You may remember a few posts now where I mention how we discovered the joys (and savings) of reworking felt hats, particularly cowboy hats. Well, I'm finally posting about Mr. Sam's (my SO) attempts at reshaping felt. This brown top hat was the very first. It's been almost a year and three other felt hats since then!
The hat originally started as a used cowboy hat, like the others. He found two, one black and this brown one, at the local flea market complete with boxes along with the black leather he used on my riding hat and some other stuff for $20! (I'm still amazed when I repeat that!) Really, these were in too good of condition when we got them. Even if I'm not a fan of modern cowboy hats, these were really nice. Being his first try, I'll admit I had my doubts on how this would turn out. Hate to potentially waste perfectly good hats. But, I told myself that there is an abundance of these here in Texas. :)
It was painful for me to see him start cutting on them, but I'm so glad he did! This hat looks SO good on him! Right? Personally, I think he should consider wearing this one everyday, if not at least all fall and winter. I jokingly insisted he needed the hobo-ish daisy flower on it. So, low and behold, he made a matching one out of leather to put on his custom leather band. I think it fits his personality to a tee! Not too tall, not too short, and not too flashy. And, the shaping and color are great. Perfect for a casual Steampunk outing.
After finishing the brown top hat, he them started to work on the black one. He decided to keep the wide brim on it and make it more the pork pie fedora style. Gotta give my sis credit for finding the now metal chain hatband at a thrift store near her where it was living life as a belt. I love this hat on him, too. Still has a western, or cowpunk?, look to it with the wide brim, but the shape makes it more vintage looking than the modern-ish tall taco-folded cowboy hats. And being black, it kinda gives him a "bad guy" or outlaw thing. A girl's gotta swoon over that! ;)
I'll have some more hats to post very soon. We just can't seem to quit making them. Don't know what it is about hats. Guess it's like shoes or tattoos. You just can't seem to have enough of them. I've already had to build a makeshift wall-mounted rack for our collection using old hangers and a shower curtain rod just to get them out of my craft space. :) (More about that another time!) Until next post, happy crafting!
