Pattern Review: Elegance and Elephant's Fedora

Today I will be reviewing Elegance and Elephant's Fedora Hat.

Elegance and Elephants is a new Indie pattern shop started by Heidi who is an avid sewist and blogger.  She makes beautiful clothes with classic lines so it is wonderful that she is now sharing her designs through a pattern shop.

my first fedora

Sizes available:  The hat comes in sizes XS to XL.  Now, you must be careful and not assume that your pre-teen wears an XL.  Heads are funny and the size of the head does not necessarily correspond with the size or age of the child.  What you must do is measure your child.  The size range of the E&E fedora are 16.75 inches to 21 inches.  My oldest daughter has a 21 inch head and the XL version of the hat was too small. 

cute, but small

My son has son has a 20 inch head and it fit perfect.  (I also have a 2 year old girl that has a 22 inch head; so you can see that the size does not necessarily correspond to the age of the child.)

my son in his version

I pattern tested this hat and when you do that, you really hesitate to say anything negative about the product online, because you don't want to come off the testing list.  But, since it is such a wonderful hat (see the rest of the review) and because I must be honest in a review, I feel that I must say that the hat runs a bit small.  I hesitated even blogging about it here on Sew Cool because I am unsure how many tweens have 20 inch heads. But just in case, here you all go!

Special materials required:  The hat has an outer fabric, a lining, twill tape, and a heavy interfacing to give it shape.  Other than that, you just need the usual sewing supplies.

inside view

Skill level required:  This project is a bit more difficult because of the shape of the hat and the stiffness of the interfacing.  E&E states it is a 2 1/2 of 4 levels of difficulty and that seems about right.  It is for someone with some experience but you don't need to be an expert.

my upgraded version

Did I deviate from the pattern?  If you love the shape but your child's head is too big, you can do what I did; grade it up.  I graded the pattern larger by a 1/4 inch and that seemed to work well for my girl's head.  It still turned out super cute.

we decided on a flower to embellish it

The Good:  It is a beautiful hat that works well for boys and girls.  It has classic styling that can be embellished to fit any style or attitude.

The Bad:  It is sized for younger kids.  I would love to see an XXL in the range.

Overall, I rate this pattern bolts.