Monday, July 25, 2011

Some photos that SHOULD have gone with the previous post

Hello all!
Here are a couple of shots of the fascinator that I made in the Izzie Lewis class at Nancy's Sewing Basket here in Seattle.  I think it kinda got a little carried away - I'd brought all this stuff (feathers, netting, organdy, brooch, horsehair) to Maybe use on the fascinator, and I ended up, er....using all of it. It has a bit of a multiple personality disorder, but if we just assume that it's supposed to be "over the top", I'd say we hit that nail on the head. Here are the now standard "finished it on the ferry and took a cell phone picture" shots. I need to put my hair up and take a good photo with it on, though I'd look a leedle bit like a saloon girl. 
(click make big)
Whimsy-R-Us, anyone?

 See what I mean? The left side is all explosive-net-foo-with-a-funky-feather-thing-reminiscent-of- Dr Seuss (LOVE IT), and the right side is all rolled-organdy-elegant drape- lily leaves (Love it too!!) but the only thing they have in common is being black, and being on the same little comb base thingy. 

I clearly need to make more of them to "clarify my vision"  Then I need to figure out what to DO with them. I can only wear maybe one a year with the events that I attend, and I can donate one or two to the charity auction.

Though - I had NO idea how much veiling costs. NO idea. Wowza.

In unrelated news, here's a happy picture of Wayne Wichern (that SF milliner dude of awesomeness) in his shop. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what a lifetime collection of hat blocks looks like. Actually, this picture maybe shows 1/5th of his total collection. I was amazed. LOVED the nets hanging from the ceiling that held a bunch of stuff, too.

I got tons of ideas just spending an hour and a half with him. his work is SOOO clean, and his eye is artistic, and he was so delightfully real. Any of you who actually know me should know how important that is to me. I've got about ten seconds of patience for people who are not real.

If you ever get a chance - buy this guy's work. He's totally worth it.

Friday, July 15, 2011

So much hat stuff - so little time!

Aannd - so much hat stuff has happened in the last little while that I've NO idea where to start.

  • Met Wayne Wichern in San Fransisco (AWESOME!)
  • Went to the Dancing Hats event in Seattle where I met a whole bucket of wonderful local Seattle milliners
  • Attended another Nancy's Sewing Basket class, (taught by Izzie Lewis) where I made my first fascinator AND actually made some wonderful rolled edge organza flowers, of which there WILL be pictures but are not yet.
  • Have developed a totally new style of hat in my "line" which is a pretty standard eight piece newsboy cap. They are cute, adjustable, unisex, sewn hats and I'm having SO much fun with them! I've no idea yet where my marketplace will be. Thinking about farmer's markets and/or Etsy
  • Got reading/sewing glasses - cause apparently 41 is old enough to warrant those :(
  • And sent this custom order off in the nick of time:
He's lookin SO awesome!
I love it when customers provide me with photos of the hats in their natural habitat.

Friday, July 1, 2011

two hats in their infancy


And here we see the birth of a lovely little forest green number, looking forward to meeting her owner in Oklahoma :) I used the new block on this and so for, so Great! (though the dowel on my spinner was too tight. Tim to get out the sandpaper and some elbow grease. I thought I would NEVER get that block back off the spinner. I also need to find my metal push pins....which are still packed.....somewhere...
 And the Lovely new fur felt Cavalier hat to go with a 1669 buffcoat. It goins ta be scrumdillyumptious. I'm going to get a full 5" out of this brim. Woot!
 And a couple of shots of the absolute disaster that is my workspace after preparing for the hat workshop.
 This HAS to improve immediately.

Hooray for sunny warm dry hatmaking days! I may be able to size both the new baby hats tonight - which is good, cause the Cavalier hat is due like immediately.

And that is all.

Hat class in LA was awesome!


Though I do admit that I am glad to be home again, the class was a total win-win!
They even fed us beautiful homemade food for lunch and dinner!! I have pics of that somewhere...
yes...the class:
I taught three cockades that I learned from Candace Kling, gave a lecture with samples about millinery materials and sources, a hands-on section about feather work, (buying, curling, wiring, combining) and a demo of pulling a felt hat.
The only thing I forgot was my super-neat stack of crinoline squares, but my generous host, Giles, had some double buckram that I disassembled and made work. Not bad, all things considered.
It was very well attended: 15 students, two of them from the blog universe (Hi Austin and Coleen!) and the rest from the SCA. The group was a perfect size. Here they are, in the next two images:

 It seems that I only managed to take photos during the cockades classes, since the materials class was just me talking about a handout with samples and the pulling demo was, well, I had my hands full then. I could/should have taken photos of the featherwork section, but we were running behind and I was prepping for the pulling demo.
Here are some great shots of some of the students' cockade work:




In other news, I had a stack of custom orders kindof piling up for me at home, and I've wasted no time getting them started. After going to hat class at Izzie's (hooray! only a two month hiatus. Sheesh) I began two baby hats.

Hmm....blogthing won't let me add more piccies right now. Will post this and post more ab out the baby hats later. Also will post about the shop-of-chaos, which is going to get cleaned this long weekend.
After we go crabbing :)

Cheers all - and THANKS to everyone who came to the workshop and who made it possible. I know it was a lot of work, a lot of prep, a lot of cooking (thanks Joe and entire kitchen crew!!) but mostly a LOT of fun.