Crazy Hat Band Wings

[a2jacketpatches]

A long time customer contacted me a couple of weeks ago with the idea and this first picture. He said "just improve on the idea and have fun with it" and suggested Macaw. So I based the color scheme from top to bottom ( 2nd photo ) and left to right ( 3rd photo ) on the Scarlet, Blue & Gold, and military Macaw. There's an internal stiffener within each wing and i'm making the elastic fabric band that secures this band to the hat. It'll attach to the button loops at the back of each with. If you look closely at the photos you can just barely see the loop. He has since ordered one in a Hawk color scheme and the red Cardinal

[tyecop15]

What dye did you use to achieve those colors. Looks amazing.

[a2jacketpatches]

Flea market leather jackets. If I can get them for 5 - 10 bucks, it's better than 50- for a hide anywhere else. I make jacket patches for the most part so the small cut up sections are fine most of the time. Really increases the profit margin. Just grabbed a super deep red leather jacket yesterday for ten bucks to do Cardinal wings, cut it up, soaked and washed in hot water, then dried.

Edited January 7, 2015 by a2jacketpatches

[builderofstuff]

Very cool!

Chris

[Wild Bill46]

I don't think I had ever seen anything quite like these,

And for a song at the flea market too ! Who would have guessed ?

I would think this is a good niche to have found ?

I would very much like to see more of this type of head cover .

Thier very, very nicely done !----- Wild Bill46

[a2jacketpatches]

I buy and sell antiques and vintage military items so I'm at the flea market bird early every Saturday and Sunday morning. The 80's bright colored leather jacket are way out of style and abundantly cheap because they've usually been sitting in the peddlers inventory for a while already. When the price is high because it's new to them I always say

" Well, if you don't get your asking price after a while I buy them for scrap at 10 bucks"

Re-purposed leather jackets account for at least half of my materials and are perfectly thin for my layered leather patches. This wing thing is essentially the same construction process. Here's a patch to see what I mean.

.

[Wild Bill46]

Again, very unique niche, Is this indian head from the motorcycle genre ?

I can't see how you get those colors together soooo uniformly ? great work ! ---- Wild Bill46

[MonicaJacobson]

Those hat bands are pretty sweet! I don't think I could deal with such tiny pieces.

[a2jacketpatches]

Yep, Indian Motorcycles.

I've got a special top secret pattern making process that makes it a breeze to lay out the designs on the leather. It's a little tricky cutting out the parts at times but a nice pair of detail scissors and multiple filigree shape punches help with that. I use up Netflix shows to pass the time,

[TJP]

I like your patches! Great idea on flea market leather jackets!