Textures...Exotic

Summer is coming.  Yeah!!!  I am ready for the sun!

In anticipation of  warm weather and summer art shows I ordered a variety of natural straw hat bodies to dye and shape into summer hats. 

I was taken by the amazing variety of textures. .....

The colors of the natural straw. .....

The beautiful weaves.... 
So I took some pictures.
 and then some more pictures. 
Enlarge the pictures for a really good look!

They are hand woven in exotic places ..... South America, Japan, the Philippine Islands, Africa, Asia, Ecuador 

The straws...Sisal, toquilla, jute, raffia, sinamay, seagrass, toyo, visca, rush, buntal, hemp.... there are more.

They are all woven by hand... one at a time. It takes years of hat weaving practice to master the techniques of weaving straw hats.

 The length of time it takes can vary from a few hours for an economical straw hat to several months for an expensive extra-fino straw hat.  Meaning--you get what you pay for in straw hat world.

There are less and less skilled weavers in the world today as nations progress and the younger generations lose interest.