Dare to Make It: Holiday

How to Make Hats from Recycled Sweaters

cal patch, contributor

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Give an old favorite sweater new life by turning it into a hat.

Cal Patch

The shape of your pattern should look like these.

Cal Patch

Using a tiny zigzag stitch will give more stretch than a regular straight stitch.

Cal Patch

Give an old favorite sweater new life by turning it into a hat.

Photo: Cal Patch

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3. Sew the seams. Pin two pieces together, with right sides facing, along one of the long sides, and sew using 1/2-inch seam allowance. Start at the bottom edge, and stop 1/2 inch from the point at the top. I used a tiny zigzag stitch (1.5mm x 1.5mm) to give the seams some stretch. Repeat to connect the remaining three pieces, then sew the first panel to the last.

Here's a close-up of my tiny zigzag stitch seam. This gives more stretch than a regular straight stitch.

Here's the hat, inside out, after the five seams are sewn.

4. Press open the seams, and trim away some of the bulky seam allowances at the top of the hat to flatten it out. Then topstitch every seam from the right side, stitching through the seam allowances to make them stay flat. For this I used a wide (7mm) three-step zigzag, but you could use a straight stitch if you prefer.

Topstitching both sides of the seams from the right side helps the seam allowances lie flat.

5. At this point you could just hem the bottom edge and the hat would be finished. I chose to add a binding using one of the snowflake stripes from my sweater. First, seam together the short ends of your binding strip. I overlapped them to minimize the bulky layers. Then pin the binding around the bottom edge of the hat, folded so that the hat is sandwiched between the two layers of binding. Be sure that the inside layer is at least as long as (or longer than) the outside layer so that both can be caught in one seam. I used the same wide three-step zigzag to sew on the binding, as this seam definitely needs some stretch.

Seam together the short ends of your binding band.

And there you have it! There are lots of possibilities for variations and embellishments, so be prepared to get addicted to making these. Try cutting the pieces along the bottom rib of the sweater, and you won't even need to hem the hat. Make appliqués out of the felted sweater scraps, or make a hat where each panel is from a different sweater!

The finished hat with binding.

View 2 member project galleries

Sweater hat sets
cynergyplus1

Recycled Sweater hat
Studiojules

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Comments (15)

Killdoomkid writes: Wow, I need to try this!!! :)
Posted: 4:17 pm on December 18th

szlata writes: I love this idea. As you can guess, I hate to throw away anything that can be given a new life. I enjoy thrift shops, now I can look at the sweaters tht are too small for me and see them as hats.
Posted: 11:45 am on October 25th

ringelpunkt writes: So lovely.
Posted: 10:42 am on September 21st

glittergrandma writes: Wonderful ! I have a sweater I did not want to part with, great directions thank you.
Posted: 6:10 pm on March 20th

billyjane writes: lovely!i'm making hats out of old tees and use cotton mostly,and i found one woolen and tried and it worked great,although mine is simpler,with only two pieces,but i like your pattern too,have to try it soon=]
Posted: 2:41 pm on January 3rd

cynergyplus1 writes: Thanks so much for a great idea! I made several of these as Xmas presents, and also made mittens with coordinating scarves. I came up with an alternate way to do the hat, if you have a sweater with an existing rib band that can work for the edge of the hat. I'll post the pictures. Thanks Cal Patch!
Posted: 1:07 pm on December 21st

scrunch writes: Thanks for this fabulous idea !!!!! I plan on making my brothers grandson one for the holidays !!!!!!
Posted: 10:01 am on December 9th

crafty1900 writes: I am going to make one of these!
Posted: 10:54 am on December 8th

ohnoshesews writes: This is such a great idea! Thanks for the well-written tutorial and pictures. This would be a nice club project to salvage old sweaters and turn them into hats for the local homeless shelters. You could get a standardized mens/womens measurement to fit most adults. I think it would be a nice way to help keep someone warm this winter and use up those shrunken wool sweaters that we all have hanging around in the closets. Can't wait to get started on this project!
Posted: 3:43 pm on December 6th

lilkiddos writes: What a great idea! I might have to consider it on my Christmas to do list.
Thanks,
Amy
www.CustomKids.etsy.com

Posted: 9:11 am on December 6th

Toffy writes: What a wonderful project. Excellent way to gift and use old sweaters. Kudos
Posted: 9:05 am on December 6th

granitatogo writes: I know what I'm going to give my daughters' boy friends for Christmas now! The only challenge: measuring their heads without their guessing why! thank you!
Posted: 5:43 am on December 6th

CalPatch writes: hi josefly! i do mean both; i use 1.5mm for the length AND width. it just makes a good stretch stitch without all the back-and-forthing of a real stretch stitch.
and for the shrinking, ususally only once is enough, but if you want it more felted, doing it two or three times may increase the felting (or it may not). every sweater is different, and sometimes the fibers are coated to PREVENT shrinking, so it won't work on every sweater.
thanks for your questions ;n)
Posted: 9:05 pm on December 5th

Josefly writes: Thanks so much for the idea and instructions. I have 2 questions, if you don't mind answering:

When you say "tiny zig-zag" do you mean tiny stitch length, or tiny zig-zag width, or both?

To felt the wool sweater, is it necessary to wash and dry more than once?



Posted: 1:35 pm on December 5th

LindaPermann writes: I'm going to try this one of these days. I have the sweater ready to go...
Posted: 6:09 pm on December 3rd

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