Saturday, November 28, 2009

Tutorial - Part 2 - Sewing a Canadian Touque Hat

Sewing a Canadian Touque - Part 2

If you got to this page without going to Part 1,
go here to get to the start of this tutorial.

Fabric Requirements:

Black Fleece: 8.5" x 24.5"
Red cotton: 4" x 4" square
Bias Binding: Approx 30" of 2.25" folded in half.

Sewing Method:

Pin your paper template on the folded fleece, ensuring that the seam allowance side of the template is not on the fold. (Marking a FOLD indicator on your template is a good idea)

Cut out your fleece. There is a 1.5" brim included but if you would like more of a brim, please add to the bottom. Discard the fleece triangles at the top.

Cut out your red maple leaf using this template. I used a 4" square of quilters cotton, but you could use fleece.

On the right side of the fleece, center your maple leaf approximately 4" up from the bottom edge and secure with pins or basting spray.


Raw edge applique around the maple leaf wither with a straight stitch or a zig zag stitch, or a buttonhole stitch. It's much easier to do this before you do your side seam.

Seam 1: (For the next 4 seams, use a longer stitch length, 3.0 or more). With right sides together, sew the 8.5" side seam with a straight stitch. There is 1/2" seam allowance for this seam.


Seam 2 and 3: Fold the touque so that the top points meet. It's hard to see in this photo but your side seam becomes one of your points. Ensure that your side seam is opened.


Pin the two outside seams that are indicated by the white pin heads in the photo. Then sew these seams using approximately 1/4" or slightly larger seam allowance.


Seam 4: Matching the center seam at the top of the hat, pin the center seam and then pin down each side curve. Sew from the beginning of the curve, over the top, and down the other side of the curve.


Binding the brim of your touque: Ensuring your side seam allowance is opened, using using your 1/4" foot on your sewing machine, lay the bias binding on the bottom edge of the right side of the touque. Do not stretch either the bias or the fleece. Sew using a scant quarter inch seam, just like you would do for a quilt. Either use the easy fold and tuck joining method, or the diagonal seam to join the ends of your bindng.


Trim, the bulk away from the side seam allowance/binding seam so that when you do the next fold over step, the fabric folds over to cover the seam.

Fold the bias over to the wrong side, covering the original bias stitching seam. Pin frequently with pins pointed toward your presser foot. Top stitch down, very close to the binding edge.

And that's it. You now have a Canadian Touque.

I hope you enjoy watching the Olympic torch go by in your neighbourhood, especially wearing your new Canadian Touque!

Click here to see a picture of my grandkids with their Canadian touques on.

To go to Part 1 of this tutorial, click here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Gail - I only wish i had seen this earlier. What a creative gal you are! Those grandkids are so lucky to have a grandma like you. Thank you for sharing this information with us. LB