SunBody Hats

What gives you "Hattitude?"

Yes, this is a blog about hats, but I want to start with a different kind of clothing to make a point, denim blue jeans. Lets take a simple pair of blue jeans, brand new, just off the shelf.  Now how many ways can those blue jeans be interpreted?  You can shred em, wear them tight, wear them loose, roll up the cuffs, roll the cuffs inward...  You can cut holes in the knees, you can cut them off at the knees completely, and now you have cut offs.  You can acid wash 'em, stone wash 'em, NOT wash em, etc.  You get the point.  

I recently had a customer email me, and in this email he said our hats have "hattitude" or hats with attitude.  I really liked that.  I've been thinking about that email for a while and I want to know what do YOU do that give YOUR SunBody "Hattitude"? 

A lot of our customers out there do their own "thing" to their SunBody Hat.  Maybe they wear it a certain way, or modify the crease, dip the front down low, or even shape it like a safari hat, the possibilities are limitless.  How do you wear it? Are there certain modifications you make to the hat once you receive it?  It's no secret that a little water goes a long way in regards to shaping our hats.

As always, we encourage you to send us pictures of your custom hats.  Don't forget to enter our "2008 How Do You SunBody Contest?" for your chance to win a free hat!

Kindest regards,
-The SunBody Crew

Palm Leaf Hat Story - Part 2

After about an hour of boat travel through the mangroves we reached "Hawaii" with its black sand.  The "barra" is long, but only a couple hundred yards wide, with Pacific on one side.  Palm harvesters, men and boys working alone or in pairs, leave before dawn in small boats to their harvesting spots.  The young man in this picture was 15 years old when I took this picture.  He said he had been gathering palm for 10 years.  He had a younger helper.  He said that good spots were hard find, so he went early, when it was still dark, to try and keep it a secret. 

The palm harvesters here are gathering palm near the mangrove swamps from palm trees that grow wild.  We hired a biologist to investigate palm growning and harvesting several years ago.  She learned that the palm growing in this coastal area is under pressure from ranchers, who are burning the palm trees to clear land for cattle grazing, and from developers building vacation homes. 

- Posted by Jimmy Pryor

The Wild West Herbalist

By Jesse Wolf Hardin

The Wild West is thought to have been a dangerous place, and certainly would have been a lot more so without the help of local healers.  In a region where university trained doctors were far and few between, it was mostly informally trained women who were the repositories of practical medical wisdom.  They assisted with births and brought grace to the moment of dying, were called to administer elderflower and yarrow to feverish children, and tend plow cuts and bullet wounds, packing them with poultices made from plantain or usnea.  Those with Native American blood or education were known as Medicine Women, while to the Hispanics of the Southwest they were called Curanderas. Their methods and cures were a reflection of local culture as well as local biota and an inspirited landscape, and every region featured its own pharmacopeia of indigenous plant species.  From secret Basque cures to Apache remedies, local homemade medicines were usually more available and often more effective than expensive imported pharmaceuticals.  In point of fact, the proliferation of so-called “Patent” medicines, often with harmful additives as well as wood alcohol, was one factor explaining why the overall health of men and women on the American frontier was actually better than that of folks living then in the large Eastern cities.

Kiva Rose embodies the Medicine Woman Tradition, drawing from the traditions of the past even as she finds ways to bring natural healing and herbal wildcrafting to the modern world.  Living seven river crossings from the nearest road, her home serves as a wilderness teaching center for herbal students from all over the country, gals who join in plant-identification walks where they’re shown how to select, harvest and utilize powerful wild herbs like estafiate and oregano de la sierras.

Known for dressing very nattily and with a taste of the Old West, there is no part of her wardrobe more treasured – or put to more uses – than her open crowned SunBody hat.  She has used it to transport minnows to the river, saving them from the sad fate of an evaporating tributary, and filled it with seeds to tempt chipmunks into her lap.  But more often, it protects Kiva’s fair complexion from a blazing New Mexico sun until she gets deep into her favorite patches of plants.  She then flips it over as her students smile and watch, her SunBody magically becoming a finely woven plant basket, soon overflowing with her canyon home’s herbal bounty.

