Found a picture of my old French hood!

loose gown Pennsic 2009 shopped
Originally uploaded by Trulinor

It's a pretty funny picture, but at least there IS one.

French Hoods - rethinking again and again

So - Ages and Ages ago, I did what research I could and came up with my version of a french hood.

I wish I had a photo for you, cuase it actually doesn't suck, and I still occasionally wear it (to my husband's great disamy, since I can't hear very well in it.)

Recently, I've discovered Flickr, and some amazing collections of images of effigies in various English churches.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/monumentstoday/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/68315175@N00/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/726367@N22/

 The fabulous French hood 3D side views I've found on these sites are making me totally rethink how I should make a reproduction French hood.  Here are some of the images I'm inspired by:

Though there are still a number of options in my head for what layer might be part of what other layer, I've done a little experimentation, and I've come up with some serious improvement over my earlier efforts. 

Hopefully tonight will provide a little more time in the shop to work on  the outermost layer, and then I'll be able to grab some process shots of what I'm thinking.

Two Cavalier hats, and my budding designer

New lovely red and black cavalier hat, size 23", I believe, with a 4 1/2" brim.  Really came out like a million bucks. I'm thrilled that I'll have some of these at 12th Night for sale (including this one). Especially since they are looking SO NICE!

 Here's the first completed custom ordered Cav hat. Yummy chocolate brown and all ready to go to his new home. First of six custom orders! I adore the new, sturdier blanks; they are worth the additional cost (to me) (I'm not passing along the increased cost over my usual large blanks.) (yet) (hopefully I won't ever have to, since they reduce the time and trouble and produce a knockout product.)

And finally, a lovely photo of the hat that my 10 yr old son "designed." He did this by digging through all my trim to find the "prettiest one" and INSISTING that I use it on THE hat I was finishing that moment. May I say that it is much better to cooperate with him rather than to keep trying to work (ignore him) and discover that he's cut  1-foot long pieces of five different really nice ribbons to "sample them" to "see if they work".

Fortunately, I think this is fabulous, so he's very interested in who this one goes home with. I think it's a 22"

New custom order finished!

Simplicity can be just gorgeous.