What Can I Do With Too Many Baseball Caps?

How Many Baseball Caps Do You Have in Your House?

If you are like my family, you have more than you can wear and more than you need.  Yet, have you ever noticed that you never seem to have one when you need it? And then you end up having to buy another one.

They are useful when it’s bright and sunny out, when you have a hairless spouse or when you need to hide the hair you haven't washed in a few days.

Why Don’t We Just Throw Baseball Caps Away?

My husband would kill me if I even tried!  So, they accumulate and multiply. Then one day you realize that you just have way too many of them. 

Baseball caps are very similar to T-shirts in that they are a vehicle for memories.  You get ball caps at events or from gift shops. But rarely at a baseball game! You keep them because of the memories associated with them.

So, What Do You Do With All of Your Baseball Caps?

I have not seen very many interesting solutions and I have looked. There is the shower curtain ring storage solution and there are other display solutions. And you can send the nice new ones with few memories associated with them to children’s cancer hospitals for the kids to use when they lose their hair. But we have more caps than that.

How Can You Get Rid of Your Baseball Caps and Keep Them Too?                     

Our solution – use your baseball caps in a quilt. For years we have been adding baseball caps to T-shirt quilts.  We don’t add the entire cap, but the logos from the front, back and if possible the bill.  You can intermix ball caps with T-shirts in a quilt. Or you can make a quilt from nothing but baseball caps.

Mixing Baseball Caps In With T-shirts for a Quilt

One of the best ways of using baseball caps is to mix them in with T-shirts when you have a quilt made.  Many times the ball caps play a supporting role to your T-shirts.

They also work well mixed with T-shirts because most people don't have enough ball caps to make a quilt only from the caps. Read more about that below.

You see, a ball cap only makes a very small block. There is just not a lot of material there. One ball cap make about the same size block as a golf shirt with a breast logo. Read here about how many T-shirts it takes to make quilt quilt. 

Many of our customers take the opportunity to lighten their load of baseball caps when they have a T-shirt quilt made. 

In the photo here, it's difficult to tell that the two blocks are each made from a baseball cap. In the "A" block you can see the patch from the cap better.

Planning a T-shirt quilt?
Here are step-by-step directions for ordering your T-shirt quilt.

Should You Add a Baseball Cap to Your T-shirt Quilt?

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine if adding a baseball cap is worth it to you. 

Yes:

• If the baseball cap adds to the story you are telling with your quilt.
• If the cap is clean or clean enough for your standards.
• If you have too many of them and want some of them to go away.

No:

• You don’t want any stiff areas in your quilt. A ball cap can be stiff.
• If the ball cap is just too nasty dirty.
• If you will get in trouble for using it in the quilt.
• If the per cap cost is more than you think is worth for the block it will make. (see #3 below for more about pricing)

Stand Alone Baseball Cap Quilts

A quilt or pillow made entirely from baseball cap can be made. But there are a few issues you need to know about. 

1. Ball caps will only make a small block. So you will need a ton of them. For example, a lap size quilt would need approximately 65-80 hats. For a pillow you would need between 15 and 25 caps.
   
   
2. Baseball caps typically are not very soft. Thus the pieces we use from them are also not soft. Many times the face of the ball cap is reinforced.This is to keep the embroidery or printing looking better.  This stiffness does not disappear when we cut out the logo.
   
   Bottom line - baseball cap quilts are stiff and scratchy. The quilts we make from them are best used as a wall hanging.
   
   
3. We add a per cap/hat charge to the cost of a quilt. So using 75 or a 100 ball caps will increase the cost of the quilt quite a lot. Here's a link to the Special Requests & Services page with the current pricing. 
   
   Why do we add a per cap charge? It takes time and skill to dissect a ball cap. Many times the ball caps have been worn a lot and never washed. So there is an ick factor. Then the part we remove from the hat has to be sewn to another piece of material. So all the extra time and work adds up. 

Below are some photos of quilts we have made from baseball caps.

We hope this helps you decided what to do with your baseball caps. If you have any questions about using baseball caps in your quilt, please e-mail us.

To learn more about T-shirt quilts, visit our Learning Center.
We have over 200 articles about all aspects of T-shirt quilts.

This quilt is ball caps and plaid shirts. It's who this guy is!