The fur traders wore red hats, like short stocking caps, that were often decorated with a fat tassel rather than a pompon. I made about 3 inches of ribbing, then knit stockinette stitch longer than for a fitted cap and shorter than a standard stocking hat so that the point would end up folding over and still be short enough to keep the tassel from hanging down to his shoulders.

As I met someone that didn’t know how to make a tassel or a pompon this week: The tassel was made by winding a fat bunch of yarn around something and I used a paperback book though a piece of sturdy cardboard also works well. Then I threaded a couple strands of yarn through all the loops (along the spine of the book) to tie it tightly at the top. Keep these strands long so you can thread them through the point of the cap to attach the tassel. Next cut through all the loops on the other side (along the pages of the book in my case.) Use another piece of yarn to several wraps around the tassel sideways and tie a knot tightly. I usually tuck the ends under the wraps so the knot doesn’t show. If you use a long enough piece of yarn you can leave the two ends as part of the tassel.

I looked up the hats worn by the fur traders and then used that as a reference to make up one of my own for the Wenatchee Museum and Cultural Center’s David Thompson box. This year (2011) is the 200th anniversary of David Thompson and his crew exploring and mapping the Columbia River, so the museum put on an exhibit all year. It ends this December.

I am a museum docent and helped with the different days when over 1600 local students from Wenatchee and East Wenatchee visited the exhibit, and were taken out to paddle in large canoes on local rivers and lakes by the Row and Paddle Club.

Skip wore the hat I’d made for Andrew Munro when he played David Thompson in the People of our Past. We hosted about 6 weeks of tours last spring and Skip started wearing the hat on one of the cold and blustery days. He kept borrowing it so I decided to make him one of his own at the end of the tours. He put in so much work, along with all the other paddlers, hauling canoes to the water and back every day, so it was a bit of a thank you.

Anyway, the first one was too big and I didn’t really write down how I made it. I tried to make the second one warmer by making the body of the hat out of red wool, but I didn’t want it to be itchy so I made a band around the ears with acrylic in another yarn that was a pretty close match.

As you can see he has it rolled up a lot, so I think it is either still too big or maybe it stretched and got bigger as he wore it.