A hand-knitted Hummel style bonnet in dark blue-black or navy British spun wool, diced with red, white and green checks, and heavily brushed and fulled (felted) after knitting to create a thick dense warm bonnet suitable for re-enactment/costume wear, and also extremely popular with Highland dress.
Particularly suitable for late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Highland regiments. The details of this hat have been based both on surviving examples and on portrait evidence.
These hats feature a fairly adjustable head size as there is a strong black ribbon run inside the narrow self hemmed band to allow you to secure the bonnet at whatever size suits you, but it helps if you indicate your approximate head size so I can block it to the right starting point for you. Toorie supplied in the shade of your choice.
If any of your required specifications don't come up in the drop-downs, just add a note in when you order.
Surviving bonnets of this type are firm, but fairly flexible due to the knitted structure. Some extant ones have sewn in linen linings very similar to those in the Forage cap, but regiments requiring a very rigid bonnet may wish to further interline as best suits their required impression.
Made to order. The way our order book is currently working, we open the shop approximately once a quarter for new commissions and shut it again once we have as many orders as we think we can realistically make over the next three months or so. Please be aware that your order may fall anywhere into that timescale. We'll always aim to be as prompt as we can.
Hummel Bonnet- to order
Please note, there is historically a lot of variation in surviving Hummel bonnets as well as in portrait evidence, and in recent years I've had a fair number of slight differences requested by various re-enactment regiments.
It helps me hugely if you can tell me whether you want small, large or very large dice (usually this means 34, 28 or 22 squares around the hat on average sizes), how high the diced band should be (usually in small dice it comes out at 4-4.5cm and in large dice about 5-6cm over the whole band, very large almost 1 inch per dice- final dice section tends to come out about 2.75inches/7cm or just over), how tall you would like your hat, whether you want it very much a sharp 'drum' shape or a softer top with a slightly flared profile and any other shaping details that are necessary to get this just right for you. Usually, the band is knitted in, but I can make it hemmed to a cloth strip as an alternative if that better fits your regiment's requirements. I can also full the hat to a very solid finish (you will lose some definistion and size on the dice), or leave it so that it is nice and firm but you can still easily tell its knitted.
I want you to be happy with your hat, if, despite my best efforts, yours isn't a good match to others in your regiment, send it back with as much information as possible about what needs altering and I will remake it accordingly.