November 10th, 2009 by Kristi Stephens

We’re beginning a Thanksgiving unit for “school,” and as I looked through our books I knew there was one thing my daughter surely would love: a Pilgrim costume. I looked around online for a while and decided that the prices for ready-made costumes were ludicrous, so it was time to pull out the ol’ sewing machine and dig around for fabric scraps.

It took me pretty much all day, but it was worth it!!

Not too shabby for not having a pattern and using scraps out of the cabinet! AG is thrilled and wore her pilgrim hat all day. [Not surprisingly, hers took a quarter of the time that LB's did!]

I’m not going to lie: the boy hat was a pain. But, the girl hat was reasonably easy – even if you don’t have a sewing machine you could make this with fusible tape and a bit of hand stitching.

I started with a piece of fabric that was 15.5″ x 13″. I actually used a scrap of drapery lining – that ended up working great because it is lightweight but somewhat stiff. One edge of my rectangle was finished because it was the original edge of the fabric – if I’d needed to finish it I would have needed to start with a 15.5″ x 14.5″ fabric piece to end up the same size.

On all the unfinished edges, fold the fabric in approximately 3/4″, iron, and then fold it again to create a double folded edge. [A double fold keeps the raw edges tucked in so it looks neater and won't unravel.] Iron well and pin.

Sew all the edges, keeping the stitches as close to the edge of your fold as possible.

After finishing the edges, my rectangle was 13″ x 12″. Now I took one of the 13″ long sides and folded it back 2″ – iron and pin, then sew it down.

The rest of this project was a lot of folding and pinning to get the back to be fitted to AG’s head.

First, I marked the center of the other 13″ side with a pin. Then I folded each side of the fabric into two folds and pinned them – meeting in the center at the marker pin.

I sewed that down and tried it on AG – it still needed to be gathered more. So, on each 12″ side, about 1.5″ from the corner with the other folds, I made another small fold and tacked it down.

The back was still sticking out weird and floppy, so I joined the two corners together and tacked it again. Lo and behold – it ended up looking all nice and intentionally gathered into a little “poof” on the back of her head! :)

To make ties, I used 2 13″ long pieces of wide double fold bias tape. I just sewed the open edge together, and sewed it into the inside of the 2″ fold.

So, there you have it. With a little scrap of leftover fabric and some patience, you can indeed make a cute little pilgrim hat.

Are you starting to prepare for Thanksgiving? I’d love to hear what’s happening at your house! :)

For more motivation for tackling what awaits you today, click over to “tackle it Tuesday” at 5 minutes for mom.