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.

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.