happy (and gorgeous) customer

Hello all -

I owe a great big post on the awesomeness that was the Texas hat sales event. (took 35 hats, sold 19!! It was good to be down south again for a bit.) But - as I have not managed to take the leedle memory card out of my awesome new camera, that post will have to wait.

In the meantime, for your viewing pleasure, I present to you - Jenn.K (of http://periodmovies.blogspot.com/)who wore her squeaky new Trulyhat to the California Ren Faire and her hubby took the most amazingly awesome portraits!

I lurve me some yummy customer photos. Don't you?

Off to go read her blog now......

Hat shapes, parasisals, and a couple of custom requests

 In hat class last night, I made some more progress on felt hat #2:
Here it is on the block:



I got it off the block, basted a wire into the edge and and tried it on. Despite the fact that my classmates LOVED it on me, and the fact that I think it's coming out really beautifully, I believe I may have struck out for a second time in the "hats I personally want to wear on a daily basis" department.
 It's so funny - I can look at someone else and have a great guess on what will look best on them, but I'm apparently not so great at choosing the best shapes for MY face - at least not just by looking at a block I haven't used before.

The jury may be out till the hat is all done, cause I've got some fun plans for decoration on it, plus - it is shaping up to be a fall hat, and and my wardrobe is shaping up for spring. Spring! Where hats are straw and sinamay and parasisal:

Izzie had a sinamay hat she had just finished, which she let me try on. I don't have a picture but, ladies and gentlemen, THAT was *my* hat shape. Here is the block, covered with plastic and ready to start:

 I asked to start one of those, despite the fact that I'm actually supposed to be in the felt class. Izzie had a gorgeous cranberry red parisisal hood lying around that she let me purchase, which I had been eyeing since day 1.

 

Here it is just initially placed on the block:

and here it is with the string on and after some work:

We ran out of time for me to pull the brim, but I'm really excited about it - since I'm much more certain that it will look good on me, having tried the shape on already!

In other news, I had a request for a custom Greek sun hat like in these two images:  

He wants the point from the second image, but the brim from the first. I can do that.

Something about the images suggested to me that they might be made of straw, and with that in my head, I picked this awesome hat up to use as a blank. (for WAY less than it should have cost)

I look forward to showing it to Izzie and seeing what she thinks of the straw. It's lovely and fine-woven and pliable, and I think it will make a really nice quality hat.

Also had a request for this gorgeous hat:

Which also looks to me that it might be made of straw. (something about the lines that go around the crown).

Maybe I just have straw on the brain?

I don't own the right brim block for this one, and I don't know if Izzie does either. But - the requestor is a friend....so I'll look and see.

And that's entirely enough.

TrulyHats are on the road to Texas! (And new Camera)

And by on the road - I really mean it. Four big boxes of TrulyHats (pretty much everything on the store page and a couple more) are all boxed up and mailed off to my friends Kim and Erik's house in Houston.  The hats will wait patiently for me to arrive and take them to an SCA event there (Stargate Baronial) where two fabulous old friends will be taking on an awful lot of responsibility, AND I'll have a merchanting booth.

(Apparently, out in the real world, these are called  "trunk shows")

I'm quite excited to go back to the land where my hatmaking began, and am hopeful that I will see lots of old friends and meet a bunch of new ones.

Also: Camera!

In other exciting (to me) news, after a long search (ok - only about a month. What can I say, I've got the attention span of a gnat.) I finally stopped with the research and actually ordered a new digital camera. I spent a whopping $89.00 on it, and am quite a proud cheapskate that way.

My real, no, ONLY criterion was that I wanted to be able to take excellent macro shots with it. I couldn't care any less about megapixels or zoom Xs or sepia tones or anything. Good. Clear. Easy. Closeup Shots.

Today - it CAME in the mail! Naturally, being a good technical writer, I read all the instructions first (praise me!) and then tried it out on whatever was handy, which happened to be some jewelry cast-offs that a friend gave me to use as possible hat decor.

Here is my "first time out of the gate" resulting photo:

May I just  please say: Woot!

For anyone who is also shopping for an extremely inexpensive, fabulous macro-mode extrordinaire camera, 

it is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH1, and I got it from Amazon.com

happy customers

Got a happy letter from a satisfied customer. He included a picture, too!
He happens to be standing by another delightful Trulyhats customer, and they both just look great :)

Here they are:

I LOVE getting letters like that.

This year has been the year of the Cavalier hat for me. I've got orders for two more of those in the works, and have maybe four on the shelf. I'm hoping to have those to sell at Stargate Baronial. (We'll see how the Texas folks feel about the Cav hats. My hopes are high.)

The outfit...and the hat

The very nice customer said I could post his picture!
Here he is in his spiffy ensemble, for which he wants a new trulyhat: (the hat pictured is not the new trulyhat)

THIS is the new trulyhat:

I love this combined gold and copper ornament combo. I may have ruined my leather punch making the hole in the gold thing, but it's really pretty and was possibly worth it.





Yup - all done. Boxed up, weighed, stickered, paid for and waiting for complimentary carrier pick-up.
Have all of you discovered Click-N-Ship yet? I tell you, it took some pretty grumpy local post office ladies to make me search out online options, but now that I have it all set up I'm never planning to personally go to the post office again. I'm the best evangelist that the Click-N-Ship people could ever want.

Anyway - won't he look fabulous! I really love the super tall bowler hat style. I remember doing the super happy dance when I found that block on eBay. They come out really looking like the portraits, and that makes me smile BIGtime.

Mr Nice Customer (above) has promised me shots of the updated ensemble (apparently he's got some new pieces in the works) and I'm really excited to see those photos. I guess the hat has to actually get picked up by the postage carrier first. (I just can't type "mail lady" without sniggering like Beavis and Butthead)

Waiting....not my strong suit.

yummy rusty coppery brown feather choices

I don't usually have quite so many feather choices for when a customer asks for rusty coppery accents. I was thrilled to be able to send him this picture just now, so he can choose what he wants to go with his outfit.

Ooh - I want to post his picture too - he has this fabulous Elizabethan ensemble that he wants a hat to go with, but I haven't asked his permission yet. Will do so - and hopefully will post the very nice shot that he sent me.

I Should have ordered from this feather place immediately (they had a screaming deal on 100 feathers and would let me mix these and other awesome and subtle colors) However - after I got this small order, I went to place the big one and the price had gone up too high. ($3.95 per feather is way higher than it was when I first ordered samples from them) (Hmm...though that price DOES include shipping.....hmmm)
Here's the link, just in case anyone is interested.: http://stores.ebay.com/Feather-Store/Ostrich-Plumes-/_i.html?_fsub=4719115&_sid=148762439&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322

I may end up ordering from them anyway just because of the fabulous, subtle colors they have.

Please note that the color names in my picture are probably not the color names they offered. The feathers did not come labelled, and one of the feather colors I ordered (and not sure which one, above) is called "luggage". Though I don't know which one that is - I'm sure that I like it.

I enjoy fun but semi-unhelpful color names. My new favorite lipstick, for example, is called "twilight".

new faux blackwork coif!

Here we see an actual picture of me WEARING hats I've made!

I think the squeaky new faux blackwork coif (faux as in modern machine embroidered - not printed) works pretty darn well, and is actually a linen blend! I have another one cut out  but not made yet, and I have lots of that fabric. (figured I'd make a shirt out of it if the coif thing didn't pan out.

I was kindof surprised at how much happier I was wearing a very plain black hat when it had the embroidered coif under it.

(thanks again to Denise for the picture!!)