Somberos Sucre

When we visited Sucre in July, we had a couple of hours before apartment checks and went to visit the hat factory. The tour took us from the raw wool freshly shorn to the finished product. The in between was an OSHA nightmare.
The wool is sorted, carded, stretched, rolled, steamed, put on molds, and formed into the shapes for hundreds of styles of hats.

The man working the machine above had the job of putting the hats in hot water for just a few minutes and taking them out, so they would shrink and compact to exactly the right size. He told us he had worked in the same spot on the same machine for 34 years.



Belts with no guards but everyone seemed to have all of their fingers!!

                                                    

Not the ones we bought...luckily

Like all tours, this one ended in the showroom of hats. Once you have seen the process, how can you leave without a hat, or two, or three?