Introducing "Cherry Stripe" - a 1940s-inspired snood with striped bows

I have a special Snoodtember present for my vintage-loving crocheters: a brand new (and completely free) pattern for a vintage-inspired snood! We've called her "Cherry Stripe" (Aussie chocolate pun intended).

I was actually inspired by a vintage image of a pretty plaited hair style with three giant striped bows in it, which I thought would translate beautifully into a snood decoration.

As you may know, I'm not a crocheter myself, let alone a crochet designer, so to make this vision a reality I needed a partner with serious crochet mojo. Luckily, I have one in my sister Rhiannon (of Parlour Duck Crafts). She has surpassed my expectations with this design, and written up a detailed pattern so that you can make your own!

Feeling inspired? You can download the pattern now (and it's free!) and get started!

I'm really proud that Rhiannon and I have been able to create a completely new snood pattern to share with you and we would love to see your creations!

7 Hat Projects for Recycling Clothes and Using up Scraps

Most hats require smaller quantities of fabric than garments, so they are a great way to use up scrap fabric or refashion garments. After reading Nicole's excellent post on 12 Ways to Recycle Used Clothing and Textiles, I decided to have a think about some specific hat projects that make great scrap-busters and refashion ideas. Here are some of my favourites.

1. A 1954 Butterfly Cap

Intended for velvet or velveteen, and beautiful in those, I have also made this in other fabrics (and intend to again). It takes a small amount of fabric and with clever layout can use multiple smaller scraps. It does require a buckram foundation and wire as well.

I've reviewed and given some tips for this original (and free) 1954 pattern.

2. A 40s-style fabric snood

Whether it's to go with a hat or wear by itself, a snood gives a fun 40s feel to an outfit, and if you can't crochet, you can still make one! Perfect for any fabric with a good drape, super easy to make, and only needing the fabric and a bit of elastic.

All the instructions are here from the Snoodtember Snood-a-long.

3. A classic multi-era beret

My very first beret made with the pattern that would become my Grevillea beret was made from a sleeve of my old favourite coat. Because of the sectioned layout and multiple band width options, you can really make this work out of some odd shaped scraps or old garments. It's great for coats, jackets, and nice trousers as well as project scraps, of course.

You can get the Grevillea beret pattern here.

4. 1939 "Doll's Hat"

Another one for the velvets, but I think it would have a lot of potential in other fabrics, and takes a very small amount to make. It does need wire and buckram for the foundation, but not a lot of those either. The veiling is optional and all sorts of trim could be used.

Read my thoughts on this free vintage pattern.

5. Beach Hat

This one is particularly special because it's intended for regular cotton fabrics, so can use up some cute plain or printed fabrics, and only takes about a fat quarter of material. It's also a really simple pattern, quick to make, and can be decorated for further personalisation.

Another free vintage pattern, I've reviewed and given advice on this beach hat here.

Of course, making a hat from scratch is not the only option. All kinds of trims can be made from small amounts of fabric, and sometimes all a tired hat needs is a little revamp.

6. Retrim an old hat

For this straw hat I've used leftover fabric from a garment sewing project to create the band and the brim binding, and I love the extra colour it adds. In this case the straw was new but the principle applies and it's a great way to freshen up an older and plain hat. Similarly, it's easy to add fabric bows and other special touches, with pretty small amounts of material.

7. Fabric flowers (also ribbon flowers)

While French flower making is pretty complex and requires special (and expensive) tools, there are plenty of quicker and easier ways to make flowers. Ribbon flowers have whole books written on them, and ideas for both ribbon and fabric flowers appear in vintage publications quite often (not always with good instructions though!).

There are many more great hat projects out there for recycling fabrics and using up small scraps (see the rest of the patterns in the Trove Pattern Project as a starting point) but these are some of my favourites.

Have any of these sparked your imagination? Are there any other hat projects you have tried for using fabric scraps or recycling clothes?

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Summer Straws and Winter Furs

As the time until baby number two arrives get fewer and fewer, my work time has been more and more devoted to making, rather than blogging, so today is just going to be a bit of show and tell.

I've just done a complete stock changeover at The Blackheath Hub, the local shop where my hats are on sale. A full winter collection has gone in, just in time for the cooler weather, and a lot of summer hats are back in my hands.

I'll be listing these ones, for which I happily have these lovely images on my friend Ruanne, on Etsy in the next few days.

Honestly, if this floral one doesn't sell by the time it's summer here again, I'm keeping it!

Straw hats with decently large brims are a must for summer, and very flattering too.

Among the other hats I'll be listing are these versions of the 1954 Butterfly cap I reviewed for the Trove Pattern Project. I couldn't decide between red velvet and leopard print, and my Instagram friends were similarly divided, so I made both! It really is a cute pattern.

