Me Made May - Aurifil Artisan Challenge May 2020

Welcome back for the final challenge for the 2019-2020 Aurifil Artisans.  It's been a great year!

Anyway, I'm excited to share my project with you.  I wanted to do something that was a little different than what you may expect to see during Me Made May, but it was important that the project still fit with the theme for the month.  So, without further ado, I present to you...a hat!

Can you tell that it's actually partly sunny here in Seattle?

This is the Reversible Bucket Hat pattern by Betz White.  I love how the pattern includes multiple sizes (kids through adult), and I think the idea of it being reversible is cool because it's like 2 hats in one (even though I expect to wear the grey side out at least 99.9% of the time)!

Here's the reverse side of the hat.

For my hat, I chose a cotton/linen blend fabric from Trefle by Kokka and a Linen Mochi Dot from Moda.  The grey and neon yellow colors seemed very appropriate for spring/summer, and I think dots pretty much go with anything.  It's also important to note that I wanted my hat to be a tiny bit more floppy than the canvas/denim/twill exterior mentioned in the pattern, so there was a method to the madness as they say.  Just as a side note,  I chose to use a white fusible interfacing because I was more concerned about the possibility of black interfacing making the light grey exterior look darker than I was about the white interfacing making the black linen look lighter.

Once I had my fabrics chosen, I selected thread.  I knew that my project would be sewn with a straight stitch on woven fabrics, so I chose to use Aurifil's cotton 40/2 thread.  I made the decision that I wanted the thread to blend in well but there wasn't an exact match, so I selected the thread color that was just a smidge darker than the fabric.  My choice for the exterior was color 2620 (Stainless Steel).  I really like how it turned out.  For the lining, I chose to keep it super simple, so I used 40 weight thread in Black (color 2692).  As I've mentioned before, I love how the 40/2 weight thread is great for construction and for details that matter like topstitching.

I think my thread choice was perfect!

Overall, this was a fast and fun project that I can absolutely see myself making again.  Other than attaching the brim to the hat which didn't require any exceptional sewing/pinning gymnastics to ease in, this pattern seemed like a good way for a quilter to make a garment/accessory that isn't super intimidating and it doesn't require a lot of fitting (though you do need to measure around your head to determine which size to make)!  I think it's would be an appropriate project for a new sewist to get some practice with curves and topstitching.

Totally cute, right?

So, that's it for me today!  I hope you are all staying healthy and safe.  I would also like to say a special thanks to the folks at Aurifil for giving me (and my fellow Artisans) a platform on which to share my thoughts and experience with their products.