DIY one hour felt elf hat

There is so much going on at this time of year but when my 5 year old daughter turned to me and asked me to make her a elf hat I couldn’t resist. They are having a party at school on Tuesday and she really wanted a special hat to wear. How could I refuse?

I whipped up an elf hat in an hour and I thought I would share it here in case it was helpful, I find you can never have enough festive dressing up gear at this time of year.

Equipment needed to make a child’s elf hat:
Piece of felt 50 x 50cm
Contrasting colour of felt for the trim
white pom pom
sewing machine

How to make a DIY one hour felt elf hat

To make this super easy I measured one of my daughter’s existing hats. She has a tiny head so I was able to fold my felt in half, place her hat over my felt and roughly cut around it.

I folded my felt over so only needed to cut the one edge.

This also meant I only needed to sew one edge, which I did using my sewing machine.

From the contrasting coloured felt I cut a thin band about 5cm wide. Using my sewing machine I sewed the two short edges together and pinned it around the edge of the elf hat.

Felt doesn’t really have a ‘right’ side but it’s important that you sew the band to the inside of the hat so when you’ve finished sewing and fold the band over you hide any seams or loose threads.

This is what it should look like before you fold the band up.

To finish it off I added a star using the contrasting felt, stitching it on using my sewing machine. Then I decided to give the hat band a gentle scalloped edge. I did this by hand.

I managed to finish it just in time to pick up my daughter from school and she was very happy to see it and try it on.

My son has asked for a matching hat so I’ll be whipping up another one this weekend, and perhaps adding some cheeky elf ears to his!

Post in collaboration with Brother Sewing