Cookie Monster Fur Hat

This is a super-warm trapper hat made from actual Cookie Monster fur.

The blue fur plus green and yellow canvas make this is a vibrant twist on a type of hat that normally features natural, earthy tones. I love it, but this level of visual loudness isn't for everyone!

If you want to make a trapper hat for yourself, read on - you could use more traditional colors of course, and skip the exotic Cookie Monster fur if that's not your thing.

Step 1: Background

Trapper hats have been around forever, and sure, you could just buy one. But I wanted to make my own from scratch, in a unique style that really stood out.

I began by mocking up a pattern and created several prototype hats. It took a few tries to work out the kinks and settle on a clean, repeatable construction process, which is outlined in this guide.

I'm very happy with the final result and think this project is do-able for a person with some basic sewing experience. My finalized pattern is included in a later step. I hope you'll make one for yourself.

Ready? Let's get started!

Step 2: Set a Trap

First of all, if you want to use genuine Cookie Monster fur like I did, you need to capture one.

Here is how you do it.

They tend to come out of hiding if you lure them with some bait.

Lucky for us, Cookie Monsters are considered nuisance creatures and are completely legal to harvest year-round without a license.

Step 3: Catch

When one approaches the bait and starts snarfing, let him settle in and really go to town. This is his last meal, after all.

When you hear the distinct "nom nom nom" grunting noises, set the snare!

Step 4: Untie

If your Cookie Monster ate enough cookies he will be quite docile, in a lethargic sugar-high state.

You can untie him and he'll just lay there.

Step 5: Dispatch

There's no easy way around this: you must terminate (aka, snuff out, dispatch, cause to cease-to-exist, etc.) your Cookie Monster.

A quick and humane approach is advisable.

Perhaps use a blunt object to bonk him on the head.

Step 6: Dissect

Use a sharp tool to dissect your freshly harvested Cookie Monster.

My Cookie Monster inexplicably had two hearts. Perhaps a species trait?

Feel free to save his guts for some future project. I ended up re-stuffing his head to keep as a trophy.

Step 7: Supplies and Pattern

Ok, now that we have some Cookie Monster fur, let's talk about other supplies and a pattern.

For the outer shell I used material from an old waxed canvas tarp. You could use any durable non-stretchy material like cotton canvas or heavy nylon.

For the lining of the cap I used some blue minky fabric. The Cookie Monster fur became the lining for the ear flaps and bill portions of the hat.

I used a plastic slider buckle (later swapped to a pair of metal D rings, which are much better) and a little bit of webbing, along with some 1" cotton twill tape.

A sewing machine along with typical sewing supplies are required. If you have access to one, a free-arm style machine will make certain steps a lot easier.

There is a fair amount of hand-sewing required as well.

To make the pattern I began by finding a person with a big round head that was willing to loan it to me for a few minutes.

I wrapped and pressed a large piece of aluminum foil onto their head to make a head-shaped dome, and placed pieces of non-stretchy filament packing tape over the foil to lock the shape in place. The non-stretchiness of the tape is a key here.

The foil-and-tape head-shaped dome was removed and I drew a line from front to back through the middle. I then drew on some divisions that made the most sense (just on one half, since it's symmetrical), and cut these out and pressed them flat. These foil-tape sections were traced onto some paper and some minor adjustments were made to the drawn shapes to make them more symmetrical.

These two pattern pieces are used to make the cap section.

A pattern for the ear flap piece and the bill section were drawn out as I thought made sense.

All of these pattern pieces got tweaked and adjusted many times. The final versions of all pieces were traced and scanned, and are attached here as a pdf.

For the cap pattern pieces I only traced half of each so they'd fit on a single sheet. You can print two of the first page and tape two sets of halves together, or fold a sheet of paper and trace these halves along the fold and cut them out.

Step 8: Outer Shell Pieces

The following steps cover how to make the outer shell pieces.

For the ear flap I complicated it by making a yellow section that lined up with the yellow from the upper cap, and also sewed in a tag from the Cookie Monster. This isn't necessary of course.

The flap piece should not be cut out until after you've completed the cap section. It can be done as one piece or two, but you need to adjust the total length as needed based on the cap size so it will fit correctly on the cap.

This will be explained in more detail in a couple steps.

Step 9: Cap

The cap portion of the hat is made from four pieces of canvas based on the pattern included previously.

Be sure to scroll through all the photos which detail the process better than words.

When setting up your pieces prior to sewing them together I recommend using wonder clips or similar.

These pieces are all sewn together with a 5/16" seam allowance.

On my machine, I offset the needle to the left just a little, which gives me this allowance when the fabric edge is run along the right side of the presser foot.

The seams were all pressed down to one side, and are then top-stitched with the seam along the left side of the presser foot, with the needle in the same position which gives a good result.

This approach created a cap with a circumference of about 25 inches, which leaves room for some thin lining in the cap portion later on, and comfortably fits a head that's about 22 inches around.

Getting your sizing right may be the trickiest part of this. You'll likely need to make prototypes first to dial in the pattern to fit how you need it.

Your head size along with the thickness of the of lining and fur you use will all affect the final fit. So you should go in knowing that, and be open to having to adjust and re-do things a few times over to get it right. You will want extra material to allow for multiple attempts.

To make minor adjustments to the size of the cap, use either smaller or greater seam allowances. If needed you can simply scale up the pattern.

You can also make adjustments to the height of the cap by removing a little material from the bottom edge after sewing the pieces together, or adding some extra material at the bottom-facing edges when cutting out the pattern pieces.

Step 10: Flap

With the cap made, cut out the canvas bill piece but not the flap piece yet. At this point we're just test fitting to determine the size needed for the flap piece.

Clip the bill piece in place onto the cap front.

