After the success of my beaver fur mitts project, I felt like making an ultra-warm beaver fur trappers hat. I got a pattern for it from the U of A Fairbanks for few bucks, sourced a winter beaver pelt taken from the arrowhead region of Minnesota, used some remnants of of thick wool I used to make my heavy wool anorak , and used some spare Polartec 300 fleece for the interior. Here's how it turned out, and some shots of the assembly below.











To evaluate how it would fit before cutting any fur or wool, I make a prototype from the pattern out of some spare duck canvas. The fit seemed nearly perfect, so I started in on it.






Next I cut the 5 arc-like triangle fleece pieces for the interior and sewed them together on my trusty old Singer using Gutterman Mara 100 polyester thread.






I then used the patterns to cut the 4 wool pieces and sewed them together by machine as well. Finally then I laid out the 2 earflaps and front piece on the beaver pelt, ensuring the flow of fur was correct and cut.



For fur to fur or fur to wool or fleece, I stitched by hand using glover (leather) needle and Gutterman Mara 70 heavier thread in a double strand. I used paper binder clips to hold the pieces together and to hold the fur back away from where I was working.



The cap is sewn together inside out, except for the base of the back of the neck, which is how you turn it right side out then hand sew shut with top stitches. I added some long strands of moose hide to the bottom of the ears for ties, and added a loop on the top of the inside to allow me to hang it to dry.


And here is another shot of the finished product. I will say that even though the canvas prototype seemed just right, I found several things wrong with the fit of the real product. For instance, I thought the ear flaps were too long and the leather ties were in the wrong place too far back, so I undid the back, turned it inside out again, and recut and resewed this parts. The earflaps being too long rested on my collar bone and pushed the hat up on my head. I also adjusted the front fur piece making it a bit smaller. I think I took the hat apart 3 times to make adjustments, but was very pleased with how it turned out. It's crazy warm and breaths really well. Served me well at the Beargrease when temps all night hovered between -30 and -20ºF.

Supercool.

Or in this case...warm.