With extra sleeves left over after making a TQ, Hood and UQ from JCP Puffer Jackets I decided to tackle a hat. Thank you Raiffnuke and Deerfu for the inspiration.
For anyone interested in doing something similar, here's how I went about the build.
First I took a sleeve from a 4XL JCP Puffer Jacket and separated the two pieces. The hat is made out of the larger of the two. I folded the extra "bump" that would be the upper arm over so that I had a roughly rectangular piece ~9.5-10" by 23" (I have a fairly small head and this worked fine for me but if you've got a bigger noggin' then you may need to add an extra baffle).
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Next I folded the sleeve in half (inside facing OUT) and sewed the to ends together.
Now for the fleece headband. I cut a strip of fleece ~6x24" (More like 3-4" probably would have been better). With the hat right-side out, sew to the bottom of the hat.
Turn inside out and put down another row of stitches ~3-4" up; this will form the bottom pockets of down. I didn't really measure this and just went as far in as I could on the sewing machine and rotated the tube around and it ended up lining up just about perfect then I completed the loop. One thing to watch for - be sure that the down is fairly well distributed in each baffle by chance a few of mine ended up not having a whole lot.
With the fleece headband in place and lower down pockets formed, it should look something like this.
Now for shaping the top of the hat. This is where I sort of winged it. I didn't really want to cut the sleeve itself because with it already stuffed with down there was no way not to have little down fluff stuck in the seams and I figured I'd end up with down plumes in my hair every time I wear it. So Instead I decided to fold over the corners. So with the hat turned inside out and folded in half, fold the two top corners down. My hat ended up being ~4 baffles wide, so I folded in each side 1 baffle.
With the first two corners sewed down it was starting to take shape.
To finish shaping, fold the next two baffles down as well. When you're done, the top should end up looking like this:
You'll probably end up with a bit of a gap where the corners meet - just sew a straight line of stitches to close everything up (and avoid having a pointy hat). Turn rightside out and you're done.
Misc things:
- More down pouches - For appearance you might want to flip it around after you do the headband and do another row of stitches so you end up with each vertical baffle divided into 3 roughly even pockets of down. I didn't do this because at the time I was unsure exactly how I would end up shaping the top.
- Clean up inside - I simply left the folded down corners as is but you may wish to trim them off. If you choose to do so you'll likely want to cover up the cut edges to avoid down working its way out and into your hair. Personally I can't feel the points so I'll probably just leave it.
- Sizing - As mentioned, I could get away with the ~23-24" length of the sleeve. If your head is larger you may need to take an extra baffle from another sleeve to get the extra length.
- Weight - Somebody will ask. 1.4oz and I can scrunch it up in the palm of my hand.
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Originally Posted by Grapenut
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