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- My mother's basement
At the heart of this hat is a granite all-beaver body that was among the first "from scratch" (as opposed to a refurbish job) hats I made. I never was happy with it, though, even after taking it apart a couple times (if memory serves) to try to get it more "right" than it was. So it just kind of hung around here, daring me to do something about it, which I did.
Stripped it down, chucked the sweatband and the ribbon, reblocked it, lured it, sewed in a new sweat, bound the edge with a 9-ligne ribbon in a color called Blue Jay, and put on a new band and bow in 22-ligne Blue Slate. Now it's a decent looking lid, I think.
Whatever one's assessment of the quality of the all-beaver bodies being made these days, in comparison to what was produced 60 and 70 and 80 years ago, there's little denying they can be worked and reworked and reworked again and still come through it good as new. Better even, it could be reasonably argued, seeing how the hat may well be less likely to taper once it has some age on it, and that with each subsequent reworking the finish can, in some cases, be further refined.
Stripped it down, chucked the sweatband and the ribbon, reblocked it, lured it, sewed in a new sweat, bound the edge with a 9-ligne ribbon in a color called Blue Jay, and put on a new band and bow in 22-ligne Blue Slate. Now it's a decent looking lid, I think.
Whatever one's assessment of the quality of the all-beaver bodies being made these days, in comparison to what was produced 60 and 70 and 80 years ago, there's little denying they can be worked and reworked and reworked again and still come through it good as new. Better even, it could be reasonably argued, seeing how the hat may well be less likely to taper once it has some age on it, and that with each subsequent reworking the finish can, in some cases, be further refined.
