and that's an awesome picture of the dudes at the table!

A bit ot, but check out that one guy's stack-pleated ruff! That just flies in the face of both the big cartridge pleat method and the gathers sandwich method. I like it.

Seems like at least one of those hats is covered either in a swirly fabric or some swirly cord-couching or embroidery. Very chic.

Thanks for the images, Rydell! I asked Lynn McMasters who said blocked felt was worn - she also sent me the 2nd image you provided as evidence. What I've seen and read about, though, is mostly felt as a sturdy underlayer for silks and velvets applied on top. I've blocked a tall hat and not covered it and now want to block something with more swing to it, like something shorter with a cute angle. Think I'll do it anyway and see where it gets me!
Thanks, y'all!

Kimko I thought that wool played a huge part in the hatters products. I cannot put my finger on the page but I remember something about wool being a requirement in hat wear. Designed to help the wool industry in england. I guess much like eatting fish on Friday was designed to help the fishing industry. Was there a felt industry in England?

www.mafca.com/downloads/F...elt_Hats.pdf
www.thehatsite.com/felt.html
www.sefelt.com/history.htm
www.historicenterprises.com/cart.php
www.whiteoak.org/learning/furhat.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1550...in_fashion
"a conical felt hat with a rounded crown called a capotain or copotain became fashionable. These became very tall toward the end of century."

These and others indicate to me that felt was made everywhere, including England - and had been forever.

Felt is what happens to wool when you add hot water and friction (usually aided by soap). It can happen on the sheep, or whenever the wool is worked. I've done it accidentally when dyeing wool. From the reading I did last night, it was known as felt during that time, and was considered as part and parcel of the overall "wool industry" that England was well known for (wool was England's main export). If a woven garment was felted after weaving, it is known as "fulling". Again what I read up last night, England was known for heavily fulled wools, which were so thickly fulled that garments made from it did not need seam finishes, like we often need to do with today's wools other than heavy coat wool.

England was not the only country that made felt. Spanish and Dutch also made felt (merino wool originally comes from Spain, iirc). Reading in "Costume in the Drama of Shakespeare..." by Linthicum, the author mentions that Stowe wrote about the making of Spanish felts in England in the first part of Henry VIII's reign. But this author says this is hard to reconcile it with Lydgate's mention of "fyne felt hats" (no date of that comment given). Linthicum mentions that felt is the usual material for the "sugar loaf" aka capotain hats. And that felt was the base for other hats which were faced or lined in silk or velvet (footnote leads to Durham Wills, Surrey Rec. Soc. Pub. xiv, and other Letters), like was shown in Arnold's PoF.

I've long wondered if their mention of Spanish wools, which was the finest wool available, is the same or similar to modern merino wool. I don't know much about wools beyond what I learned in my spinning attempts some years ago.

I wonder if afterwards, Master Watts traded the new hat to goodman Bunney for the leather hose dressed with yellow satin, to go with the yellow satin doublet!