Learning: Lace Millinery

After making a start on ribbon embroidery, my next learning experience for the year was lace millinery. I finished my first piece using the technique before I had the baby, but I put off sharing the results, hoping to have a nice photo shoot first. That hasn't happened, and I'm already almost finished the second piece using this technique, so I decided to just share anyway! Edie (the mannequin) is a pretty good model, after all.

The class is an online one, offered through Hat Academy and taught by Melbourne milliner Brett Morley. The full Lace Millinery deluxe course is three lessons, and I have actually only bought the first of the lessons (you can buy individually or the whole lot together), Lace Millinery Fundamentals.

There are many different ways of working with lace in millinery, but Brett's work using these techniques is particularly stunning. He taught this method at the 2014 International Millinery Forum, and I was interested, but didn't end up doing the class. Then I had seriously regret!

Ever since I saw this course on Hat Academy, I've been coveting it, and finally decided to treat myself this year.

I'm really glad I did. As well as being generally excited to be learning something new, I love the results I achieved on my first try, and I'm enjoying experimenting more.

The downside to the method is that it is very slow. Every piece of lace that you see here as a petal or leaf is individually cut out and sewn on to a wire support. This is extremely time-consuming. On the plus side, it is all hand sewing and able to be made in small increments of time (great for the work-from-home-mum). I did a lot in front of the TV in the evenings and even some at the breakfast and dinner table.

I like that the look of the pieces can be very modern and very artistic, but also very vintage and classic. Another plus is that because each petal is wired, they can be shifted and shaped at any point, and altered after making to suit the wearer.

My second lace millinery project is a combination of skills from this class and another from Hat Academy, and I'm really excited to show you that one soon, plus yet another. All these new skills are very exciting!

What do you think? Are you a fan of online learning? (It sure is great for these baby-busy years for me!)