taffeta or double satin ribbon

Important note!  These pieces do not include seam allowances – they need to be added by you!  The reason for this is because I couldn’t fit the pattern pieces on an A4 sheet of paper if I included them.  Don’t forget to transfer your notches to the seam allowances and include them when cutting!!

 

1.    Firstly print off the pattern sheets above (click on pictures to see full size images, then right click and save as a file, then print it).  Trace all pieces onto tracing paper or sew-on Vilene, leaving space between the pieces so that you can draw your seam allowances.  Once you have drawn them, add a 1.5cm (5/8 in) seam allowance on all sides.  

2.   From your  fur fabric,  you will need to cut one centre piece, two side pieces and two ears. (Note:  Cutting two pieces by placing the pattern piece on a folded piece of fabric and cutting through both layers is hard with fur fabric.  I cut each piece out separately, but be sure to flip your pattern piece over before you cut your second piece.  Your pieces should be mirror images of each other).  Take note of the fur fabric's nap when cutting.  Now, cut two more (mirror image) ear pieces from the fabric you have chosen for the inner ear.  Finally, from your lining fabric, cut one centre and two side pieces from your lining fabric.

Yay, that boring old prep stuff is finished.  If you have managed to stay with me up to this point, good for you!  It gets a lot easier and more fun from here!  Let’s sew!

(This hat is lined so don’t worry about finishing your seam allowances – no-one will know.)

3.    Pin one fur ear piece and the matching inner ear piece right sides together and sew around the curved edge on your 1.5cm allowance.  Trim and clip the seam allowance and turn ear piece right side out.  Stick the wrong end of a pencil in there and smooth it gently along the seam, just to make sure it’s all turned out nicely.  Make the other ear in the same way.  Now, make the tuck in the ear and stitch (the open end of your ears won’t be even and have a sharp angle, like this).

 

4.   Now, this is where my pattern making skills fail me.  Sorry.  You’ll note that your ears have a long and short side.  Fur side up, place the ears short side behind the notch at the top of the head, making sure the short side of the ears meets with the edge of the side piece you are pinning it too.  There will be quite a lot of overhang happening on the other side.  It will look something like this:

Place the side pieces with pinned ears on a flat surface in front of you so you can check that the angles of your ears match.  When you are happy with the way they sit (pointing on an angle downwards and towards the front),  you can hand or machine baste them on. 

That ear overhang is just annoying, so trim it in line with your side piece so that everything is nice and neat.

5.    Next, join the side pieces to the centre pieces, matching notches and taking note of where the front and back of the centre piece is.  The narrower end of the centre piece is the back, the wider end is the front.  Trim and clip seams where necessary.

 

6.    Construct lining in the same way (without the ears, of course).

7.    Place your lining inside the outer shell, wrong sides together and baste around the edges, matching seams and notches.  Take your ribbon and cut it in half and baste pieces to the hat, like this-

 

 

Coil and pin the ribbon on top of the hat, so you don’t accidentally catch it when you attach the rib knit binding.

8.    In this step, you are forming a seam binding out of your rib knit.  Fold your rib knit binding in half, lengthwise and press.  Open it out again to reveal the centre crease you pressed in, and fold each of the long edges in to centre, and press again, so that now your rib knit is evenly divided into four along its length.   Now, fold your rib knit widthways, and sew (1 cm allowance) to form a loop.  Press this seam open.

 Also, press in a crease at the direct opposite end of the seam you just made, and mark with a pin.

9.   Next, you’ll be pinning one long edge of the binding evenly around the outside edge of the hat, stretching slightly as you go so that it fits.  (Grrrrrrrr, I forgot to take a picture of this step - SORRY!)  Start by pinning the seam of your rib knit loop at the back notch, placing the band over and around the hat and placing the opposite end of the rib knit that you marked with a pin at the front notch (making sure there are no twists in your loop) and pin it around the hat.   Once you are happy with how your rib band’s edge is stretched around your hat, sew it on along the lengthways crease you made closest to this edge (which is a seam allowance of about 1.5cm).  Fold the other edge of the binding to inside, so that the centre lengthways crease sits on the edge of the hat, and then fold along that last crease and turn binding in so that it is tucked nice and neat.  Pin through all layers, then hand baste close to edge if you like (I do this to give myself a guide to stitch along; binding attachment is not my forte, I tend to drift off of the binding and onto the main fabric).

Again, when you are happy with how it looks, stitch it on.  

Yay, you’re done!

