New Pattern: Zero Waste Warm Hat

By lizhaywood | August 6, 2024 |

After messing with zero waste hat ideas for the past 18 months, I can now present to you a fully zero waste hat.

Introducing the ZW Warm Hat, a hat for the winter months.

The pattern is now in my shop. Please enjoy 25% off for the next month.

This hat is self-lined with a turn-up brim. It’s made from knit fabrics and comes in five sizes, to fit heads 54cm/21¼” – 56cm/22″ – 58cm/22⅞” – 60cm/23⅝” – 62cm/24½”.

It’s pretty quick to sew. The pattern comes with a video sew-a-long and I almost made the hat in real time while filming it.

The pattern pieces are a crazy shape (or not so, if you’ve already made the low-waste sunhat), and interlock to form a rectangle:

Small items such as hats are never going to be zero waste in the sense that they use the full width of the fabric, because the pieces are simply too small. Instead, fitting the pieces into a modular square or rectangular shape means they can be moved around the fabric leaving no scrappy scraps, only usable pieces.


Here’s a gallery of hats in a variety of fabrics:

Polar fleece. Sure, it’s certainly not the most sustainable fabric to sew with, being 100% plastic, however if you have some lying around at home you could use it for this hat.
More polar fleece; this one is thicker. Originally bought from Spotlight, it’s called Arctic Polar fleece.
Double knit. This one has wide stripes on one side and narrow on the other, so I flipped the lining and made a reversible hat.
This particular sample has been the stand-out household favourite.
For lovers of slouchy hats, this weight of fabric works well worn this way. It could be made even slouchier by making it longer.
Merino wool jersey, the kind you’d use to sew base layers. It’s very thin and stretchy.
Two more hats which I didn’t photograph on heads.
The left one is red ribbing – it’s a sturdy, high-quality ribbing from Japan with good stretch recovery.
The pink one is what I call a “sweater knit“, and it’s the same fabric I used for the Eccles Cardigan last week.

There are some variations of this hat:

  • If the fabric looks good on both sides, you could make a single layer hat. The cutting layout will yield two hats.
  • The pattern could be used to cut a liner for a hand knitted hat that’s too itchy to wear (thank you to the person who suggested this – you know who you are!). The cutting layout will yield two.
  • Cut two hats of different colours, and swap the linings to give two-toned hats.


Here’s the pattern details:

Cheers!

Posted in My zero waste sewing patterns and tagged , , , , , , ,

8 Comments

  1. Kerrie O’Connor on August 6, 2024 at 7:18 pm

    Brilliant, Liz. Thank you.

    Reply
    • lizhaywood on August 7, 2024 at 12:17 pm

      Cheers, Kerrie!

      Reply
  2. Michelle Cahill on August 6, 2024 at 11:56 pm

    What a great stash buster! I’m looking forward to giving this pattern a spin when it gets cold up here in the northern hemisphere:)

    Reply
    • lizhaywood on August 7, 2024 at 12:17 pm

      Thank Michelle – I thought of you with the slouchy hat 🙂

      Reply
  3. Deborah on August 8, 2024 at 12:37 am

    I have a merino sweater that I use for mending that might have to become a hat too.

    Reply
    • lizhaywood on August 8, 2024 at 10:04 am

      Mmm..merino! It maybe? would work depending on the size of the sweater, as the pattern piece is a reasonable size. You just reminded me I forgot to put the fabric requirements in this post – I’ve put it at the end. Thank you 🙂

      Reply
  4. Judith on August 8, 2024 at 2:41 am

    Well done! This seems such a versatile pattern and a good starting point for trying zero-waste patterns.

    Reply
    • lizhaywood on August 8, 2024 at 9:57 am

      Thanks Judith, I think it would be as it’s nice and quick.

      Reply

Leave a Comment