Mark's Fez Hat

I made this custom ordered fez hat about a month ago but never posted it due to a trip to the hospital for knee surgery.  I'm still recovering but doing OK.  I also promised Mark, now the proud owner of this hat, that I would post a photo of it on my website.  So, I decided to post it here for starters and see how it looks.  This is Mark's second fez hat.  He really likes the style, and it looks great on him.

Here's a back and side view showing the tassel.  The band is made from dark charcoal grey merino wool, and the top is two ply made from more of the merino twined with some medium gray jacob wool.  The bead is glass.

Fez Hat

I've been thinking about putting up a new page on the website for this style of hats since they don't really seem to fit in well on any of the existing pages.  I call them fez hats because the idea for them comes from the traditional fez that's usually made from cotton cloth and has a tassel of some sort.  I've only made a few of them so far, but two fez hat owners decided at more or less the same time that they needed a second one. This first one is made from black alpaca and dark brown undyed merino wool.  The second hat is finished, but I haven't taken a photo of it yet. Hopefully I'll be able to do so by this weekend.  It's dark charcoal gray merino wool and lighter gray Jacob wool.

The top part is made with two ply yarn, which gives it some extra body that helps hold the shape. The rest is spun one ply medium weight.  I usually use a glass bead on the end of the tassel, though a wooden one might look nice, too.  This bead is a transparent warm brown which goes well with the brown in the two ply top section of the hat.

New Custom Made Hats

 I haven't been keeping up with this blog for a variety of reasons, one of which is that I've put up a Facebook page for my hats.  Unfortunately everything to do with Facebook seems to be time consuming, and posting is a real chore.  So now I'm back here where it's a bit more user friendly, and I can post some hats without feeling like my head is about to explode!  

There's been a lot going on here on the old homestead where the off the grid lifestyle is wonderful but also lots of work. My daughter and son in law have moved into what used to be a spare rental cabin, and they are doing a fabulous job of fixing things up.  We are currently involved with upgradng our solar as well as the water system, which includes digging a new pond and cleaning out the old one.  So not a lot of time for making hats, though both my daughter Allie and I are still taking custom orders and replacing sold hats on the website.

My most recent custom hats have been two malamute ski caps, which will be coming in handy this winter. I'm really happy when people place their orders this time of year when I have more time, rather than waiting until right before the holidays!  So here they are.  This first one is the natural color of the fiber, which looks sort of off white here, but is actually a pale oatmeal color.  Kind of unusual for malamute, which in my experience tends to be white or gray and white. The gray trim and ties are undyed Jacob wool.

The second ski cap is dyed in "rasta" colors as specified by the customer.  The fiber dyed very well, and the colors are very rich and vibrant.

Lisa's Handspun Designs Facebook Page

https://www.facebook.com/handspunhats?ref=hl

Doggy Hair Custom Orders

 

Over the holidays, I had several orders for hats made of dog hair.  Four of them were to be made from some black poodle hair that the customer sent me.  The first was a lumpy knit hat similar to one on my website but with the poodle hair instead of wool. It also included some wool and art yarn with novelty fibers added in.  No sooner than I had finished this hat than another customer emailed me wanting a black lumpy knit hat with dog hair and mohair.  The second hat included some dark brown chow hair and lots of mohair in the art yarn.  The two hats came out looking somewhat similar but definitely not the same.

Meanwhile I had three more poodle hair hats to make.  Two of them were for children and were made from a blend of the poodle hair with some wool.  They were matching but in different sizes.  The original design for this hat was on my website, but in an adult size. It included some bits of colored wool added into the yarn for the row that frames the face and the ties.  There was a tassel with a wooden bead on top.  A different color bead for each child.

The last but not least poodle hair hat was all poodle and in a long round cap style.  This was for an older adult.  The little white hairs show up in this yarn and add some nice texture and interest.  I would have liked to keep this one for myself.  I have enough hats though!

New Hats

I've made quite a few new hats since I last had time to update this blog.  The holidays kept me pretty busy, though I didn't participate in any fairs.  Instead my daughter and I took our hats out to the local Farmers Market.  I sold out of ski caps, so have made a couple of replacements for my website.  This one with the multi-color top and long tassel was one of my favorites and the first to get sold.

 

Another was a nice combination of rusty reds and browns, but it got sold before I could get photos.  So I made a new one in similar colors.  The top of this one is multi-color around the top also, but in a more subtle combination of earthy shades.  The section that looks olive green is actually more brownish.  This hat is now up on the website.





I hadn't made any ski caps in bright colors lately, so I tried using some colors that ordinarily would probably not be considered likely to go well together.  This is a sort of game I like to play sometimes - take a pile of yarns that are all different colors and make them work together somehow.  I've also used a variety of textures here, including some bright blue dyed samoyed hair.   The ties are braided rather than crocheted.  Something I've been wanting to try out.  See close up photo below.