How to Make a Baseball Cap

Don’t let a bad hair day keep you from feeling stylish! Brimmed baseball caps are a great way to upgrade your look while also providing protection from the sun and other elements, but how can you DIY one? Join Spoonflower Ambassador Leila Kelleher to learn the sewing steps towards a whole collection of custom hats using your favorite fabric designs.

Leila: I had a very old, faded baseball cap. The plastic brim and metal buckle were in perfect shape, so I wanted to try and save the plastic from the landfill. I was inspired so much by Cottuscognatus’ baseball cap remake on Instagram, I decided to make my own version using Spoonflower fabrics!

For this project, I chose Dogwood Denim™ in Charcoal Linen by erin__kendal for the outside and Petal Signature Cotton® in Iced Vovo Biscuits (an Aussie nostalgia cookie) by makemerriness for the bias on the inside.

First, give your hat a good hand wash and air dry it. Next, take really good detail shots of the cap before deconstructing it. You’ll probably do this project over a series of days and it’s good to ensure you don’t forget how it was originally constructed. For mine, I noted that the inner seams were covered with bias tape, as is typical for a cap. The main difference for this one was that the tightening system was done using a strap and metal slider buckle. I definitely wanted to reuse that and incorporate that detail.

With a seam ripper, begin unpicking the parts of the old baseball cap, separating all the pieces. Take it apart slowly, noting any interesting construction details. Try to unpick with the seam ripper rather than cut with scissors because you’ll be using these pieces to create your own pattern.

Take your pieces and give them a good press with your iron. If your pieces are as faded as mine, you should be able to easily see the stitching lines and seam allowances. I decided to use the same seam allowances: 1/4″ (1/2 cm) for the panel seams and 3/8” (1 cm) for everything else.

Trace around your pieces to create your patterns. Because I’m a patternmaker, I tweaked the pieces a little but this is not necessary! Be sure to mark the grainlines as well. At this stage you can add more seam allowance if you’re not confident sewing with the small allowances that they use in garment manufacturing. I also marked the placement of the eyelets. When I sew, I like to get everything prepped and ready to go, like a well-run kitchen!

Cut out your pieces from the Dogwood Denim. I recommend interfacing the front two panels and also the hat band. Cut the band interfacing narrower than the band (cut to the finished width of the band). Fuse the interfacing to the front panels and band. Fold and press the edges of the band over.

Test the eyelet function on your sewing machine if you have one. Use a scrap to do this. I tweaked the settings until I liked what I saw. I also went over it twice to ensure there weren’t any gaps. Sew the eyelets.

Make your bias binding. I made 1/2” (1.3 cm) single fold bias binding using the Petal Signature Cotton design I ordered. Don’t worry about joining the pieces together—shorter pieces are useful here!

Press the seam allowances of the strap in, if using. At this point I also did a double check that the strap would pass through the slider buckle. Cut off about 2” (5 cm) of the pressed strap for the buckle. Fold the other part of the strap in half and edgestitch it together. This will be the long part of the strap that weaves through the buckle to tighten the hat.

Topstitch the band, leaving one side open (this is the side that will be attached to the hat).

With right sides together (RST), sew the center front seam of the cap. Follow the curves neatly. Press the seam open with lots of steam and trim the seam back to 1/8” (3 mm). On the wrong side, place your bias tape over the seam allowances, centering it carefully. It will be difficult to pin—you can use some wash away Wonder Tape to hold it in place or just sew carefully. Edgestitch the bias tape down. You’ll end up with two rows of stitching, equidistant from your original seam. Stop sewing a little (1/4” or so) above the lower edge of the hat to reduce bulk. Trim the bias tape neatly. This is the procedure we will use for all of the panel seaming.

Sew and bind the center back seam in the same way, but take the tape all the way to both edges. We will now face the curved opening (the ponytail hole). Open one side of your bias tape and pin it to the curved opening with RST. Following the crease of the bias tape, sew the bias to the opening. Understitch and clip the curve. Press the bias to the wrong side and edgestitch the other, with the folded edge of the bias to the hat, forming a neat facing.

Hindsight is 20/20, right? I’m going to suggest a slightly different order of assembly here and it will make your life easier. The pics for this step don’t exactly line up with these instructions!

Sew and bind one side panel to the back panel assembly. Then sew and bind the other side panel to the front panel assembly (be sure you sew it onto the other side!). Trim all of the binding neatly to match the pointy ends of the panels.

Now sew the front assembly to the back assembly in one longer, curved seam. Press and bind as usual, BUT do it in one pass. This should cover up all of the trimmed ends of bias tape! You should have a pretty nice looking brimless hat at this point! Try to resist the urge to put it on, because you don’t want to stretch it out. But if you cannot help yourself, be gentle!

With RST, sew the brim pieces together along the curved front edge. Clip the curve well and press. Insert the plastic brim into the brim pocket you just created. Pull it back tightly and pin. You may need to go back and fix bits of your stitching. My brim was very thick and even with my industrial machine I decided it wasn’t worth it to have to fiddle with tension to topstitch the brim. Yours might be thinner and easier!

Match the center of the brim to the center front seam and hand baste into place. This might be tricky if your brim is as stiff as mine. Using a zipper foot to get very close, machine stitch the brim to the front of the hat.

With RST, pin the raw edge of the band to the edge of the hat. At the curved opening, neatly fold it back and trim. Using a zipper foot, sew the band to the hat. Grade and understitch the band. You can then flip the band up into the hat, give it a press and try it on to your heart’s delight!

These are instructions for using a sliding buckle. Slip the short strap piece over the center part of the buckle. Fold in half and stitch to the inside of the band, right near where the band seam is at the curved opening. Sew the longer strap to the other side.

Flip the band up into the hat. For the strap side, edgestitch the band to the hat, hiding the raw edge of the strap. For the buckle side, edgestitch just above the buckle. This forms a neat pocket to tuck the excess strap into.

Make a covered button and hand sew to the very top of the hat. This should cover any weird gaps as well. My button is 1/2″ (15 mm).

And we’re done—now admire your work from all angles!

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