On Becoming a Mad Hatter

I will never again look at a felted wool hat without realizing how much work went into making it (if it’s not mass produced). For years I have admired the beautiful hats made by my friend Karen. For years she has been offering to teach me how to make them. I finally got around to Felting 101 today.

Karen had gotten out books and hats to give me the background for this new adventure. I looked at two whole walls of hat forms in her workroom, mostly brought back from flea markets in Europe. She started off by reassuring me there are no problems in felting that cannot be resolved. Then she showed me a couple of cases where mistakes had actually turned into something interesting and unusual.

But Karen wisely decided to teach me the basics today instead of just jumping in and making a hat. I picked colors I liked from her bins of scrap wool and then started putting them together in what would become a purse/pouch/whatever bag to carry things in.

It’s a multi-step process to assemble the fibers and then felt them so they stick together and shrink so they lock in place. Warm water performs the same function the dryer does on a wool sweater. After felting and rolling and squeezing and throwing my little colorful collection of fibers, it finally took shape.

When I suggested adding a button with a loop, Karen immediately pulled out her spinning wheel and spun some yarn I could use to make the loop.

So now that I have an idea of what I am getting myself into, my homework is to choose fibers for a hat. Karen is going to New York this week and will buy whatever I choose at The Yarntree. I will probably make a beret as my first hat. I hope it has one of those little curls on top like this one has.

Maybe some day I will graduate to use one of those cool hat forms and make a classy Fedora or something with a big brim. As with so many craft projects, the choices are infinite!