Now just tidy it up; unpin your ribbons, cut their ends on a slant, remove any visible hand-basting and comb out any fur that may have got caught in the seams.  To stop the lining from flopping about too much, just pop a couple of stitches on the inside through the lining along the seams near the ears, to attach it to the outer shell.

Again, I apologise for the long, boring instructions, especially the binding bit. I know.  That really sucks.  Many of you seasoned sewers will be able to whip through it in half an hour, but I wanted to include as much detail as I could for those of you who are not confident sewers, because this is a great little project for a beginner to try.  Thankfully, fur fabric hides a multitude of sins.   Just remember to take your time when putting the pieces together correctly, and again when attaching the binding.  And if I HAVE missed something out, please let me know.  

Some people have expressed that it’s a shame that their child, grandchild, friend’s baby, etc. is a boy and won’t be able to wear such a girly hat.  Don’t discount it as a girl’s only hat!  I think it would look rather snazzy for a boy made up in grey fur fabric and black ribbon ties.  And remember, it’s for a little baby – they won’t care.

And just finally, as with anything else, when you put your adorable baby in his or her new hat, keep an eye on bubs while they’re wearing it, just in case it falls backwards off their head and strangles them.  Sophie May likes to thrash her head about, especially when her brother is in the room and she can hear him (he can be a very, um, interesting boy), and ends up with her hat all wacky.  She also likes to suck on the ribbon ties and I can see those bits going down her gullet spaghetti-style if I’m not keeping watch.  If you have a hungry, inquisitive baby like mine, you might like to keep watch too.  But that won’t be hard when they look this cute.

Nawwwwwwww.

How to personalise a chocolate bar

Chocolate nearly always makes a great gift.  I say nearly always because I do have one or two friends who don’t like chocolate.  I am not sure what planet they are from, but they are still lovely people and I don’t hold it against them.  If you’re reading this, you know who you are!  I still love you despite your abnormality!

I’m not sure if I‘m alone in this, but I actually prefer just a standard bar of chocolate.  Something that can be divided fairly and equitably, and something which won’t instigate arguments about who got the best ones and who got stuck with the ones nobody wants (that would be the Turkish Delights and the Strawberry Cremes and the person getting stuck with them would be ME) and the regretful ‘I wish I had eaten that one instead because this one has a big nut in it’. 

But giving a bar of chocolate seems a bit cheap.  Having to go all the way to your local Woolies and standing in line at the checkout hardly seems very thoughtful.  So they need a bit of spiffing up.

Whenever you see good quality chocolate on sale, grab a few bars and make them special by creating your own wrapper, with whatever sentiment you want to convey.  I usually buy the 100g Lindt bars when they are on special.  This one was $1.99.  Don’t buy anything larger than 100g because the wrapper will be too big for you to copy.  You could try doing a bigger one, but it would involve tape and rulers, and would be all too hard in the end.  This is supposed to be quick and easy.

Carefully unwrap your chocolate bar, and put the foil-wrapped chocolate somewhere safe and out of reach of little, or big, (or your own) fingers.  Have a look at your chocolate wrapper to get an idea of size and how it’s assembled and how it wraps the chocolate.  Then create a wrapper.  This one I’m making for one of the lovely teachers Cameron had last year for pre-primary.  She was married over the school holiday break.

Of course, you don’t have to take a photo.  You can do something else, like type your message in bold print, or get your kids to draw a picture that you can scan into your computer.  But make sure you put something of you in it though, so the person you are giving it to knows it’s from you.  

Open up your picture in the Paint program (or Photoshop if you have it, but I find Paint sufficient) and muck about with your picture; resize it, move it about the page, colour it, add text, whatever you like.  When you are happy with it, take a draft copy on plain A4 paper.  Then, in pencil, and using the original chocolate bar wrapper as a template, position and trace around it.

 When you take your template away, take a note of where the score lines are on the original wrapper and draw them in, just to make sure everything is square.  Once you’re finished, you might want to take some measurements from the side, top and bottom of your draft to where the template is positioned on the paper, so that you can put it in exactly the same place when you take your good copy.

Now print out your picture out on something sturdier.  I use A4 size 200gsm card, which I got from Office National.

Once your picture is printed trace your template on it and cut it out.  Then, using your original wrapper as a guide, take note of the score lines and rule them in.  Score firmly (but not so firm you slice bits off your wrapper) with the blunt side of a butter knife.  Fold along the score lines, erase any pencil lines, and shape up your box.  Secure it in the same manner as the original box with double sided tape or good glue.  The bottom and top flaps may need trimming slightly to fit properly (that’s because you  traced around a template, and your new wrapper is slightly larger than your original) but just snip away a teeny bit at a time.

