Fleece Hats & Gloves - Animal Style

Christmas in Ohio meant that the cousins would always get similar items. I enjoyed this! Last year, I sewed matching Spiderman sleep pants for my three nephews. This year, I knew I would need to take it up a notch to include their baby sister and my youngest niece! I found a great site with hundreds of fleece tutorials. Although their directions are somewhat lacking, the patterns are easy enough to figure out.

I used these patterns (child hat, baby hat, mittens) and ideas from Martha (Stewart, obviously) to whip up some fun gifts. No, these aren't fast projects or even that inexpensive, but the holidays are a time to invest in the lives of others!

I tweaked some of the patterns to fit the concepts. Specifically, the fleece and my sewing machine did not fair well when it came to button-holing, so instead I stitched a button hole by hand, cut the fabric inside the button hole to create a place for clip-on bows. Then I used some leftover ribbon to give Lily a bit of class. For the boys, I used the same size hat (child small) for all three (ages 3 to 7). For the mittens, I used one child large and two child mediums. The infant mittens were based on some mittens I was given for Sophia. They didn't fit as nicely as the patterned ones.

Supplies:

• Multiple colors of fleece cut to 1/4 yard
• Craft felt
• Hot glue
• Craft glue
• Thread
• A small amount of polyfil for the Viking horns (none used in the dinosaur hat)

Assembly:

1. Cut fabric on the bias so that your hats stretch! You'll regret it if you don't.
2. Stitch seams/elastic to mitten pieces BEFORE you attach front and back of mittens. The hats do not use elastic, but are simply stitched with a large zig zag.
3. Stitch any "extras" (i.e., dino spikes, shark fin, Viking horns) facing inward between your two fleece pieces. This will ensure they are on the outside when you flip your hat right side out. This is also true for the teeth on the mittens.