I do like bows on things. As you'll see a bit in the winter hats too!

Sadly I don't have beautifully modelled photos of these ones. The weather here has almost literally been stinking hot or raining for a month now!

There's a lot of 1960s inspiration and a lot of faux fur in this collection, with a little bit of 1940s (still fluffy though) thrown in for good measure.

I think I prefer the basic hoods in the really fluffy white fur, but the rich red has a lot going for it too. And as you can see, I'm enjoying adding pom poms to things!

My love of pixie hats continues, in furry 60s hood form this time. I've played with the shape a couple of times, and I think in future I will make some further revisions, but overall it's looking cute!

From the forties I'm exploring fur-trimmed tilt hats, with big silk bows. I swoon over these whenever I see vintage examples or illustrations, and I'm happy that I finally made one. Ok, two.

And finally, some seriously lush ear muffs. I got the idea for ear muffs on a more substantial base than just a thin band from a 1940s millinery book, but I've taken their instructions as a base and done it my own way. I'm getting really happy with them now (they are SO comfortable it is ridiculous) and once I've worked on another variation I have in mind, these are set to be one of my first sewing patterns! Look out for them in my post-maternity world. (Right now I can't think too far beyond the next five weeks, to be honest, and life is dividing into "urgent" and "later, whatever, I don't care".)

I hope that whatever season you are in, and preparing for, I've shared something to inspire you in your hat wearing! Keep an eye on the Etsy shop for the new listings (and use the discount code "uptheduff" to get 30% off from now until the shop closes for maternity leave in about two weeks), and if you happen to be a Sydney/Blue Mountains local, pop in to the Blackheath Hub to try something on!

On finally finishing and fixing the "not quite there" hats

I started the new year with 3 big directions to focus on in my business, while keeping in mind that this focus would be pretty much gone after the first few months.

One of these directions is preparing to add hat sewing patterns to my business. I've only briefly mentioned this before, but it's been a big part of my thinking for the last year or more. Most of that work will go on in the background until much later in the year, when you'll hear all about it, rest assured.

The second direction is learning. It's been 3 years since my last formal training in any area of millinery, and I was feeling a bit stale. I've started a few online courses to add new skills and techniques to my arsenal, and you'll start hearing about that very soon. I feel rejuvenated already and I'm so happy that I've taken steps to move my skills forward again.

The third is clearing out my work space and finishing up the loose ends it is filled with. Listing hats on Etsy. Photographing finished hats so I can share them (and list them). Finishing nearly finished hats. Fixing ones that didn't quite go to plan. Picking up the false starts and getting on with them, or scrapping them!

It's been a rewarding journey so far, but one of those ones that makes you wonder why you didn't do it earlier. As I finish, I've been describing these projects as having taking 2 years and 20 minutes.

For example, this vintage reproduction hat. It has a sad story actually. This was a custom order that didn't quite work out the way the client wanted. I wasn't 100% happy with it either, as it wasn't quite like the original, but I did the best I could at the time. I never even liked it, and it's been sitting in my work room ever since.

So finally I tackled it again and made it look more like the original, which took about 20 minutes, and made a world of difference. And I really started to like it.

Once I started taking these photos on a shoot with my friend Ruanne, I was absolutely in love with it.

That was a worthwhile 20 minutes.

This blue boater was more than 20 minutes, but perhaps only 40, and again, the difference was worth it. On my first attempt, the brim outline was a very wonky oval, but I couldn't bring myself to unpick it the edge and start again! Sometimes I just need time and emotional distance, because it was actually easy and very satisfying to do. And now it looks much better.

The rest of these photos are vintage hats, which I didn't think I could be bothered to sell on Etsy, because of the effort of writing listings and taking good photos.

I should have had this photoshoot long ago! But it's done now.

I can't pretend that these represent the end of the unfinished pieces I have here, and you are bound to see more as I work my way through them. Are you the same, with hidden abandoned works-in-progress all over the place, or do you see things through to the end without these long pauses?

Tanith Rowan X Nora Finds Collaboration Collection

Having already had the fun experience of creating a custom hat for Nora, I jumped at the chance to work with her again. This time we wanted to design a small collection that would be available to others rather than just a one-off hat.

Our initial goal was a 1940s-style tilt hat that could be worn by women with short hair, and the collection grew with other pieces to complement that one. Many design iterations were cycled through, as is often the case, but the final collection is here at last!

This is the tilt hat, in brown wool felt with a velvet band. The lush velvets are through all the pieces, as are the velvet ribbon flowers.

The green velvet headband is again topped with velvet ribbon flowers, and has elastic at the back to help the perfect fit.

These ribbon flowers are mounted on little clips that are suitable as dress clips, as shown, or shoe clips (or adding to a headscarf or similar).

