Few of you may remember, but I used to build custom hats, Well i wont have work for the next 2 months, and I have been living a slow lifestyle, wondering what to do with my free time aside from run up a mountain or post a TR on NS.COM. This morning Triple_Strum reminded me of my gift, and I am hoping to get back on the hat train once again.
In 2004 I pioneered my own designing process on hats and earbands, with brims, brimmed earflap hats, earflap headbands, brimmed earflapped headbands, eventually writing in the pattern, and dropped an overall quality product. I sent out well over 100 hats to nsers. I handmade tons for A-Basin's ski shop, which they sold most of in a month at 27.00 -32.00 each. I had people on here ordering them by the pair or more.
Anyways because of knowing a few new people I am going to make this more legit. They will come with a legit tag, maybe even the ability to instal fleece to keep the wind off your ears. I will now only make them out of wool or a wool blend (this seems more usefull than making a hat out of cheap acrylic to stand up to the elements) and obviously being handmade by me and not mass produced in a chinesse factory makes them worth more.
If there is any interest post up some colors you think are hot, I think I have a feel for skiing culture, but ideas are always welcome. I used to sell for 20 dollars shipped for most models. I have seen people selling product here for much less. Maybe I am overpriced....but it costs about a dollar to make a hat out of acrylic, costs about 6 to make it out of wool. Obviously comany branding will up the product cost too but it is necessary now-adays.
So before you go out and support that chinesse machine that makes 50000 hats a day, look for someone on here or head to a craft show and buy them from an old lady. But it would be better to give your money to another local skier, who then spends the money on skiing in ski towns, the recirculation of currency is obviously necessary for a small sport.
So if this is something you are interested in cool. Send me a PM with an idea, paypal me, i make it, tag it send it. SIMPLE. With rules now on ns, i probably will have to donate some money to a skiing foundation, which i have no problem doing, that will work itself out as the time comes.
here is an old photo of some hats i made to sell at the phish festival in vermont. Production starts today. Well ill have to go get a shit ton of yarn.