Welcome to my monthly 'Free Pattern Friday' feature, where I road test a free sewing pattern or tutorial: sometimes a children's one, sometimes an adult's one. I try to publish these posts every first Friday of the month, timed to provide inspiration for those who plan to get their sew on over the weekend. I firmly believe that, if you pick your projects carefully, sewing doesn't have to be a crazy-expensive way to clothe yourself and your family. Thanks to all the amazing pattern designers who have offered up their hard work for us to enjoy for free.
Free Pattern Friday is BACK!!!!! This blog post series has been on a break since last September because I'd kind of run out of free sewing patterns I wanted to try. But in the mean time I've found some more and am challenging myself see how far into 2025 I can get with monthly pattern reviews. The pattern I'm posting about today is one I made as part of a charity sewing day in November hosted at my part-time work (Fabric Godmother). A number of staff members spent time sewing items as part of the Big Sew Off, and the items were then donated to the Give Your Best charity/platform. GYB support people living in clothing poverty, often refugees, by aiding the redistribution of clothing to those who request it. It's very cool.
I only had a couple of hours to sew something during the Big Sew Off, so I picked a project that I hoped would be both useful for someone facing a chilly winter, and a bit of a challenge for myself. The Marly hat pattern by Belgium-based sewing company, Atelier Jupe, was the perfect project. It's relatively quick and simple, whilst also being potentially really useful. You can access the pattern by signing up to their newsletter. Thanks so much to Atelier Jupe for providing this pattern for free.
Pattern type:
The Marly hat pattern is a simple, classic, trapper hat style comprised of six pattern pieces. The instructions come in English, Dutch and French. The pattern is a tiled PDF that you need to print out on a home printer and stick together.
Sizing info:
This pattern comes in three adult sizes: Small, Medium and Large which span head circumferences 53cm - 62cm. WARNING!!! I made the Medium, thinking that would be the most useful size considering the recipient was unknown, and it came out HUGE. As you can see, despite my head measurement being suited to the Medium, it's super big on me, and in fact fits my boss (below), a large dude, very well. It's possible that my fabrics had some 'give' in them, thus making the hat stretch out a bit. However, my recommendation would be to size down, or at least make a wearable toile version to test the fit before cutting into any precious fabrics.
Fabric info:
The pattern recommends the following: For the exterior fabric, use a medium weight fabric without elastane, like cotton, gabardine, denim, corduroy... and a thicker fabric for the lining, like teddy, wool, bouclé, fake fur...
For my version, I used a loosely woven wool for the exterior and some synthetic sherpa fleece for the lining. I think this pattern is an excellent project to use up any scraps of fleece-type fabrics, or even for upcycling a fleece garment that has got a bit ratty.
Findings:
This was definitely a fun but gently challenging project. At one point I forged ahead without reading the instructions properly, then had to do some unpicking because I'd made a mistake. The pattern was easy to use, and the instructions had clear photographs showing the construction steps.
As for the finished item, it's kind of cute and fun, but as I mentioned previously, it came out way bigger than expected. The really good news, however, is that my hat was requested by someone via the Give Your Best platform. So hopefully it's out there somewhere keeping someone's head warm!
Will I make this pattern again?
A trapper hat definitely has a particular lewk, and it's not one that myself or Mr SoZo have really acquired so I'm not sure I'd make another. That said, Waves and Wild do a version that include kids' sizes that I might make for my son.
