To celebrate spring and all the Saturday’s I spent at the Corvallis Indoor Winter Market this year, I will be offering specials.

March 29 Special (booth #23)

Felted Wool Fingerless Mittens at 20% off
(regularly $30 to $35, now $24 to $28)

About Tobacco Road Hat Works…

Deb Coddington’s Tobacco Road Hat Works grew out of my sometimes annoying and constant need to create and produce. I love to knit!

Three years ago I discovered the felting process (known as boiled wool in the past) and I was instantly hooked. The process is to knit with wool yarn and then shrink in hot water with agitation and detergent in a washing machine. I started by making purses but soon tried a wide-brimmed hat and found my niche.

I took the first few hats I produced to a small family gathering and sold four of them! This made me realize that maybe I had something. I spent a year building an inventory and working on perfecting my patterns while I set up a booth at various weekend craft fairs in the area.

I created other styles of hats with different brims as well. I began to play with color and putting many colors together in one hat. I like to create variations of color within the hat often with an unexpected or contrasting color in a knitted-in band or just throughout the piece.

This year I am also offering felted wool mittens and fingerless mittens. One of the advantages of felted wool hats and mittens is their water resistant properties. I try to make them as dense as possible so that the hats tend to allow water to bead up and roll off. The mittens stay dry longer, and even wet are still warm as they are wool.