Pantless Saturday / new bonnet

[Dale-of-Cedars]

Funnily enough, I completely agree with you on this point. That picture could be very helpful for someone on a shoestring budget, especially if there was a place others could get a wool kangol for $5 outside of the thrift shop lottery.

Will do. It was fun and didn't take long.

There are berets and there are berets. The kangol beret pictured is a very different style than the military beret and Dale chose an excellent one to do a DIY conversion to bonnet. My old leather banded military beret wouldn't do the job but this one works quite well. Adding the toorie helps a great deal. It also helps that this civilian beret has no hard backing for a bonnet badge in the wrong place.

I actually stitched in a backing of some semi-flexible plastic with punched holes for the badge pin. The Kangol is unlined and very soft, so the badge (heavy pewter) wanted to flip forward and hang down by my ear without support.

Dale: you're already looking quite smart, but if the spirit ever moves you, you can pick up some ribbon at Fabricland and make a cockade and trim the band. If you did, you'd have a unique, traditional, and bespoke looking Balmoral for a fraction of the retail price. The ribbon band will also help the hat keep its shape as you wear it and sweat on it.

LOL, I actually bought the 1.5" ribbon at Fabricland for a cockade based on the original Crawford arms; red (Gules) and white (Argent or Ermine), 2 days before the games. But with my better half grand-mothering down in California this month I didn't have time to sew it up.
Hmm, I hadn't thought of trimming the band; it's soft and nicely elastic as it is. Like the diced curling tam I also got second-hand. Do knit bands tend to loosen with age?