Hi thank you for the nice comments and emails today you will see the shape draft and by Sunday all the fibre layout–reason there is suspicion and pain–I have torn my rotaor cuff in my right shoulder,yesterday saw me trwaling through the snow and ice (where the —- is the grit or are we all auditioning for a mass dance on ice county by county,all those who do not get a fracture will help represent their county. Joking aside the painkillers make me like this,it hurts alot and I saw my surgeon who repaired the left shoulder and he sent me for xrays and scans .So hence a short delay in fibre laying .What we can all be doing is getting together some lovely bits of tussah silk short bits of dyed habotai etc bits of rovings knitting wools some fancy tapes etc and doing some design work prior to laying out .Here is the picture of my shape on paper prior to going on foamy stuff.Think I may have to do more than 1 of these as DH came inyesterday looking like a snowman  wearing his knitted chullo 3rd winter now and still ok, and he told me someone else at work had a superior hat to his and of course what he described was a’trapper’ hat ie Russian style earflap hat which i am going to show you.So I may have to do a male version first.

When you have the foam resist ready draw a design onto this—some examples in studio felt book,I have been sorting my colours out for thisversion and settles on shades of green with a contrast.

Sunday —cut the resist out now onto foam and gathered the felt together love these greens together with some contrast ——-decided because it has earflaps and aturn back above the eyes i aim to give some interest there so have dyed u some wensleydale locks and some silk to inlaythis should add some texture

the habotai is slightly bluer than the locks but when felted in will be right I am sure.

Method

1.we will lay 4 layers on each side with layer 1 having the locks on the earflaps and the front edge of the hat.each layer wiull be perpendicular to the previous and we will lay and firm and firm adding silk strips inbetween colour changes on the last layer as this will be the outside of your hat and any surfsace decoration goes on here.

2.cover with net ,damp down,turn over flick fringing over and reeat the above

3,net on and soap well and rub–remove net when fibres begin meshing together.

4.rub the edges of your resist well and get a nice tight finish to them

more tomorrow plus picsAll the work I have done today is here on video for you

now leaving to rest until tomorrow