Recycle an old woolly hat into a cute new bear hat. there really quick and easy to make and they look so cute on.
A great recycled art project for the winter season and is suitable for all ages.
Bear hats are all the rage at the moment in the UK for winter.
I haven’t been able to buy one that suits me from a store, so I took an old woolly hat that I know I look good in, with a lovely wide brim and turned it into a new bear hat. I found most store bought hats were quite thin and don’t keep the cold out.
Luckily I had a thermal hat that was perfect to be converted into a nice winter warm bear hat.
How to make a Bear Hat
1. Put your hat on your head and tug at the top sides to form ears, then pin in place to secure.
2. With a needle and thread run a gathering stitch along the length of your bear hats ear going from front to back with your needle. When you get to the end pull tight to form the ear and with a rounding stitch going from front to front secure in place. Repeat on other ear.
For your bears nose and eyes it’s up to you what to use to make the features of the bear, the hat looks great with or without eyes and a nose.
You could use buttons, felt, wool or buy toy bear eyes from a store there are lots of things you can use for the eyes and nose of your bear. I used Pink wool for the bears nose and 4 buttons for the eyes.
3. For the nose I used a simple rounding stitch going from left to right over the top from the back. For the eyes I used 4 buttons two big white buttons and two smaller brown buttons. It took me about an hour to up-cycle my old woolly hat into a new fashionable bear hat.
Fixing the eyes onto the hat can be a real pain to get them level. Something I wish I had done and came up with afterwards was to get two little stickers and place them on the hat where I wanted the eyes, in hindsight this would have made it easier than guessing where the eyes should be :)
I did try putting in a guiding stitch to position the eyes but that’s not easy in a mirror, with a needle, while your wearing the hat :)
One of the eyes on my bear hats is a little to high and a little further apart from each other than I wanted. I asked my hubby if he could see that they were a little off, but he said he hadn’t noticed them being off when I’m wearing my bear hat so maybe it’s just me :)