Recently, my boyfriend started learning how to weld, and asked if I could make him a welder’s cap. I did research for images and patterns and more time passed between his request and the actual making, but I did manage to bust it out before the end of his semester. For a first attempt, I am very please with final product.

Here’s a great illustration of a welder’s cap and why it’s important. It helps protect the parts of a welder’s head that aren’t covered by a standard face mask – hair, ears, back of the neck. The other requirement for the cap is that it has to be made out of 100% cotton, the least flammable fabric.

Speaking of flammable, I usually work with recycled or leftover fabric, so a lot of times I’m not altogether certain of the fiber content of what I’m working with. So bring on the burn test! I learned about burn testing fabric in university, and honestly, it’s really fun. I found a wonderful visual chart from Ditzyprints.com to update my notes and was ready to burn, baby, burn. The fabric I used was muslin (yes, usually cotton, but I just wanted to be sure since I didn’t actually buy it myself; someone gave it to me) and pants that I had bought in Japan and were worn out in certain areas (yay bike crotch!) past repair. I translated the tag in Japanese and was pretty sure it was cotton, but again, just wanted to be absolutely sure. I mean, this was my boyfriend’s head at stake here! Happily, a burn test proved both fabrics to be 100% cotton.

I found a free pattern for the cap, by SeaminglySimple on Flickr, which was very easy to print and work from. I didn’t discover the instructions until later, and this may explain why the brim ended up on on top of the band, instead of under. It made sense to me while I was working on it, I guess. Oh, my brain…

I know it’s a mistake, but I do like how it turned out. It’s unique! (Right?)

And my boyfriend was really happy with it too, which was the most important part. Pictures!