Part of a series of hats inspired by spindle whorls. There’s a matching neckwarmer.

People have made many beautiful ceramic spindle whorls over the millenia. Once, somewhere between the 9th and 15th centuries AD, a potter made a particular one with a motif like a flower in Mesoamerican Mexico, and I expect it was used with pleasure. This ceramic disk would most likely have been used as a low whorl. Centuries later, someone bought it and gave it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Later, the museum put a picture up on their website. When I saw it, the design struck me and kept coming back to mind. Once, I woke in the middle of the night and realized that it reminded me of a tam. The idea of wearing a hat made to resemble a tool used for making yarn felt satisfying, just as spinning and knitting yarn using methods known to many generations of skilled hands feels satisfying.

Malacatl is a Nahuatl word meaning spindle. I do not know if it was the word used by the people who made the original spindle.

14 April 2013 - I need to unravel much of it and redo the “petals”. There’s some wonky tension going on and I want to make the corners more rounded.