How to Design Your Own Military Baseball Cap

Choose a bold, simple design for the insignia patch on a military baseball hat.

Although it is possible to purchase a military-themed baseball cap from an Army-Navy store, store-bought hats can be impersonal and uninspiring. Fortunately, designing your own hat is a fairly straightforward procedure, even if you have never designed clothing before. If you have an interest in the military, or simply appreciate an original hat, you can easily design your own military-inspired baseball hat at home. With the right preparation and materials, you can design and construct your military baseball hat in an afternoon.

Things You'll Need

• Paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Blank baseball or trucker cap
• Fabric scraps
• Fabric markers
• Fabric glue
• Newspaper
• Needle and thread (optional)

Instructions

1. Sketch ideas for a military patch on paper. Select a large shape, at least 3 inches across, to serve as the central design element of your hat. For inspiration, check a military recruiting office for images of actual military badges and insignia. Observe the insignia on your local police department and fire department vehicles for more ideas. A simple shape, such as the outline of a shield, works best.

2. Cut out your central insignia shape and trace it on a piece of fabric scrap with a fabric marker. Hold the paper template against the fabric scrap with your non-dominant hand and trace the outline with your dominant hand. Cut out the fabric scrap inside your marker line.

3. Draw your military motif on your fabric insignia shape with fabric markers. Keep the design bold and simple--avoid too many fine lines and details. This will help your motif communicate strength and commitment, which are classic attributes of military design.

4. Lay down a piece of newspaper to protect your working surface from any glue drips or spills.

5. Glue the central insignia to your hat with fabric glue. Hold the fabric in place for a minute while the glue sets.

6. Complete your military baseball hat by gluing smaller patches to the sides of your central insignia. Use the scrap material left over from cutting out your central insignia for these smaller patches or use different scrap fabric to add variety to your hat. Make and attach these patches according to the same procedure used for making the central insignia but make the auxiliary patches no larger than an inch in width and length. Alternatively, draw directly on the hat with fabric markers or use a needle and thread to embroider a design around the central insignia.

References

• Spazztic Crafts: The Crafter's Glue Guide

Resources

• Saunders Miltary Insignia