Day 3 of 7 days 7 hats

Charcoal seamed jersey beanie embellished with hand sewn spikes

Time required 1 hour 30minutes

The idea for this DIY customized studded beanie came by coincidence. One day I received a few packages of eBay goodies in the mail. One of the packages contained a seamed jersey beanie and another package contained some sew on plastic flat-back spikes. Even though I had purchased the spikes for another purpose, within a nano-second I changed my mind and decided to sew the spikes onto the beanie.

For inspiration I browsed the web and typed DIY customized studded beanie and hundreds of different options appeared. Many styles could be purchased (see the examples above) and many DIY’s variants were also available. In fact, once I finished sewing the spikes onto my beanie I found a seller who was offering a studded beanie identical to mine for only $14.99 ….

Oh! well. At least this hat transformation provided me with something to do while my hubby was watching football. (Are you also like that? I mean, you like to be in the living room with company, but you have to keep yourself busy because you don’t like their choice of TV programs? LOL).

Before we start, you could refer to my introductory post for a quick overview of the all the hats that will be revamped for this series and to read about my plan.

Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored. I was satisfied with the purchased items and I’m mentioning the sellers for your convenience in case you wish to acquire the same items 🙂

I purchased the seamed jersey beanie on eBay, the colour is dark grey. The seller did not mention the hat fabric composition but it’s probably made of a cotton/polyester blend.

Purchase jersey beanie on eBay — SELLER NAME iloveinternet

The sew on flat-back spikes/cone studs were also purchased on eBay.

I purchase 50 in the colour Hematite, size 6mm for $2.47.

Purchased sew on spike studs — SELLER NAME msuski100

Studs and spikes have commonly been used on motorcycle gloves and jackets for protection. But nowadays we add them to our attire to get a soft rock or edgy punk look. And I personally thought that this hematite colour looked utterly contemporary, even futuristic.

Note: For reference I have used some gold sew on spikes on a previous post: Simplicity pattern 1660 on a yellow linen top where I sewed spikes along the shoulder seams.

The beanie before being embellished — THIS IS MY BASE

Flat-back embellishments are really easy to sew onto clothes.

How to sew flatback embellishments by CardinalSewingNest — HOW TO HAND SEW THE FLAT-BACK STUDS/SPIKES

Double thread a needle and knot the end. Choose the placement for your first spike. Pass the needle from underside to the outside of the fabric. Pull the thread all the way through until the knot arrives at the underside of the fabric. String one spike by passing the needle through the carry on hole and pin the needle in the fabric to return the thread on the underside of the hat. Repeat this process about three times. On your last repetition make a knot on the underside of the fabric.

I started sewing the spikes following a triangle pattern. I didn’t measure the distance between the spikes, I simply eyeballed it.

Sew on the studs distanced them by a triangle shape by CardinalSewingNest.com — HOW TO HAND SEW THE FATBACK CONES

As you can see in the above picture, the distance between the spikes aren’t equal. I didn’t want the rigidity and the accuracy of a quilted fabric, I appreciate handmade irregularities.

Sew them one by one and cut the thread after each spike by CardinalSewingNest.com — INSIDE VIEW OF THE SEAMED BEANIE SHOWING THE DISTANCE BETWEEN EACH CONE

I hand stitched each spike individually cutting the threads on the reverse side of the hat, primarily because I wanted the beanie to remain extendable and I also wanted the reverse side of the beanie to have a nice finish. Another advantage of tying off after each sewn spike is that if the thread breaks only one spike will come undone.