I was touched by his noodly appendage.

Or something. Pastafarianism is my only explanation for the current look of my hat. When someone (or two) mention that the wooly ringlets you are making to decorate your head with look rather like ramen noodles, it might be wise to NOT take it into your head to swap the silver/white bows in the portrait for copper ones. Even if they are from free ribbon left over from the Great Christmas Ribbon Salvage Operation. Copper is one of my favorite colors and I thought, "Hey, that will go nicely with the orange in the dress." I did not, however, consider the way in which copper colored bows nestled into wooly ringlets would take on the appearance of spaghetti and meatballs. I am wearing the Italian Renaissance equivalent of a Flying Spaghetti Monster hat.  All my husband has to say is "AWESOME!"

I'm trying to decide if I should redo it completely or be happy with the silliness.  It is a goofy hat to begin with after all.

More bows to add and I still need more curls.  I baked oodles, but it doesn't come close to covering the garland from all the angles it needs to.  I went back and re-read "The Wonderful Bulbous Balzo," for the umpteenth time just before starting construction and changed my mind totally again on how to do this.  I agree that this is probably a ghirlanda or garland and so I shifted at the last minute from a grapevine shaped base to a stuffed roll.  I was trying to get the proportions right since I'm such a large person with a melon for a head, but I may have over estimated.  The roll is pretty significant and doesn't have quite the delicacy of the one in the painting.  Shows me for last minute winging it.  I had made actual measurements and calculations when i was going to do the base out of vine.  What I actually did was sew a base of wool fabric and stuff it with wool.  The curls are stitched into place, but then I also took my felting needles to the hat in a totally out of period technique and tacked them further into place.  I didn't manage the linear look of the curls in the portrait, mine are much more tousled.  It's probably due to size of the ringlets and the base.  I certainly need a lot more of the curls than I'd anticipated.

Right now its in the "I hate this, this is terrible" stage.  Hoping more noodles and properly placed meatballs will make me either love the silly thing or abandon it completely.