My favourite is the draped turban in glowing amber velvet, with ribbon flowers at the front.

The designs are limited edition, and are currently available in my Etsy shop. If you haven't checked out the posts from Nora showing off her outfits, I highly recommend you do so as well!

In other news, I have written two guest posts lately. At Zella Maybe, you can find my tutorial for refashioning a cheap straw hat into a late 1930s tilt hat with a scarf and on Chronically Vintage I share my advice for choosing and using free vintage hat patterns. I hope you enjoy them!

Felt, faux fur, and more felt

Over the years I have made quite a few hats for my family and friends, and my mother has the biggest collection. So I didn't take many with me on my recent holiday, but instead planned to borrow some of those! My favourite was a small black felt hat with felt feathers and a snow leopard fur trim. I enjoyed wearing it so much, I decided to try some similar styles again.

I would be wearing this hat right now if I hadn't accidentally made it a bit too small for me! Instead it has gone, along with the rest of the hats in this post, into the Blackheath Hub with the berets for my first restock of winter.

I tried again with red and black, but I don't love the black faux fur on me. I guess I'll just have to make another one for myself!

Something that is so lovely about vintage hats is how different they look from different angles. This is particularly noticeable in those that sit on the back of the head, as these do, and create a frame around the face, with hidden details at the back. In this case, none of the red is visible, and it creates a nice bright surprise as you turn.

This next one I have mixed feelings about. I was going for a sort of heart-shaped halo effect, but I think I've arrived at fluffy tricorne instead. What do you think?

While those experiments had their ups and downs, it is hard to go wrong with a classic cloche. There is so much inspiration to draw on, but a swept back brim and velvet ribbon is hard to beat. And the dove grey vintage wool felt was lovely to work with and is such a subtle and classy colour.

This next was a design challenge, since the orange felt hood already had a bit cut out of the bottom (to make the visor on Nicole's 1960's rainbow helmet hat) and I don't work with orange very much either. So it had to make a small hat, leaning towards the 1930s in inspiration, with bow details I saw in a late 20s illustration. This type of hat often doesn't look like much on a mannequin, but is really flattering when worn. It might be the hair that makes all the difference.

Hopefully I'll manage to borrow them back from the shop and do a photoshoot so you can see them looking their best. Actually, I hope they sell out before I get that chance, but the photoshoot would be a nice option too. Although these hats are in the Hub now, non-locals feel free to contact me to ask about prices or about having something similar made.

I know many of you are in the sweltering heat of summer and may not enjoy even looking at wool, but try to imagine yourself in the misty cool of a mountains morning. Here, this should help:

Now, which one would you choose?

"Selling Millinery" August 11, 1943

Today I'm bringing you some more snippets from the trade publication "Selling Millinery". This time it is the issue from August 11, 1943.

There are similarities, in both the trends and the type of information offered in these pages, to the 1942 issue I shared with you earlier.

Interestingly, they both talked about customer types, but the types given are different. For a start, no one has to panic about classifying themselves as the "careless, ungroomed" type any more. Phew.

Now you can be The Teen-Ager, The Colleger, The Camp Commuter, The Civilian Worker, The Youthful, Sophisticated Woman or The More Conservative Woman. In addition, they look at the most common outfit types too, and create suggestions based on how customer and costume type combine.

I'm generally not keen on admitting my type. I suspect I'm The More Conservative Woman. But with hats like these, I'm actually happy with that!

In addition, both papers talk about face shape. The 1942 issue talked face shape and body type, this one addresses face shape and features in combination with, well age I guess, although they don't say it precisely that way.

I feel like all the little magazine quizzes I used to do and all the little infographics the internet is now filled with, have a longer history than I realised. We have, apparently, always loved to know our "type", and always loved little charts.

I have an urge to write a quiz entitled "What mythical creature are you, what colour is its aura, and what kind of hat should you wear?"

This lady's inner mythical creature is an angry one. But she gets to wear a great hat.

Another similarity between the issues is in the trends themselves. They both report on military influences and "Good Ally Influences". What's new in this issue is the "7-Point Millinery Plan", a voluntary agreement from the millinery industry in the USA, restricting the amounts of different materials that can be used in a hat. While they talk in terms of restrictions, the rules are not exactly harsh!

They are also big on promoting retail to a noble art that has an important role to play for The Nation. Which, of course, it very much can be, but we don't often see it described in those terms.

It does come across as somewhat humorous to us, in a world where hats are not seen as a necessity, that they say "Sell only what your customer needs...every woman should own at least one tailored and one dress up hat."

I love that we get to see the photo of this turban and also the illustration in the classic 40s style sketch above.

Any favourites from these styles? I think I need both a Chesterfield Coat and the hat to go with it!