Baby Hat with a Giant Flower (oh yeah)

To go with the itty bitty baby dress I decided that a hat was needed, not just any hat but a hat with a giant flower...they are all the rage right now and oh so cute. I used this little tutorial from Make it and Love it to make this hat but instead of the flower shown in the tutorial I made what I call a ruffle flower.

                                  

 This flower is really easy to make. Start by cutting a long rectangle of fabric, for this flower I cut a 2" by 18" strip of fabric but you can make it any size really, cut your rectangle longer if you want a fuller flower, cut it shorter if you want a less full flower.

Then sew three sides of the rectangle, the 2 short sides and one 18" side with a zig-zag stitch or a serger if you have one (stitch shown in red), this will help to keep the fabric from fraying.

On the side you haven't sewn you are going to sew a large basting/ruffle stitch to do this, set your machine's stitch length as high as it will go, my machine goes up to a 5 or five stitches per inch. You then are going to turn your tension up as high as it will go, my machine goes up to a 9. When you begin to sew your stitch, do not lock your stitch or reverse your stitch because you want to be able to pull on your thread ends when you are done to tighten your ruffles (again shown in red).

With the machine tension set to its highest setting and the stitches being so long, the fabric will being to automatically ruffle your fabric some. However to make the flower you want the ruffles to be very tight causing the fabric to begin to curl around itself in a sort of spiral.

When your ruffle is starting to spiral you will naturally see how if you lay the spirals on top of each other a flower will form, you can adjust how the layers lay to get a perfect flower.

Now using a needle and thread, tack all the layers together to prevent the flower from coming apart and attach to anything you wish, a hat, a pin, a headband, a belt, a scarf. Try layering several colors together for a multicolored flower or adding a jewel to the center for added flare, you are only limited by your "Em-agination."