Sunday, October 30, 2011

Hat problem solved!

Maybe anyway...

The stiffening issue for my truncated hennin style hat has been really bothering me.  I was trolling around the forums on Ravelry today for no particular reason (avoiding packing/laundry/cleaning) and stumbled across a post about some earlier period Spanish hats called toca.  The relevant point is that they were stiffened with paper!  Vellum to be exact, and there actually is one extant!  Hurray!  There is a good paper about recreating one here.  The vellum makes so much more sense to me, especially after looking at the Spanish hats and the similarity in shape (somewhere between the hennin and a bishops miter).

That being said, I think using paper is not the best plan for durability sake and I don't really know if I want to try to track down vellum, so I will probably still use buckram.  At least I now I have a better idea of some plausible base materials though, and that makes me feel better.  I'm not making a modern substitution blindly. 

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