Monday, June 6, 2011

Millinery Courses in France--Buckram, Surface Design, Feathers, Flat Felt

Have you heard that I'll be teaching in the South of France in October? No? Well, listen up!

Milliner Lucy Till has graciously invited me to teach in her beautiful atelier. Two classes--a one-week class entitled Fabric Frolic on a Buckram Base...and Feathers!, and a shorter 3-day class entitled Retro Hats From Flat Felt Skirting, will be held in early October in St. Quentin La Poterie, near Uzes. Find out more about Lucy and the classes by clicking here.

Specific dates: Fabric/Buckram class is Oct. 3-7, and Flat Felt is Oct. 12-14.

Below you will see some examples of hats made by the two techniques. First up are 2 examples of hats made in a Fabric Frolic class in Australia several years ago. The last 3 pictures are of hats made in a Flat Felt class, also in Australia. Sooooo many options but here are a few.

One of many, many different ways of creating richly textured coverings from fabrics is pictured above. You will learn numerous surface design techniques for manipulating the fabrics by gathering, folding, pleating, darting, burning, overlaying, and other ways to make a textured fabric to cover your own buckram shapes, created in class. We'll make at least 3 hats in the class...and learn lots of ways to create feather mounts by cutting, curling, shaping and combining feathers commonly used in millinery.







Another example of covering a custom designed buckram shape with a custom created fabric.



The short 3-day class, using flat felt skirting (yardage), will concentrate on designing fabulous vintage styled hats and producing them from an age-old millinery medium---flat felt. You can 't make these style hats from hoods or capelines!


Below you see examples of flat felt hats.











Love to see some of my European readers for these classes! While they are listed as advanced classes on Lucy's website, they are, in fact open to anyone. I don't list any classes as beginner, intermediate or advanced, they're just all different skills. So don't let the advanced level scare you. None of the students in the above pictures had any skills in either technique and look what they created!


There is a max of 4 people for each class so don't delay in signing up! See you in France!! If you have any questions about class content, please contact me. If you have any questions about lodging, class fees, etc., please contact Lucy.


Au revoir!

2 comments:

  1. Dear Jan,

    This is soooo exciting! October is very far it is difficult for me to know now, but I would perhaps like to participate. Do you think this course would also be for people who already make hats?

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  2. Yes,yes,yes! Please consider coming to the class. It is for all levels of millinery experience. These are skills that are rarely taught but full of creative opportunity! I would love to meet you in class. That would be very special!

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