Easy fleece cap McCall 4681 E

With less than 2 hours work - including tracing off and hand sewing, I think I truly like this easy fleece cap I just made for hubby.  As I've mentioned before, hubby is from Florida and doesn't like cold weather anyway.  Add to that, he is also active duty military ... and is required to keep the "bad army haircut" as long as he is still in, so no hope of natural insulation from his hair.  Over the weekend while I was working on my faux sherpa beret and fingerless gloves, he asked for a simple fleece hat to keep his head warm ... and was NOT an army-issue color.

As soon as he saw the photos and line drawings for McCall 4681 he wanted on (minus embellishments, of course!).  Each view for M4681 has a slightly different pattern piece and instructions, so I read over the instructions for each and chose view E as the not only the simplest, but the one that made the most sense to me for construction.

I had to measure his head last night, since McCall didn't use hat size but inch measurements for their sizing.  Hubby needed a medium according to the measurement chart.  Regardless of which size I needed, I had to trace it off due to the way the pieces overlap on the different sizes:

I suppose there is a remote chance my son may want one, once he sees hubby's.  Remote - the kid prefers store-bought stuff.  He's learned not to say "stuff with a label" because I mentioned wanting to buy my own labels to put in the clothes I make.

Now, I don't know about y'all, but I have yet to successfully mark fleece with a fabric marker.  Instead, I mark important things - like leaving an opening to turn a fleece hat - with my long yellow top pins:

Another thing the pattern instructions mention doing that I still have not accomplished: pressing seams and whatnot in fleece!  I don't know if it's just me, or if the fleece takes advantage of my inexperience like a naughty and mischievious child ... but I have yet to successfully press fleece and honestly have given up trying several projects ago.  If there is a secret to it, no one has told me.
A few seams, turn, then hand stitch the opening closed and tack the two layers together ... and here it is:

Since hubby and I wear the same size army soft cap (6-7/8) I tried it on to make sure there was enough stretch ... success!  The cap itself is double layer, and when turned up that is four layers of fleece over the ears.  That should be more than enough to keep even hubby's ears warm.  He'll want it later in the week if the forecast cold front moves through.

Next project will finally be hubby's flannel shirt.  If it sounds like hubby is getting the lion's share of recent projects ... a happy hubby doesn't complain as much about recent fabric purchases, although he still does make a few noises about how much space the growing stash of fabric takes.  If my box arrives today as it should, I'll post about recent acquisitions - and a splurge.