Hats for unexpected occasions

Don't have anywhere to wear a hat? Let's be a bit more creative.

Why dress up just to impress other people?

And if you do dress up for others, they had better appreciate it.

If not, you have plenty of options.

Repairing and wearing family fashion treasures

My great-grandmother was a young woman in the 1920s, and she possessed exquisite taste in fashion.

We are lucky enough to have a number of pieces of jewellery and beading that belonged to her. I recently took this small collection home in order to turn them into wearable items again.

To begin with, today I looked at these section of beading.

Beautiful, huh? Even from the back!

I don't know what it originally was used as, but I wanted to turn it into a simple headband. It is so intricate and colourful that it doesn't need anything else, and I wanted it to shine and be the focal point it deserves to be.

It is a little fragile and had a few loose threads and a tendency to roll at the corners.

I stitched it onto a background of black millinery felt, resecured the areas where the thread was coming apart, and attached some elastic.

Now I can wear this treasure that belonged to my great-grandmother.

Conveniently I also got my hair cut into a bob today too! Time to get some 20s dresses and go for a bit of Gatsby style I think.

I can't wait to wear this around and also get to work on the other lovely pieces.

Don't 'should' yourself into unhappiness, Tanith

Another exciting thing coming up is that I am spoiling myself (in a very sensible way) with a new look for my little bud of a business.

It was only a few months ago that I took my first hats down to Gail's shop. At this time, I couldn't justify spending money on professional help for a business that might be going nowhere. So I drew the rowan leaves myself for signs and the blog, and settled for the free business card option (and some printed-myself-at-home ones before they arrived).

Now, with the profits from my first sales in my pocket, I have hired a graphic designer.

This brings it's own problems.

Decisions need to be made.

Here come the shoulds and the shouldn'ts and the can'ts.

"You're a milliner, your business image should be sophisticated and elegant"
"You can't have cute silly pictures along with elegant formal fashion items"
"You shouldn't post about soft toys or Christmas decorations or geeky illustrations"
"You should present a fashionable image"

These thoughts jostle around in my head.

A moment of revelation comes.

DON'T FIGHT THE CUTE!

I love cute stuff! I love fluffy animals! I love lame maths jokes! I love the tackiest Christmas ornaments you can imagine! Darnit it's who I am! I want to pursue what I want to pursue!

Having a formal posh branding image will only make me feel bound to it. It will stifle my casual writing style. It will stop me from experimenting with fun new things that appeal to me. It will make me feel like I'm pretending to me someone I'm not. So I'm not going to do it. I'm going to be me.

Don't fight the cute. Embrace the cute.

New graphics are coming.

Expect cute.

Coming Soon: Wattle Flat Crafts

This month I am going to be a part of something very exciting!

My hats (and some other creations) will be on sale at the Old Courthouse in Wattle Flat. And yes, that is all the address it needs!

Wattle Flat is a village in the Bathurst region of New South Wales that sprung up in the gold-mining boom of the 1850s. The Courthouse (and Post Office) was opened in the 1890s and that building is now owned by my grandmother.

She has come up with this idea to get local crafters together and is working away to get the large courtroom ready to become a display space for myself and a range of other makers. There will be hats, jewellery, art prints and cards, felted items including cards, ornaments and wreaths, sewn items including soft toys, children's clothing, and quilts, local fleece, leather-worked items and more. No matter how detailed a list I give, I keep having to end with "and more". We are just getting so much interest and the people involved are so multi-talented.

The grand opening and future weeks will also feature craft workshops by our contributors, including myself.

You can keep up to date on the progress and learn more at the Wattle Flat Crafts Facebook page. 

Millinery for Halloween: Vampires and ghosts in their finest...

Nothing says 'black widow' like a trickle of blood, veiling, and the hint of a smile.

Let's journey centuries earlier to Tudor-era vampires in french hoods.

It can be hard to keep pearls white with all that blood around.

Glimpses of ghosts from the 1890s...

...and the early 19th century.

Happy Halloween.

Straw and Sinamay

I'm going to talk more soon about what I learned about making hats using blocked straw hoods and sinamay, but for now here are the results.

I must have tried out a dozen trims on this grey straw before I was even moderately satisfied. How good are pheasant feathers? I'm so tempted to get a pheasant.

Also, I need some more blocks! Seeing another milliner's collection gave me some serious block envy.

This block too! I love these two colours together, and had such fun learning to roll the edges for the leaf and flower trims. Anything that can be rolled rather than sewn is a dream come true.

It's amazing how the wearer transforms the hat, and vice versa. I really wasn't excited about this hat until I saw it on Sarah. Now look at it! What an awesome hat.

Exploring jinsin again

At the 2009 Internation Millinery Forum, I did a course with Melbourne milliner and all-round inspiration Waltraud Reiner, and I learned about jinsin.

At the time it was a relatively new material in the millinery market, and it was fun to play with and interesting to learn about. But somehow it didn't quite speak to me, and I never got around to using the remaining material I had left after the class.

Until these holidays! With the spring racing carnival season upon us and facing a summery season without felt to fall back on (man I love felt), I wanted to re-engage with some warm-weather millinery materials. So I got out my jinsin and had a play.

I love the striking pink and black combination of this jinsin and the way it curves across her forehead and  draws your attention to her eyes.

Is that a shed in the background? How Aussie.

This purple one is made of three twirls of jinsin individually hemmed and shaped then all looped together. I wonder how high a stack I could make?