I have good memories of my mom's fox fur hat, admittedly not this one as I'm about 6 or 8 months old here. Here's a note from Mom: WOW, what a hat. I'm sure that you will enjoy it as much as I did mine. I purchased mine from Sears at Yorkdale. It was with Christmas money from Grandma and Grandpa MacStephen. Latterly I told people that it had been a road-kill in the County because there was such an anti fur campaign. A few things about this photo (no, it's not instagram, it's the real thing!): the building I think is the school my mom taught at before having me so perhaps we're on our way to visit the staff and students, I'll have to ask Mom. Check out that wicker carriage! Not exactly a baby jogger eh? And how about my mom's coat, ah the 70's, love it too. Now back to the fox! Last Christmas I asked Forest for a fox fur so I could make my own hat. One year later (!) I finally tackled it. Covered in fur I managed to make a lovely hat this morning, in fact I'm wearing it right now. The fur is from the Yukon Trappers Association, just around the corner from our house. As it turns out, he was a bit small. By the time I measured my head and made the pattern pieces, I actually had to cut 2 semi circles for the top circle of the hat. Luckily the fur looks great no matter how you put it together! Here are some photos of the adventure...
I used my machine a bit.
Fur everywhere!
Some hand stitching. I love how unorthodox working with fur is - you get to use a ball point pen to mark your cutting lines on the leather, crazy! The needle is called a Glover, it has a tapered point with 3 sharp edges to cut through the hide.
There is a name for the lining I used, but I can't remember. It's for winter coat lining, satin on one side and flannel on the other, a lovely, silky, warm fabric...hmpf, can't remember...
Voila! It's big! I mean it fits perfectly but the fur is big!
Still covered in fur but pretty happy! Thank you Mr. Fox.