Darlene SunBodies in Vail

Miller Ranch in Minturn, CO

My horse Rebel and I ride the Vail Valley and I won't go without my Sunbody hat!

Darlene Daugherty

A SunBody for your Tux

This photo was taken of me @ my brother in laws wedding, tux shirt,pants,my boots and the great Sunbody hat I bought last year. It was not a western wedding till I made it that way.

 

Thanks for a great,long lasting hat.

- Josh Luchtel,Phx,Az.

Not Just Fashion, Protection, Too

Dear Sunbodies,

My hat is not just an essential fashion statement, I use it for protection from the sun and brush.  I trail ride over very rough mountain trails full of big trees and low branches, I need a hat that protects my head from abrasions and hard knocks.  I also need a hat that will keep me cool in the sun.  That is why I have chosen Panamanian straw for my straw hats from Sunbody Hats.  They hold up during my riding and when I come home I look great.  Thank you SunBody Hats.

Carla

Thanks, Carla. For clarification, Panama hats are made in Ecuador from a palm called jipijapa.  They are usually woven hats. Guatemalan palm leaf hats are made from Guatemalan palm (sabal guatemaltensis).  They are a "sewn braid" hat, made by sewing together long strands of palm braid.  Both use palm leaves.

- Jimmy

How do you SunBody? Contest

What fun!

It's been less than 2 days since we sent out an email announcing our 2008 "How do you SunBody?" photo contest and we've receive about 3 dozen entries!  We'll be showing some of them here in the main body of the blog.  You can see all the entries in the "2008 How do you SunBody" gallery on the right. 2008 Contest Entries   

And here is a link to the email that explains the contest rules: How do you SunBody? Contest.  You can get $10.00 off on your next order just for entering, plus a chance to win a free SunBody hat.

-- Posted by Jimmy Pryor

Cowboy Challenge and the Grand Canyon

Hi Scott,

You're going to love this.  I have a small riding school in Georgia, the Red Boot Ranch.  We had a Cowboy Challenge Event for the riders, and they all got Sunbody hats at the end of their ride.

 

I also had 7 folks with hats on a trip to the bottom of the Grand Canyon last week.  We called ourselves the 7 Sombreros for fun;
five of us had on Sunbodys and we all could have sold ours off our heads to folks we ran into on the trip from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon to Monument Valley to Flagstaff and to Phoenix!!!

 

Susan Carse-McLocklin

Red Boot Ranch

Statham, Georgia

These are great, Susan! Thanks for sending them. - Jimmy Pryor, SunBody Hats

Genuine British Bard in his SunBody

I am told I am one of only about ten genuine British Bards practising today. This means that I write and perform my own poetry and song with a great variety of musical instruments including harp, Lyre and Native American Flute. I am a storyteller and my music can help in meditation and healing. I have been trained in the martial art of Fencing (sword play) and the Law having spent many years as a Coroner and a Judge. I am also a painter and watercolour artist.

The picture shows me wearing my one of my Sunbody hats at a charity art exhibition in the delightful old fishing port of Whitby, North Yorkshire England. It was from this Port that Captain James Cook set sail to discover Australia and New Zealand and from which the Captains Scoresby (Father and Son) went whaling in the Arctic. Captain Scoresby senior invented 'The Crows Nest' and his son, Captain Scoresby junior has been acknowledged as the Father of Arctic Science. Captain Scoresby junior gave up whaling to become a clergyman saving the souls of sailors in Liverpool where he established a floating Church.

I wear a Sunbody hat Winter and Summer and always when I am on stage performing. I wear a Sunbody hat as my trademark.

Tony Morris

http://www.tonymorrispoet.com

I SunBodied with my wife

I SunBodied Last Fall with my wife at The Dixie Dude Ranch in Bandera, TX.
Now that I own 1, I'll be sunbodyin' all over God's Green Earth!!!!!
Thanks,
Greg Hugghins.