Giving Bugs Hat a New Life - T-Shirt Quilt Squares

Today, I'll share with you how I make squares for a t-shirt quilt out of hats, visors or baseball caps. 

Today, I will show you how I do it with hats. 

In the past, I have done it a few other ways but I just wanted to show you how I like to do it now. 

In the  photo in this link, on the orange squares, you can see a hat (on the right) I pulled apart all the way and sewed in sections as she wanted all of her friends finger prints that were on all sides of the cap or baseball cap. It doesn't look as cute but at least you can see the front, sides and back. The orange square on the left has a visor brim or band and the visor part itself sewn on.
 
On the quilt I made for a friend, you can see how I incorporated the "hoodie" section of a sweat shirt on the bottom left, it had a cute print and we wanted to keep that on the quilt. I actually left the ties on and sewed them down in a circle so you could tell it was actually a hood. Click here for that.
 
Usually now, this is how I do hats. Pick out the hat liner (the white thing) and throw it away. Then, pick through the underside of the hat brim with scissors and get the tip in and start cutting on the inside edge. Cut it all the way across so you can get to the plastic or cardboard piece that maintains the shape of the brim or visor. 
 
Pull the plastic piece out of the brim. 

Next, fold the hat in half like you would find them stacked on a shelf pushing the back into the front. 

Cut up the sides where the fold is and throw away the back of the hat unless there is something on the back that you want to keep. Even the back by itself could be a cute square but I just threw them away wanting only the front.  

Try to keep the brim attached to the hat, I pin it in place as you can see in the next two photos as I don't want it to move before I can sew it. 
 
When you unpick the hat band or take out the plastic, sometimes the stitches holding them together come out. Also, on some hats, the brim is held in place by two rows of stitching which you will have to unpick before the plastic can be removed. (As you can see on the bugs hat photo above.) 
 
Next, pin it to the square you want. I usually use the back piece of a sweatshirt where I used the front on the quilt. Never sew it onto t-shirt material as it can't support the weight of the hat. It would rip eventually and possibly even while stitching. Sweatshirt works best.

Lastly, using zig-zag stitch, go around the outside of the hat until it is secure. As you can see I am having a problem with my machine and the stitches aren't even so I just went around the edges twice which fixed the problem. 

Lastly, Sew with straight stitch where the brim attaches to the hat.  This secures the hat and brim where it may have been unpicked. 

It also gives the hat more security being attached to the sweatshirt in a few more places. (Similar to quilting it down.) If you stitched that part first and then sewed it onto the quilt, when the quilt was hanging, the hat would hang away from the square as it is heavy. This pulling away could rip the hat off eventually at the corners. Sewing them together after the hat is on the square keeps the hat secured to the square. 

If you look closely at the bugs hat, you can see where I unpicked the two rows of stitching on the brim that held the visor part in place. I don't stitch back over it as when the quilt is washed, these marks won't be noticeable. 

"Tune" in Monday when I hope to have the overall squares done to show you. There are so many options with those as well! However, it all depends on how much time Princess five spends at home this weekend. I can't get much done with her home without her seeing something. Hopefully, I can keep it a secret until Christmas!