Foxtail Beanie Origins

Being a father, there are few things more valuable than discovering something both you and your son likes to do. In this case we discovered a book — for me a dear childhood memory, for him an unchartered tale. And speaking of tale… I mean… tail.

The Animals of Farthing Wood. (Say that out loud.) It is a great tale about a bunch of animals that are forced out of their homes because of human building projects (boo humans!). Led by a mellow old badger and a wise old fox, they set out on the adventure of their lives.

When this same book became a tv show, it was notorious for its amount of death scenes. A chronically depressed mole, a snake that always wants to eat all the mice in the crew, and the loss of crew members at an interval makes for some serious childhood drama.

Anyway. I was reading these books at bedtime, over and over…

And over…

And over…

Until my 2 year old son discovered Carl Barks, but that’s another story.

And I started noticing the pattern on the tail end of the wise old fox. It’s already beanie shaped. I could see a North Cap taking shape as I read. So of course, I made sure to put the beanie on another wise old fox for the shot — namely my father.

The Foxtail North Cap is here to stay

From the moment I noticed the pattern, every book we plowed through on our daily bedtime routine seemed to feature a fox tail. You know how it works. The moment you buy a new type of car, you notice everyone else driving the same model.

Inspiration can come from any source, and the foxtail beanie came from a crew of contentious animals sacrificing their lives in the pursuit of freedom — and then other bedtime stories added fuel to the fire until we made the beanie a reality.