Moda Fabrics Santa Hat Quilt - Downloadable PDF

Moda Fabrics Santa Hat Quilt Pattern – Downloadable PDF Summary

This free downloadable PDF pattern from Moda Fabrics guides quilters through the construction of a charming Santa Hat, a festive seasonal project that combines fabric cutting, piecing, and finishing techniques. Designed at an intermediate difficulty level, this pattern is well suited to sewists who are comfortable with basic garment and accessory construction and are ready to work with curved seams and layered fabrics.

What Is Being Made

The finished project is a Santa Hat, a wearable holiday accessory constructed from two fabric layers — an outer fabric and a cozy lining — along with a decorative band and a classic pom pom at the tip. The hat is designed to be a complete, structured accessory with a neatly finished interior and exterior.

Pattern Pieces and Cutting Instructions

The pattern includes printed and cut-out pattern pieces found on pages 4 through 7 of the PDF. Quilters are instructed to ensure their printer scale is set to 100%, and a reference square is included in the PDF to verify accurate scaling before cutting. The pattern pieces include:

• Hat (Outer Fabric): Cut one piece on the fold from folded outer fabric, with a notch cut at the bottom edge fold.
• Hat (Snuggles Lining): Cut one piece on the fold from the Snuggles lining fabric, with one short end folded, and a notch cut at the bottom fold.
• Pom Pom: Cut one piece from remaining fabric.
• Band: Cut one rectangle measuring 8 inches by 24 inches from remaining fabric.

Materials Referenced

The pattern references two primary fabric types:

• Outer Fabric: The main exterior fabric of the Santa Hat, providing the traditional hat shape and appearance.
• Snuggles Lining: A soft lining fabric referred to specifically as Snuggles, which provides comfort and structure to the interior of the hat. This material is handled with care — finger pressing is used instead of a hot iron to avoid damaging its texture.

Construction Techniques

This pattern draws on a variety of sewing and quilting-adjacent construction techniques appropriate for an intermediate-level maker. Key techniques include:

• Cutting on the fold: Both the outer fabric and Snuggles lining hat pieces are cut on the fold to create symmetrical, mirror-image shapes without a center seam.
• Notching: Notches are cut at fold points and along long edges of the band to assist with alignment during assembly — a standard technique in garment and accessory sewing to ensure accurate matching of seams and curves.
• Finger pressing: Used specifically when working with the Snuggles lining to open seam allowances without applying direct heat, preserving the fabric's soft texture.
• Trimming seam allowances: Seam allowances are trimmed to reduce bulk, a critical step when working with multiple fabric layers in a structured accessory like a hat.
• Wrong sides together (WST) assembly: The outer fabric hat is placed inside the Snuggles hat so that the wrong sides of both pieces face each other, aligning seams, notches, and bottom curved edges before pinning.
• Band construction: The 8" x 24" band is folded in half with right sides together (RST), short ends aligned and stitched, seam allowance trimmed, and then finger pressed open before being folded in half again — a technique that creates a clean, double-layered cuff or brim for the hat.

Stitches Used

The pattern specifies the following stitches during construction:

• Straight stitch: Used to join the short ends of the band together and throughout general seam construction.
• Zigzag stitch: Applied along the curved bottom edge of the hat to attach the outer fabric layer and the Snuggles lining together securely, providing both structural integrity and flexibility along the curved seam.

Assembly Overview

The construction process begins with printing and t