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Thread: Custom toorie

  1. #1
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    Custom toorie

    One thing I did on my last flat cap is make a custom toorie (the pompon on the top of the hat). I went to a fabric and crafts store and picked a deep red yarn that closely matched the dominant color of my kilt. I used a method similar to the one illustrated here. Part of my motivation, other than the color, was not having a little round dingleberry on my head. I ended up making it larger than usual, then sculpting it slowly with scissors to be more like the shape of a mushroom cap, and ended up with a broader, lower, flatter toorie, about 1/2 of a sphere instead of a sphere. It looked really good, especially on an antique-ish flat cap, though it would also do well on a more typical Balmoral. Just had to pop a stitch on the liner to get at where the toorie was attached, cut the old one loose and attach the new one, then repair the headband seam. It was about an hour operation, though for someone who knows what they're doing it would be much faster. I'm looking, and I don't seem to have any pics of it, before I lost that hat at an event.

  2. #2
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    It's a shame you don't have a picture. Sounds like an interesting project.

  3. #3
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    Good for you, and it will be interesting to see the result of your efforts. One thing, though, a 'flat-cap' is not a Balmoral or a Tam, both if which do have toories, whereas the flat-cap does not.

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    Cool

    Needs a pic mate...

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    Thanks. If one goes to the link, it's all you need to know. Once I saw the slides on the link, it made perfect sense. When I got my balmoral, I was torn between getting it with a red toorie or a black one, but now I plan to make one in the colors of my tartan. How cool!
    "Above all things, I delight in listening to stories, and sometimes in telling them." --George MacDonald

  7. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by MacHeath View Post
    Thanks. If one goes to the link, it's all you need to know. Once I saw the slides on the link, it made perfect sense. When I got my balmoral, I was torn between getting it with a red toorie or a black one, but now I plan to make one in the colors of my tartan. How cool!
    What you and others decide to do is entirely your choice. But.......

    Something for you and others to consider and that is the divergence of Scottish and North American ideas on the definition of “cool”. Now, it is true that not everyone in Scotland will agree, likewise not everyone in North America will agree either, however, a multicoloured toorie in Scotland would be considered as loud and brash by many Scots traditionalists. Not so by you at least! And fair enough.

    As I understand it you and others are fairly new to kilt attire, so yes wear what you want and how you want, but at least please be aware that differences of opinions of what is “cool” will differ, sometimes quite markedly, from one side of the Atlantic to the other.
    Last edited by Jock Scot; 13th March 20 at 02:15 PM.
    " Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the adherence of idle minds and minor tyrants". Field Marshal Lord Slim.

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  9. #7
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    Jock has always been the calm (if despairing) voice of in-country Scottish sensibilities on this forum.

    While I occasionally descend into the outre privately, I feel cautioned by both his advice and sentiments before actually wearing any wild flights of fancy out in public.

    I did make my own two-colour tourie for a beret, before I got my balmoral, but did try to be subtle (not sure with what success):

    20140614 - Kangol bonnet_DHH01.jpg

  10. #8
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    I had actually considered whether it might seem tacky or untraditional. My flat cap was not very different from a Balmoral, it just had a hand-made appearance (because it was hand-made, though by someone with way more sewing skill than I have). So putting a toorie on it seemed reasonable. After all, the Balmoral was originally just a flat cap anyway (and the Glengarry was a Balmoral worn a particular way, before someone started sewing up it differently). That said, I think there may be a terminological conflict here; I'm talking about flat caps as a general class, and I think some here my be thinking of a very specific modern flat-cap design. (Perhaps with a small bill built in? Mine did not have one.) I don't live in Scotland, so it's possible the term has a highly precise meaning there. What I mean is basically what the Balmoral looked like when it first evolved, before it was being made commercially. Today, a Balmoral is not very distinct from a beret, but the one I had was broader and floppier. (Indeed, I had to shore it up a bit on the inside to hold the crest badge and cockade without buckling; I did this by attaching a bit of material on the inside, a kind of off-white, semi-stiff, woven canvas lattice. I don't remember the name of this stuff, but it's common at sewing and crafts shops. I think maybe it's used as a matrix for crochet or cross stitch.) Another kind of flat cap that we typically call "golf hats" over here in Yankeeland often also have small toories on them; I guess without them, they're not really much distinguishable from the kind called a driving cap. I've fairly often see those cloth-capped buttons where a toorie would have been, though many designs of them are unadorned.

    One of my motivations for going my own way on my hat was that I realized that both of the modern-traditional bonnets are actually vestiges of military uniforms (and for various Highland regiments are still part of those uniforms). Aspects of them like specific colors used, including on the chequered band some of them have, go back to particular military usage. It seemed rather inappropriate to me to appropriate these things for civilian casual wear. Even with pipe bands, they're part of a uniform. To me, it was a similar matter to not wearing one of those huge, long-haired sporrans if you are not in uniform. Or walking around with a dirk on my belt. I don't see Highland wear as a costume. Pretty often I will just wear my kilt around in a T-shirt and some boots, so don't feel I have to be especially particular about the headgear and its "authenticity".

    When it came to my toorie, I just used the darker red in my tartan, without any colour mixing, and as I said, I made it lower and flatter (a little dome or half-sphere) instead of a full ball, so it was actually quite a bit more subtle than than the stock bright-red, full-sphere toorie. I think it had the opposite effect of garish. I'm quite disappointed that I can find the pics from this era. I think I lost that hat ca. 2009. I seem to have a "photo desert" around this time – when I didn't have a cam phone but did have a stand-alone digital camera, so there are probably old SD cards in a box somewhere that I didn't import to my hard drive. I keep meaning to go this hat-customisation route again, but I've never found another hat quite like that one. I guess I can just do it with a regular Balmoral, though I need a new one of those, too. Damned moths got that as well, and a bunch of my hose. Any my Prince Charlie. All told, those little buggers did about US$1500 in damage. Grrr...
    Last edited by SMcCandlish; 13th March 20 at 06:35 PM.

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