The flap piece needs to be made long enough so it overlaps the edges of the bill piece by two seam allowances (so in my case, 5/8") on each side - see marks photo 4.

This way, when everything is lined with fur and ready to be assembled both the flap and bill sections will wrap around the cap perfectly and butt into each other with no overlap.

With the bill piece clipped to the front of the cap, measure and determine the full length the flap piece needs to be (remember, it needs to overlap at this point).

The flap pattern piece is just half, and the middle section was left longer than needed. So as you lay it out, make any adjustments as needed which can be absorbed in the narrow middle section where the two halves meet.

Then use your adjusted pattern to cut out a flap piece.

Step 11: Fur

The Cookie Monster fur needed to be spliced and stitched together to make a big enough section for the ear flaps.

This was done by carefully measuring and hand-stitching various pieces together. After hand stitching, they were also reinforced by machine stitching very close to the edge of the seams as well, and back-tacked a few times over the areas where the seams would be cut through.

The bill and flap pieces are used as patterns to then mark and cut out the fur.

Step 12: Buckle

Before adding the fur to the ear flap section, I added some webbing and a slide buckle.

Once the hat was complete I realized how difficult the slide buckle is to thread while you're wearing the hat.

I found a pair of metal D rings and swapped these in place with a little hand stitching. They work much better, and honestly look better too!

Step 13: Attach Fur

The fur is now attached to the ear flap and bill sections.

Place the fur side facing against the good side of the canvas, and use plenty of clips to attach them together. Gently brush the fur inward so it's all pointing away from the seam.

The cap-edge of the bill and ear flap pieces must remain open so you can turn the pieces right-side out after stitching them together.

I used a machine and 5/16" seam allowance to join these pieces to the fur sections. Before turning them right-side out, I clipped little notches in the curved areas which will help them turn out nice and even.

With the flap and bill pieces turned right-side out, I used a loose whip stitch by hand (basting stitch) to close the top open edge of each piece, which just helps keep things under control and tidy as you go forward.

Step 14: Hand Stitch Flap and Bill to Cap

The ear flap and bill pieces are now clipped to the cap, and then stitched in place by hand.

I found it made things a lot easier to hand-stitch these in place now, just temporarily before heading to the machine to reinforce and finalize the union.

This way you can methodically fine-tune and make sure everything is exactly where you want it now, so when you go to the next step you don't have to worry about the positioning of the flap and bill. Instead you can focus on the positioning of the binding twill tape and not have clips in your way.

Step 15: Twill Tape

Some 1" cotton twill tape is used to make a binding which locks in the furry edge from the ear flap and bill pieces, as well as the raw edge from the lining later on. It's actually a key to this whole project.

I put my needle in the middle position here (so 1/4" to presser foot edge) and ran the edge of the cap along the right side of the presser foot.

The cotton twill was folded over at the start as shown in photo 2, and was positioned so the needle just barely caught it as I went along. After you've sewn all the way around, you just keep sewing an inch or two past the folded part. When you turn everything out right, you've got a nice clean start of tape and the finished end will be tucked underneath.

Sewing this tape in place is a two-handed move, and a little tricky.

With my left hand I held the twill tape with a little pressure so it was stretched just slightly as it was sewn in place, and kept the cap in position with my right hand as it's fed into the needle.

With the tape in place you can now turn the cap right-side out, and fold the tape up into the inside of the cap.

Step 16: Top Stitch

This seam is now top-stitched. This is a little tricky and requires you to be slow and methodical as you go.

You want the twill tape inside the cap to be pulled tightly up toward the crown of the cap and laying nice and flat. You can't see it of course, so you have to position it by feel as you go, reaching under and stretching it into position as you work your way around inch by inch.

In the end, the tape should be laid down with a stitch just through the middle as shown in photo 4. This leaves you enough room to hand-stitch the raw lower edge of the cap lining underneath the top side of this tape later on.

Step 17: Cap Lining

The cap lining is made using the same pattern pieces as the cap shell, but with about a 1/2" removed from all bottom facing edges as shown in photo 1.

The minky fur pieces are cut, clipped and stitched together with 5/16" allowances (no top stitching is needed).

Step 18: Attach Lining

The lining is pulled over the inside-out cap, with the seams facing in, and worked into position so all the seams line up with the cap seams.

You want the bottom edge to be just long enough to tuck into the twill tape binding; trim as needed.

When the lining is trimmed and in position, fold up one side and place some stitches at the very top by hand to connect the raw seam edges of the lining to the cap seam. Be sure not to go all the way through the cap or lining or else these stitches will show externally. These are just a few little hidden loops to hold the lining nicely against the shell.

I placed a few loops at the very top along the middle seam, and then a few more about a third of the way down along the same seam.

Now you can use a whip stitch to sew around the base of the lining to attach it under, and to, the twill tape. Make sure you don't pierce the cap or you'll have stitches showing externally.

As you work your way around, you can grab and pull the lining with the needle tip and push it under the tape edge as you place each stitch.

Step 19: Stitch Bill

Turn the hat right-side out and you can add a few little stitches by hand to hold the bill up against he cap.

If you don't stitch the bill in place, then technically this hat is reversible.

It's done!

Step 20: Options

I've made several of these with a more traditional look as well. This one is solid green canvas with a cream colored fluffy sherpa fabric, which is ridiculously comfy.

If you like the idea of using recycled fabric for the shell portion of the hat, you could use old work clothes, discarded tents, backpacks, etc. For the linings you can use Cookie Monster fur of course, or polar fleece, or something like the fluffy sherpa material I used on this green one.

Step 21: Thanks!

This was a fairly long write-up. Thanks for reading to the end!

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. And if you make one, be sure to share some photos!