Hats for the Head
Here it is November and I’m waiting for the cold to hit so I can start wearing my warm hats! I will use any excuse whatsoever to create. And one of my favorites is “having a head!” My head affords me the constant excuse to make hats, crowns, horns and soon masks! Who knows what else my head might need?!
I have loved hats ever since I was a kid. Wild hats! An old lady friend of the family once gave me a large box of hats she had left over from the 40’s and 50’s. Out-of-this-world hats! Hats with feathers two feet long and spirals of ribbon and fake flowers piled high…you name it! What an era! I wore those hats for years and I can see now that they left an indelible mark on my psyche.
Here are some of my hats: crocheted, knitted, felted, ribboned, furred and flowered. I have so many more in the corners of my brain just waiting to sneak out…but for now…
Red Hat: (left) This one is made from a sweater vest from Zai’s babyhood. I wore it all last Christmas season. I have two huge poinsettias I clip onto the back. Tis the season!
Green Hat: (right) Someone gave me a big bag of vintage hand knit socks that had been worn many years and slowly become felted over time. I was thrilled! The bright green patches are from those socks and have been fancifully crocheted together.
Temple Hat: (left) I wanted to experiment as much as possible with this hat. I just went wild knitting in every little weird way I could. I wanted to learn as I could as I went, because I really didn’t know much about knitting. It kept getting taller and taller and as I went I had a vision of a Tibetan Temple in mind. This is my favorite hat to wear in the snow!
Eyeball Top-ish Hat: (right) I bought this hat at the Oregon Country Fair. I loved the shape, but didn’t totally care for the cloth so I covered it with felted eyeballs and covered it with bows. Bows and Eyeballs! What a great combo!
Green Tippy Tip Hat: (left) I cannot tell you why I needed this hat…I just did. I started knitting and kept my fingers crossed that it would come together at the very tippy top. Whew!
Skull with Star Hat: (right) I had a vision of a skull cap. This is felted everything. Sweaters, socks, stars for the skull!
TamTam: (left) I like to wear my hair in big buns on the top of my head, but this usually doesn’t go well with most of my hats. So I wanted a hat that could accommodate my big buns. Voila!
My Favorite Top Hat of All Time: (right) I LOVE TOP HATS. The vision of this hat haunted me for a long time until I just plunged in and figured it out. It’s made from a felted sweater. I used to wear it with tiny vintage flowers in the front. It has changed some recently. I added black felt petals to the front and back and fur to the top to jazz it up for this season. It temporarily has a black fur tail for Halloween…it insisted it wanted a tail! I couldn’t argue.
3 Responses to “Hats for the Head”
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Love love love your hats! Beautiful. I too have a love of hats that transcends other clothing items. My daughter told me recently that one of her friends refers to me as “the pretty lady with the weird hats”. Totally made my day.
Your work is fantastic! So nice to see someone really being creative instead of just churning out hte same patterns everyone else does! keep it up. you brightened my day (:
what a sweet note to get! thank you.