Bamboo Skull Cap

This is a new skull cap that I've just posted to my website.  It's made almost entirely from bamboo, which may sound a little weird, but spinable fibers come from a variety of plants, like hemp, flax (linen), bamboo and cotton of course.  There is also corn fiber, but I haven't tried that yet.  The bamboo looks very much like silk and has a subtle sheen that I like very much. The blues and lavenders are all bamboo, and the dark green is hemp, which is not shiny at all, so that makes for some nice contrast.

Spring Hat

This is the second hat I made for the customer in Arizona.  It's made from hemp, linen and cotton.  He wanted browns with blue and green accents again, but since plant fibers use a very different sort of dye process, the colors are a little lighter.  He was very happy with this hat as well.

A New Design

I've been busy this winter with survival issues related to firewood and dealing with wrecked roads due to huge rains here in Mendocino County, CA.  Not much time for making hats, but I do want to post a couple of new ones.  

I had a custom order for two hats from some very nice folks in Arizona.  One was a lighter weight hat for spring and the other a very warm winter hat.  The winter hat actually ended up inspiring a new style.  It's a sort of cross between a small tam and my modified fez hat style.  The fez hat is usually flat on top with extra body created by using two ply yarn that sort of tweedy.  I also incorporate a longish tassel with a bead on the end.  I call this a tassel fez. The one pictured here is modified to make the top a bit wider and turned under.  My customer liked this style but instead of the tassel, he wanted a design in browns with blue and green accents

So this is what I came up with.  A modified tassel fez hat but with a design on top instead of the tassel.  He loved it, and it's still cold enough to wear this winter!

Malamute Hair Long Scarf

This is a scarf I never got around to posting here.  I made it last spring for a customer who had a huge lot of saved malamute hair.  She had several dogs.  So there was plenty of fiber for a nice long scarf.  It was super soft and warm. 

Large Beige Tam

 This is a large size, 11 in. diameter tam made from very pale gray alpaca (looks white in the photo), beige chow hair, gray mohair, and beige and gray shetland wool.  Very soft and comfy, and very warm.

Wool, Malmute and Angora Tam

This is an extra large tam and is about 11 inches in diameter.  The darker gray is jacob wool and the lighter fuzzy sections are malamute hair.  The thin off white stripes are angora.  Very soft and warm!

Ski Hat Time

I've been busy getting ready for a couple of holiday craft fairs at a local museum.  Very nice venue with great lighting.  The fair was Friday and Saturday of last week and went well.  Ski caps were most popular as it's getting really cold here in Northern California.  Here's one that got sold.

And here is another that I had just made, but didn't sell.  I really like the colors.

Big Flower Hat

It's been awhile since I've made one of these, and since the last of them got sold over the holidays, I decided to try making a new one.  I had forgotten how to work the flower into the hat, though, so it took a little experimenting before I finally got it right.  The purple and green combination had always been one of my favorites.  There are also some gold silk tussah accents and some white fuzzy popcorns.  The gold color of the silk is natural, as tussah silk is gathered wild and usually found on oak trees where the tannin in the leaves turns the silk gold.

More Doggy Hats

A couple of weeks ago I had three custom orders for basically the same hat.  Each customer had the same dog hair fiber - rusty beige colored chow hair - and they all wanted the same style hat!  So I managed to make them different by adding some design work in contrasting colors.  They were very soft and fuzzy, and all customers loved their hats.  Here's one of them:

Catching up

I've been pretty busy since the holidays with custom orders and replacing hats on the website.  I sold a lot of baby hats at the Farmers Market, one of which sold too fast for me to even get photos.  Anyhow here are some of the replacements.  I intended this first one to be in 'boy colors' since I've had some requests for that.  I once even had a custom order for a black baby hat!

This pink one is of course very girlie.  People do seem to like fuzzy popcorns and trim.  White fuzzy seems to be especially popular. 

I like this one because it's got several nice bright colors, and I do like to work with bright colors!

 

Knit Hat

This hat is made from a blend of many different colors of wool with a tiny bit of blue metallic sparkle that is too subtle to show up in the photos. The tiny sparkles only show up in bright light or sunlight. The crocheted circle and the band around the edge are made from more of the same colors blended with a lot of black.  The band can also be turned up.

Ski Caps

Most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about ski caps in July, but this is my time for stocking up and taking custom orders.

