Simple Cat in the Hat Hat

Hi, My name is Oscar. I am in middle school and every Friday at my school is Hat Day. Students can wear any hat of their choosing on this day only. I had an old blue and red cat in the hat hat in my costume bin and wore it that Friday. I got a couple compliments and originally I had looked online to see if I could find some other cheap cat in the hat hats.

There weren't.

So I decided to make my own!! With the help of my mom, we figured out the dimensions of all the pieces we needed and headed straight to the fabric store. These hats are made entirely of felt and so we picked up some felt and my mom prototyped it for me. Later in the year I was thirsty for new designs and more colors. I learned how to cut and sew the felt and tried it out. The first couple hats weren't great. Some were too big, some were too floppy, and some had too small of a brim. It was a little tricky to get just right for my individual head, but it didn't take too much time. Hopefully this pattern will work for you.

After a couple of weeks I was churning out a new hat every week in preparation for the next Friday and with this simple Instructable, you can too!

P.S. Thanks to my sister for modeling my hat!

1. 12" x 36" inches of felt for each color (use any colors you want!)
2. Thread
3. Scissors
4. A pencil
5. A measuring tape
6. Pins
7. Sewing machine (or needle for hand stitching)

The first thing you need to do is to cut 4, 3.5" x 12" strips of felt out of each color.

This will be used to make the stripes and the majority of the hat.

Then, using the color you want as the base (red), cut a 12" diameter hole .

This will be the brim.

With the other color (white) cut a 7" diameter hole.

This will be the top of the hat.

The next thing you will need to do is take two of the same color strips and line them up on top of each other.

Then sew them together along one of the short edges.

Repeat this for a total of 4 times using both colors to make the 4 different stripes. (In this case, I made two white stripes and two red stripes.)

Now, open up your sewed strips and line one white one up with one red one with the excess material from step two on the outside (in other words, with right sides together).

Sew these together along one long edge.

Then, line another white one up on top of the red one already sewn in and sew this in along the long edge.

Repeat this one more time with the last red stripe by lining it up along a white stripe and sewing it together on the long edge.

Next you will finish the middle of the hat.

Fold your stripes in half (hamburger style) so that it still looks inside out. Sew along the outer edge so that when you are completed it is a hollow cylinder.

With the hat still inside out, pin the smaller (white) circle to one end of the hat. When you sew this together it will be slightly indented. This can be challenging to pin, so I recommend taking your time on this because these steps are the most visually important steps of the whole project.

Then you need to work on the brim.

First you need to cut about a 7" hole in the middle of the larger (red) hole. Make sure you right-side-out the hat and then pin the brim of the hat inside the rest of the hat and sew it together. Pull the brim of the hat out of the middle to reveal the finished product.

Have fun making this simple (yet awesome) hat. I've had so much fun making these. I've got friend requests asking for their favorite sports teams colors for a hat, and have even been nicknamed Hat-Man by my 6th grade science teacher. Thank you so much for reading and have fun making.