Gatsby Cloche Hat and Free Pattern

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald was the last book in my Craft Book Club. As soon as I picked the book I knew I needed to make a cloche hat! My initial plan was to felt a piece of knit wool and sew the hat out of. Unfortunately the piece of wool my mother knit me using her knitting machine shrunk too much so I didn't have enough fabric to cut out all the pattern pieces. I changed my plans slightly, ran to the fabric store, and picked up some polyester felt made from recycled plastic. Technology is amazing! Would you ever have guessed this hat was originally plastic bottles?

My Gatsby inspired cloche was made from two layers of felt and followed a sewing pattern I drafted myself that am offering to you for free! I am pretty excited, this is the first of my sewing patterns I am publishing and it is 100% free for personal use! (The pattern link is below.) The photo above shows the hat embellished with a felt flower (instructions at the bottom of this post) and the next two photos show the plain cloche, first with the brim turned up then with the brim down.

view cloche hat sewing pattern.pdf

If you make a cloche following my pattern I would love to see pictures!

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Our next book is Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld or perhaps the entire trilogy because after reading/listening to Alan Cumming read Leviathan I had to find out what happened in Behemoth and now I started Goliath and am plan on finding stuff to make a Huxley this weekend! I'll share my Darwinist creation with you towards the end of May.

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Here is a mini photo tutorial on making a simple felt flower that you could use to embellish your cloche, a headband, or anything that may need a floral adornment: