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A couple of hat projects were on hold here at the Caverns, awaiting the arrival (via oxcart, apparently) of ribbon -- a darkish gray roll for use on a black body, and a brown roll for a chocolate-colored one.
We had no plans for the weekend, and I was growing restless, so I went to work on the brown hat, which I had planned on modeling loosely on the hat worn by a guy portraying a fictional archeologist in a popular motion picture. (Hence the brown ribbon.) I wasn't aiming for "screen accuracy" (that's what I think they call the faithful reproduction of movie costumes). I knew I wouldn't be making the same type of bow, for instance, and I have no faith in my abilities to cut a dimensional brim. I have a box full of ribbon, but none in brown. But the black looked good against that brown body, I thought, so I ran with it.
But I kinda screwed up. I wanted a somewhat narrower brim than the one on the movie hero's hat, but not as much narrower as this one came out. I'll spare y'all the gory details on just how I managed to blow it, but blow it I did. (It's sufficient to say that it's all to the better that I never pursued a career in surgery.)
So I had this all-beaver hat body -- blocked, pounced, brim trimmed to size, but the wrong size. I could have made more brim by reblocking the hat into a slightly shorter crown and turning that lost bit of crown into brim. Nah. I wanted a tall-crowned hat, and the way things were going on this one, I feared that the harder I tried to "correct" matters, the worse they would get. So I stepped away from it for a few hours, to give myself the chance to get into a better state of mind. I rationalized that while a markedly narrower brim may be a dramatic departure from that movie hat, it is more in keeping with the styles of the 1930s, seeing how it has that tall, relatively straight-sided crown.
Anyway, I like it. I would have liked it with another quarter inch of brim, too, but I can see this one pairing up well with a wide array of attire.
Maybe I'll make more of these, in various brim widths and ribbon colors. The chocolate brown is such a nice color (it's darker and richer than it appears in these photos), and those all-beaver bodies finish with such a nice hand.
I can get along fine without the bullwhip and other accoutrements, but I'm developing an appreciation for the brown hat.
We had no plans for the weekend, and I was growing restless, so I went to work on the brown hat, which I had planned on modeling loosely on the hat worn by a guy portraying a fictional archeologist in a popular motion picture. (Hence the brown ribbon.) I wasn't aiming for "screen accuracy" (that's what I think they call the faithful reproduction of movie costumes). I knew I wouldn't be making the same type of bow, for instance, and I have no faith in my abilities to cut a dimensional brim. I have a box full of ribbon, but none in brown. But the black looked good against that brown body, I thought, so I ran with it.
But I kinda screwed up. I wanted a somewhat narrower brim than the one on the movie hero's hat, but not as much narrower as this one came out. I'll spare y'all the gory details on just how I managed to blow it, but blow it I did. (It's sufficient to say that it's all to the better that I never pursued a career in surgery.)
So I had this all-beaver hat body -- blocked, pounced, brim trimmed to size, but the wrong size. I could have made more brim by reblocking the hat into a slightly shorter crown and turning that lost bit of crown into brim. Nah. I wanted a tall-crowned hat, and the way things were going on this one, I feared that the harder I tried to "correct" matters, the worse they would get. So I stepped away from it for a few hours, to give myself the chance to get into a better state of mind. I rationalized that while a markedly narrower brim may be a dramatic departure from that movie hat, it is more in keeping with the styles of the 1930s, seeing how it has that tall, relatively straight-sided crown.
Anyway, I like it. I would have liked it with another quarter inch of brim, too, but I can see this one pairing up well with a wide array of attire.
Maybe I'll make more of these, in various brim widths and ribbon colors. The chocolate brown is such a nice color (it's darker and richer than it appears in these photos), and those all-beaver bodies finish with such a nice hand.
I can get along fine without the bullwhip and other accoutrements, but I'm developing an appreciation for the brown hat.
