Florent: FreeSewing's Flat Cap
About Florent
Florent is a flat cap, a rounded cap with a small stiff brim in front.
- 🤯🧵🧵🧵🧵🧵( difficulty = 3/5 )
- 🏷️accessorieshats( 2 tags )
- 🪡curvedSeam( 1 techniques )
- 📐Quentin Felix( designer )
- 🧑💻Quentin Felix, Joost De Cock, ( developers )
- 💡Sewing Instructions for Florent
- ✂️Generate a bespoke sewing pattern for Florent
- ❤️#FreeSewingFlorent( Hashtag for social media )
- Linedrawing
- Measurements
- Design Options
- Design Parts
Required Measurements
- Fit
- Head ease
The amount of ease around your head
- Head ease
| ID | Description |
|---|---|
florent.top | Top |
florent.side | Side |
florent.brimBottom | Brim bottom |
florent.brimTop | Brim Top |
florent.brimInterfacing | Brim interfacing |
Designer Notes
I found a scan of a hand drawn flat cap pattern, for one size and experimented with scaling on the screen of my laptop and tracing it through with tracing paper stuck on the screen.
The goal was to make it fit my (rather big) head circumference. I also made a few caps, improving the shapes with each prototypes. But then someone asked me to make one for them... meaning I would need to scale my parts to fit their head circumference.
At that time I heard about freesewing and as I am a bit of a geek I gave it a try to draw my (then improved) pattern pieces. Sure enough I was able to play with it and get it to scale the parts, to fit any head circumference. I believe since then a few improvements have been added by other members of the community and it is always a pleasure to see theses caps popping up on the freesewing website or on Instagram.
Quentin
What You Need
To make Florent, you will need the following:
- Basic sewing supplies
- About 0.5 meters (0.6 yards) of a suitable fabric (see Fabric options)
- About 0.5 meters (0.6 yards) of lining fabric
- Tape, a bit more than head circumference + ease that you used for the pattern
- A sheet of plastic or something rigid for the brim (1 mm thick or less)
Fabric Options
For the main fabric of your cap, a thick fabric will shape better, but if you go for a lighter fabric, you can interface it to give it more body.
The lining can be anything, but it is usually something light and nice.
Cutting Instructions
To make Florent, cut out the following parts:
- Main fabric
- Cut 1 top on the fold but don't include the center seam allowance, or 2 top with the center seam allowance.
- Cut 1 side on the fold, or 2 side.
- Cut 1 brim top.
- Cut 1 brim bottom.
- Lining fabric
- Cut 1 top on the fold but don't include the seam allowance, or 2 top with the center seam allowance.
- Cut 1 side on the fold, or 2 side.
- Plastic
- Cut 1 brim interfacing. Tape the pattern part to the plastic, don't cut the notches in the plastic, but you can mark it (engrave it, or with permanent marker maybe). You don't really want any sharp edge, so make sure everything is smooth and rounded a bit (especially on the pointy sides).
The brim bottom part is inset, while the brim top part is offset so that the seam falls "underneath the brim edge". Keep that in mind when cutting the parts, and mark them accordingly, so that you don't end up with the seam on top of the brim (I don't want to force you into this design choice, I simply want to point out the difference between the parts so that you are aware of it and act accordingly).
If you want to avoid a seam down the middle of the top part, you can cut 1 top on the fold rather than 2 tops and sew them together. The fold line would be the horizontal stretch of the top part, and you'd only have a seam at the right side where it tapers downwards.