Silly Sleeping Hat (Jester-Style)

I asked my mom what to get my dad for his birthday. She said he needed a sleeping hat. He usually wears thin flannel hats to bed alá Scrooge to keep his head warm. They look a little like santa hats. She then told me I should make it silly looking because that would be good for her.

I set out looking for patterns for silly sleeping hats and stumbled across this post on how to make a child's sleeping hat out of an old t-shirt. It looked sufficiently silly so I adapted the pattern for an adult. Mom told me the width a one of Dad's current hats and I enlarged the pattern proportionately.

To do this I had to actually enter the scary mess that is my sewing room.

Maybe I should paint the baseboards so I can put all this stuff away.

I decided to make the outside from a green, striped, ribbed fabric and the inside from yellow fuzzy fleece so it would be really warm. First I cut out the green fabric.

Then the yellow fleece.

I serged the sides and top of both fabrics, one at a time.

This is what your lap looks like after serging fuzzy fleece fabric.

Then I stuffed the yellow inside the green, turned the whole thing inside-out and serged the bottom leaving about a two-inch hole.

 

I sewed the ends of the ... uh ... ends? points? alien antennae? ears? together so that one wouldn't get stuck down inside the other once the hat was turned right-side-in.

After turning it right-side-in I hand sewed the hole closed.

I decided to stitch around the edge to keep the ends from rolling.

Ta-da--the finished product. It looks a little like a pair of baby's pants. The end can be folded up as much as you want to get a snugger fit.

The ends can be tied in knots like the original child's version. Then it really looks silly. When the ends are down, it looks more like a jester's hat.

Ack! Those are really unflattering. What's with the popeye arms?!? And my nose isn't really that long. No more self portraits!

Here is a shot of my dad actually wearing the hat. Mom promised it wasn't staged--he was actually wearing it on his own--no coaxing necessary. Yeah!

Yup, silly.