The Remarkable Reversible Beanie

Before we went to Queenstown, I decided that we may need beanies to wear under our ski helmets if the weather was exceptionally cold.  It was exceptionally cold but fortunately not on the ski field.  We skied both Coronet Peak and The Remarkables ski fields hence my name of Remarkable Beanie.

My plan initially was to buy said beanies but once I realised what these relatively small merino items cost, I decided to have a go myself using some of the leftovers from my scrap bin.  If you have been following along on Instagram you may have seen my trial beanie.

My plan was a reversible hat that is bound using self made merino binding.  Above you can see some of Courteney's creations.  These have proved not only great additions to our holiday wardrobe but an unexpected benefit is they are small enough to pop in your pocket if the day gets too warm.  These photos are only a small selection of the hats that were produced.

To make the beanie cut 4 pieces of the pattern above, adding your preferred seam allowances.  Two in my main colour and two in the contrasting lining.  All my pieces are in a tee shirt weight merino blend and have an average amount of stretch.  The one I am wearing has the least amount of stretch but still fits my head snugly and has 20% stretch crosswise and very little lengthwise.

Stitch your dart on each of your hat pieces (I did this on my overlocker and was careful to graduate my stitching and not make the dart too angular creating a nice soft curve).  Stitch both of the outers together and then the inners together.  To do this I used my overlocker but this isn't really necessary because the seams will be enclosed inside the hat.

Put your inside and outside hats (because they will look like individual hats now) together, wrong sides facing each other and enclosed inside the hat.  Overlock or stitch your hat closed around the circumference.  You may want to try your hat on at this point to make sure you don't need to make it slightly shorter from crown the band.  I needed to cut 1cm off mine but Courteney didn't need to alter hers at all.

To bind the hat cut a piece of merino in your choice of colour (we have used the reverse colour)   40cm long x 4.5cm wide with the maximum stretch running the length of the fabric.   The finished width of the binding once stitched is 50cm so depending on the stretch of your merino, you may need to alter this slightly. 

Carefully press your binding in half lengthwise and on one side of the half, fold in half again and steam press it.  The 4.5cm strip now has one fold at 2.25cm and another at just over 1cm, if that makes sense. Join the strip into a circle joining both 4.5cm ends together.

Now that the hat binding is ready to go, pin the binding and hat, wrong side of hat to right side of binding and stitched it to the hat. Fold the binding on the  fold lines created and pin it to the right side of the hat.  The final step is to topstitch the binding to the right side of the hat.

If you want to make your own hat, print the pattern using the A4 setting on your printer and make sure the test square measures 3cm x 3cm.   1cm seam allowances are included.   Please link back to this page if you post your results on your blog or Instagram.