On his trips to Cuenca, Stefan visited Maria Castillo and her family several times. On one occasion we had a request for a super large hat. At a shop in Cuenca Stefan bought the largest cooking pot he could find to use for a hat weaving mold. The Castillo family appreciated owning the large cooking pot and wove a huge hat over it. One of the sons told Stefan the hat was and would be the world’s largest panama, as an authentic panama requires that some straw travels from the central button to the brim edge and so no hat could be bigger. We loaned the hat to The North Face to adorn a bubble head in the San Francisco Bay to Breakers parade.