All that’s left to do is slide your chocolate bar in and seal it up.  I like to cut the name from the original label and tape it to the foil pack with double sided tape (just so that the recipient knows you’re not being uber-cheap and giving them something crappy).  You can tizzy it up with a bow or a gift ribbon if you like.

This one I’ve done is specific to one occasion, but multiple production is the way to go with these.  Get the whole family involved.  They make great hostess gifts, party favours for baby showers or weddings, or Easter gifts.  You could make up a whole lot for Christmas with a festive family photo on it, or make a bunch for your child’s teachers for end of year.  The possibilities are endless!  And inexpensive!  And as you are probably beginning to guess, that’s just the way I like it.

How to make rainbow babycakes

Since Cameron has been back at school, he's been on at me to make rainbow cakes for his class.  We made big normal-sized ones when Sophie was first born.  While we were making them, I thought it may have not been the best idea, loading him up with sugar and additives, what with having a five-day-old and being unable to drive (stupid caesarean), I had no means of escape if he started bouncing off the walls Ricochet Rabbit-style.   Luckily, when it came time to eat them, my mother surprised us by packing Cameron up and taking him off to see some friends, so the cupcakes went with him for morning tea.  Good ol' Nanny saves the day.  Bet she was sorry she did that.  Live and learn!

This time I thought it a good idea to make baby ones.  Firstly, because I am real cheap and I can make more that way, and secondly, because I don't want to get in trouble with Cameron's teacher by making the kids too chemically hyper.  

Oooooo, pretty.
 

 

There are all sorts of versions of these on the net, a lot of which start from absolute scratch.  Not this one, though.  I don't bother making my own cake mix, because kids will be too distracted by all the pretty colours to make any scathing assessment on my baking skills.  I use Betty Crocker Vanilla cake mix (recently re-packaged as Duncan Hines, which doesn't sound nearly as homely).  One packet makes about 40 baby cakes.  Of course, any brand will do, but it's important to remember that it must be a cake mix that uses eggs and oil, not butter and milk, otherwise your colours will have a toasty tinge.  Then, mix it as directed.

 

I divide the mix into five colours;  red, orange, yellow, green and blue.  To make these, you only need your red, blue and yellow food colourings, you'll just mix your own orange and green up. Cameron never fails to remind me that I leave out two.  Well, no one cares about indigo and violet.  Not me, anyway.  Too hard.

 

 Then start by taking a scant teaspoon of red and popping it in your baby patty pan liners (which are obviously in a baby cake pan).  Remembering the ROYGBIV rule (without the IV bit), continue to layer your colours in the liners.  Just a note, cakes cook from the bottom up, meaning your bottom layers will receive the most heat. Hence, your bottom colours will form thicker layers than your top colours.  If you are a fussy thing and want evenly layered cakes, start with a thin red layer and increase the amount of mix with each colour you layer.  If you are slap-dash and you just don't care, like me, it doesn't matter.

 

 Just to see if Cameron could remember the colours in reverse, we did backwards ones too.

 

My boy knows his rainbows!  Roll on, Mardi Gras.

Now, my Betty Crocker mix is for making one big cake, but as I'm making wee baby cakes, I cook them at the recommended temperature for about twelve minutes.  Start checking at around ten, though. 

Then, for that bit of added madness, you can smother them with icing.  Use your favourite recipe, or use mine.

250g butter (room temperature)

2 1/2 cups of icing sugar

Vanilla essence 

Food colouring (optional)

Whip your butter up with your mixer (using whisk attachments if you have them, if not regular beaters will do the trick) on medium speed for about 5 minutes or until your butter looks light and creamy.  Stop to scrape the bowl once or twice so that all your butter is evenly whipped.   Reduce speed to low and gradually add your icing sugar.  Once all the icing sugar is mixed in, increase the speed to medium again and add the vanilla.  Add a few drops of your food colouring, if your using it.  Continue to whip until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes), scraping the bowl when necessary.  Use a piping bag to decorate your cakes or just spread it on with a butter knife.

Then, if you like, sprinkle on some sprinkles.  Because, let's face it,  at this point, a tiny bit more sugar and a tiny bit more food colouring is not really going to make a scrap of difference.

Then send them off to school and share the love.  Don't forget to pack extra ones for the teacher.  She is going to need LOTS of energy to keep up with all of those hyper kids.