Remember how in a post a few months ago I was saying how I would really like to improve my sewing skills, possibly by taking a course? Also remember how once I am done working, sleeping, managing the household, playing with my boys, keeping in decent enough shape and maintaining some contact with likeminded individuals outside of my immediate family I have no time for anything whatsoever? So, no sewing courses for me. I do have a project that is complicated enough satisfactorily completing it would involve acquiring those elusive skills. The challenge: make a cycling cap I would not be embarrassed to sport in public.

Luckily, I suffer from occasional insomnia which gives me that extra 6 to 8 hours a day I would have otherwise spent sleeping. Last March, while my dad and sister were visiting, I used one of these opportune “white nights” to practice my sewing skills in making a hat.

It is supposed to be a cold weather cycling cap functionality list of which would include hiding helmet hair, soaking up sweat and keeping my ears warm (super important, I have very sensitive ears).

The hat was obviously absolutely terrible. The only reason I did not immediately trash it is because it might be a good prop if the kids ever do “Bob and Doug McKenzie” style skit for a school talent show.

My dad, not wanting to say anything about the hat in question, changed the subject by asking me to replace the liner in his winter hat.

Sure I can replace the liner, but in the process I have borrowed his hat for indeterminate period of time to attempt to reverse engineer the design and make a similar hat for myself. No, I have no desire to dress like a man of my dad’s generation, but the hat itself has excellent shaping and with lighter fabric and a single seam added between the forehead and the visor, this would make an amazing cycling cap.

Then for a while I did nothing due to actually sleeping at night. I did purchase a real cycling cap (summer version, no earflaps) to compare and contrast.

So today I was so sick I could neither go to work nor get anything done at home. It is just a cold I think, but it has got the best of me. I watched about four hours of television at which point I needed to do something more constructive or I would go crazy. It was time to do the first prototype of my dad’s hat.

Yes, that is a shopping bag that got ripped earlier this week when I attempted to carry milk from Costco’s cart to my bike. I put it in the recycling bin, but pulled it out when I was looking for strawberry container I could make the hat’s visor out of.

Anyhow, the point of this post is to take down notes on the prototype hat so I can fix it in the next edition as I am highly unlikely to remember the details without writing them down.

– The back of the hat should not end in a little triangle
– The central seam should only go up to the top of the head
– Side seams should be much more slacked
– Both top and bottom line of the central panel are slightly curved

Let’s hope that the next prototype turns out a resounding success.