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- The Beautiful Diablo Valley
Well..I have been there many times before and have moved this and that, played with ribbon....watched a lot of hat magic..
On Wednesday, I actually went to Art's and began working on a hat! I was tasked with making a hat out of a vintage 1920 or so hat body, silver belly in color. Art scored some treasures on a recent trip to Oregon.
This hat body is old and had some yellow spots, but they sanded off quite nicely, thank you. The fuzz, when a hat body is sanded (Pounced) on a modern felt makes large clumbs of "fuzz bunnies" to use a generic term. The sanding of this vintage quality felt was nothing less than spectacular. It is obviously a high quality pure beaver hat body. It produced nothing but soft tiny fuzz....not unlike what I have gotten when "treating" a vintage hat in my collection.
Boy this hat is tight!. So now when you sand a hat, using ever so fine paper, the dang thing heats up but quick. My hands were hot and tired. Used the palm area (no fingers) to even the felt. You can really tell where you have sanded and where you have missed a spot. It is like a fine piece of furniture..gentle and lots of time and effort.
The color of the hat changes as you work it over and over again, getting deeper into the fur....layer upon layer, like polishing a rare gem.
The hat was then ironed, using some contraption from the 1920's, the hat spins on the block and the iron goes over and over and over it . Boy that sure tightens up the felt.
Back to sanding, and sanding, and sanding. Then the heavy (15 pounds?) tailors' iron for the brim. Got that puppy as flat as a 33 1/3 LP record album!
Now onto the brim block, and this is the tricky part. You DO NOT want to impart any wrinkles or imperfections onto the hat felt. Then you steam and iron thru the cloth and pull the brim to the block. Then into the sand box ( brim iron) to set things up. Then the hat comes out, and the hat goes onto the block where the pinch crown shape is placed into the felt.
Then the hat is removed when cool, and the sweatband it measured and sewn in.
The sweatband is high quality, and has a ferule between the two ends which are precicely cut at the correct angle. Art has a trick to insure the perfect cut every time. Then the wire is placed and the ends are hand sewn in place. Over to the sewing machine, and a perfect stitch is applied to secure the sweat ends along with the paper backing. Then the application of the white bow to the back of the sweat, double sewn in to insure alignment and security. No single stitch her, Mister!
The sweatband is tack lock stitched into the hat body, and then it is permanately sewn in. The original stitch is then removed. Yes, Art double sews the sweats to ensure perfect alignment!
Now, back to the sizing block, and then there will be additonal sanding.
What I described, with minor help from me and lots of skill from Art took about 3 1/2 hours. As you can see, Art is a perfectionist, and works on quality and not quantity.
Stay tuned, the hat is undergoing further work, and will be ready in about two weeks.
Oh, did I mention?..., the hat is going to be mine!!!
On Wednesday, I actually went to Art's and began working on a hat! I was tasked with making a hat out of a vintage 1920 or so hat body, silver belly in color. Art scored some treasures on a recent trip to Oregon.
This hat body is old and had some yellow spots, but they sanded off quite nicely, thank you. The fuzz, when a hat body is sanded (Pounced) on a modern felt makes large clumbs of "fuzz bunnies" to use a generic term. The sanding of this vintage quality felt was nothing less than spectacular. It is obviously a high quality pure beaver hat body. It produced nothing but soft tiny fuzz....not unlike what I have gotten when "treating" a vintage hat in my collection.
Boy this hat is tight!. So now when you sand a hat, using ever so fine paper, the dang thing heats up but quick. My hands were hot and tired. Used the palm area (no fingers) to even the felt. You can really tell where you have sanded and where you have missed a spot. It is like a fine piece of furniture..gentle and lots of time and effort.
The color of the hat changes as you work it over and over again, getting deeper into the fur....layer upon layer, like polishing a rare gem.
The hat was then ironed, using some contraption from the 1920's, the hat spins on the block and the iron goes over and over and over it . Boy that sure tightens up the felt.
Back to sanding, and sanding, and sanding. Then the heavy (15 pounds?) tailors' iron for the brim. Got that puppy as flat as a 33 1/3 LP record album!
Now onto the brim block, and this is the tricky part. You DO NOT want to impart any wrinkles or imperfections onto the hat felt. Then you steam and iron thru the cloth and pull the brim to the block. Then into the sand box ( brim iron) to set things up. Then the hat comes out, and the hat goes onto the block where the pinch crown shape is placed into the felt.
Then the hat is removed when cool, and the sweatband it measured and sewn in.
The sweatband is high quality, and has a ferule between the two ends which are precicely cut at the correct angle. Art has a trick to insure the perfect cut every time. Then the wire is placed and the ends are hand sewn in place. Over to the sewing machine, and a perfect stitch is applied to secure the sweat ends along with the paper backing. Then the application of the white bow to the back of the sweat, double sewn in to insure alignment and security. No single stitch her, Mister!
The sweatband is tack lock stitched into the hat body, and then it is permanately sewn in. The original stitch is then removed. Yes, Art double sews the sweats to ensure perfect alignment!
Now, back to the sizing block, and then there will be additonal sanding.
What I described, with minor help from me and lots of skill from Art took about 3 1/2 hours. As you can see, Art is a perfectionist, and works on quality and not quantity.
Stay tuned, the hat is undergoing further work, and will be ready in about two weeks.
Oh, did I mention?..., the hat is going to be mine!!!
