Vintage Inspired Crafts: Lil Strawberry Shortcake Hat Tutorial

How about a little walk down memory lane for those of us that remember old school Strawberry Shortcake?  I was a HUGE fan and had loads of Strawberry Shortcake dolls & paraphernalia.  It's one of my absolute favorites from childhood.  And now that my daughter is old enough to embrace them, I've had fun gathering my old gear, scoring vintage finds on eBay for our collection and making items like today's Strawberry Shortcake Hat.

Last summer I found out they had re-released an anniversary edition of 80's style dolls and bought them for my little miss.  She has become a big fan too (and has totally enabled my latent Strawberry-addiction).

And since whimsical hats are kind of my "thing", I had to make one in honor of my childhood favorite and I'm sharing how I did it, so you can get your Strawberry fix too;)  

It's got all the details, like mini embroidered strawberries sprinkled throughout:

And a nice juicy plush berry on the tip top:

Materials Needed:
- 3/4 yd pink fleece
- 1/4 yd red fleece
- scrap of green felt
- Peel & stick embroidery stabilizer, red & green embroidery thread ~or~ small strawberry appliques/button
- Small handful of fiberfill
- Sewing notions: rotary cutter/shears, pins, hand sewing needle 

From the pink fleece I cut out a circle with a 23 inch diameter and a peter pan style collar in my daughter's size (3-4T) and trimmed it to make sure it would be about 22 inches on the inner edge.  From the red fleece I cut a rectangle 5 inches high by 22 inches wide and two 3 inch high strawberry halves and a small stem bit from some green felt.

I cut 8 small squares of peel & stick stabilizer and placed them on the wrong side of the circle where I planned to machine embroider the strawberries.  If embroidery isn't an option, small appliques or buttons would work too.

My embroidery machine (a Brother SE 400) came programmed with a small strawberry design already on it, but it had a black outline & seeds so I just skipped that step, so I'd have the classic red berry, green stem look I wanted (my machine embroidery how-to can be found here).

After I did all 8 berries, I did a basting stitch around the outer edge for gathering later:

I folded the rectangle width-wise and stitch the short side together to make the band with a 1/2 inch seam allowance.

Then I opened the band and folded it in half length-wise like this:

Next I took the collar pieces and stitched the outer edges together and trimmed to make the brim:

I turned it right side out and topstitched.

Now I lined up the raw edge of the brim with the edge of the band, pinned and then stitched them together:

Then I took the gathered bonnet portion and pinned it to the other edge of the band, wrong side out and stitched them together.

For the finishing touch, I stitched together the strawberry halves, turned them right side out and stuffed with a little fiberfill.  Then I hand stitched the stem on top and stitched it onto the hat.

And then we were ready to get our Strawberry Shortcake on!

And of course I couldn't stop there, so I made some little green & white striped knit leggings and used the last of some lovely Strawberry Shortcake knit fabric I'd bought a few years back and made her a little tank dress using my Tip Top Tank Top Tutorial.  If I ever find that fabric again I'll get smart and just buy an entire bolt.

We got such a kick out of this little chapeau that I made Strawberry Shortcake the theme for her last birthday party and it was fabulous!  I'm a little ashamed to admit it was nearly a year ago and I'm just now getting my photos together to show it, but baby steps, right?  I promise it'll be worth the wait, so stay tuned for the party reveal in the not-so-distant future;)

I'm also sharing this project with my FAVE LINK PARTIES.

Click HERE to check them out!