This first ski cap is a new lumpy knit style that I like quite a lot.  It's made mostly from wool, with some llama wool, mohair and poodle hair.  Here are a couple of  different views.  The bead is painted glass.

This next ski cap was a custom order and is made from malamute hair.  The first photo on the display head shows a little more of the hat, and the second one was taken by the customer.  I love this photo.  So cute!

 

Some New Hats

Time to get this blog caught up!  I've made quite a few new hats, but haven't had much time for posting them here.  Back in May I made these two plant fiber skull caps. This first one is mostly linen dyed dark gray with some turquoise and red cotton. 

This second one is mostly cotton with some thin accent stripes in linen.  Both fit a medium large size adult.

Fez Hat

I made a new custom fez style hat recently for a customer who really likes them.  This is his third one!  He's a redhead, so I thought that blue and gray might work well for him.  It turns out that he loves it!  I asked him to send a photo of himself wearing it, but no luck yet.  Anyhow here are two photos of the hat on a display head.  

The glass bead on the end of the tassel is hard to see, but it's glass and is a sort of dark gray and black.  The top part is two ply blue and gray Corriedale and Shetland wool.  The double ply makes it thicker so that it holds it's shape better.  The band is natural gray Shetland wool.

 

Blue Tam

Having saved up a good supply of different shades of blue yarn, I decided to make a tam with it.  It even has some navy blue dyed Samoyed hair to give it some interesting texture.  It's made from mostly wool (Corriedale, Romney, and Suffolk) with bright blue sections in curly mohair.  This is a nice warm hat for chilly winter weather that looks great and goes well with either jeans or for dress up.  Blue seems to be the one color that looks good on everyone, and doubly so for those with blue eyes!

This hat is posted on my website at http://handspunhats.com/tams_&_%20snoods.htm and http://handspunhats.com/tams_&_%20snoods.htm, #34.

A Skull Cap and Round Cap

These two hats are both skull caps, though I call the longer ones round caps to distinguish between the lengths of the hats.

This first one is a round cap because it covers most of the ears.  It's made from Corriedale, Suffolk and Merino wool.  The two tone effect is a result of the natural lanolin in the wool which causes the dye to be taken up in varying amounts.  This makes for a more textured look.  Fine for either gender, but probably a little bit too large for most children.  It's a medium large.

 This one has a bit more detail in the design and is a nice combination of earth tones.  It's a medium to medium large size and covers about half of the ears.  It's mostly wool (Romney, Corriedale, and Suffolk) with black silk and medium olive trim.  The darker olive is close to a brown.

Two Ski Caps

Ski caps are always popular, and these two are more replacements for hats sold around the holidays. I made the blue one to replace one that was very popular at the fair.  Folks were calling it the 'happy hat' so I figured I should probably replace it with another colorful hat.  The hat below has some of the same colors as the 'happy hat.'

  

This hat has some fun multi-colored yarn that I used around the edge and for the ties and tassel on top. Most of the hat is Corriedale and Suffolk wool with some fuzzier looking Samoyed hair that been dyed navy blue.

This one is once again, mostly Corriedale and Suffolk wool with a little grayish white fuzzy malamute hair around the top for texture.  Both ski caps are a size large. Not so bright colors on this one though.

Some New Hats

I've had some health issues, but feeling better now, so will be trying to catch up by posting some of the new hats I've made. These hats have been made to replace the sold ones on my website, so there are several styles pages that are represented. The first were the lumpy knits.  Some of those got sold at a holiday fair and got replaced by the three included in this post.

This one has a turned up brim that can also be worn turned down.  It's mostly Corriedale wool with lumpy sections in art yarn with mohair and wool mixed with various novelty fibers.  It's one size fits all and is thick spun, warm, soft and cozy.

This one is a little shorter than the one with the brim and slightly smaller.  The colors are similar but with less white.  This one would fit a small to medium and is also mostly Corriedale wool. The lumpy sections are constructed from art yarns made with various colors of wool with bits of novelty fiber and mohair added in.

This last one is made from Corriedale wool and some extra soft Merino wool blended with angora, most of which has been plied with thin metallic gold tread that has tiny gold leaves attached to it here and there.  These are hard to see in the photo, but there is one at the edge of the middle lumpy section towards the upper part of the hat.  There are more, but unfortunately they aren't visible.  The lumpy sections are made from Corriedale wool, mohair and some of the Merino.  The non lumpy sections are made from natural gray malamute hair, and the brim and top are more of the Merino with angora and gold thread.