HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Hoping everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's holiday. Now time to start the new year and look forward to all the promise of a new start for each of us.
Firstly, I'm announcing the 2013 millinery courses, workshops, classes...whatever you want to call them. Most are weekend classes but some are 4-6 days. I'll be teaching all over the USA--Atlanta, Washington,DC, San Francisco/Berkeley, San Antonio, and some of the most prestigious art/craft schools in the country. Hopefully, you will be able to come to a class that suits your needs. If not please stay-tuned here because.....
I hope to be posting more tutorials this coming year. Pictorials that will show how to work in straw, buckram, sewn braid, flowermaking, felt, feathers and more!
Thanks for reading and posting your comments throughout the year!
PLEASE NOTE THAT MANY OF THESE CLASSES WILL NOT BE LISTED ON THE VENUE WEBSITES UNTIL CLOSER TO THE DATES OF THE CLASS. Check with them regularly as some venues fill up the classes within weeks of posting registration.
Spruill Center For the Arts, 5339 Chamblee Dunwoody Road, Atlanta, GA 30338
Hat Shapes Using Wet Buckram:
Unique cocktail and fascinator headpiece shapes are the goal for this fashion forward millinery class. Learn to use buckram, a woven millinery foundation, to wet shape your hat frames. Many hat styles possible and all are student created. Wiring frames and covering with domette are also important parts of the class. To complete your hats, learn pleating, smocking and ruching to cover the hat frames in luscious fabrics and also how to make pretty linings. Two hats will be made in class. Individual coaching for all skill levels will be available.
REGISTER HERE (You will be taken to the venue’s webite for registration).
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June 8-9, 2013
Southwest School of Art, 300 Augusta, San Antonio, TX
Dyeing to Make Hats
Easy to use, non-toxic professional dyes will be used to dye a hood (sleeve/cone) and several lengths of millinery straw yardage: sinamay, jinsin, paris cloth, silk straw and/or raffia cloth. Techniques include gradient dyeing, vat dyeing, painting/stamping, and free-form (tie-dye) dyeing. Make your straws unique in color, shading, design! Time permitting we will create one free-form styled hat from the straw.
REGISTER HERE (You will be taken to the venue’s webite for registration).
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June 22-23, 2013
Jacksonville Center for the Arts,
220 Parkway Lane South, Suite 1, Floyd, Virginia, 24091
Hatmaking: Blocking Straws and Felts
Interested in creating beautiful big brimmed straw hats for Summer and close fitting felt cloches for Winter? This fun-filled class allows you to use traditional millinery hatblocks, in varying shapes, to steam block straws and felts into fabulous hats. Learn about different kinds of straw and felt, blocking techniques, adding petersham headsize ribbon, wiring brim edges, and some pretty embellishment techniques. This class is all about old-world millinery techniques not embellishing pre-made hats. Anyone from complete beginners to more experienced hatmakers can learn from this class. Very basic sewing skills recommended.
REGISTER HERE (You will be taken to the venue’s webite for registration).
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July 12-13, 2013
Judith M. Millinery Supplies, 104 S Detroit St, La Grange, IN 46761
French Flowermaking:
French flowermaking is an age-old process of creating beautiful flowers from specialized tools and rich fabrics. Each heated tool is used to shape fabric petals, leaves, and stems, as well as the textures associated with each flower part. Learn the secrets to prepping and stabilizing fabrics, cutting, shaping and assembly of each petal and part. In this class you will be making 2-3 flowers using the radius head, rattail, spoon, hammer, and knife. Patterns for 3 flowers, stamens and wire will be used along with natural fabric choices--silk, cotton, linen, rayon, bamboo, and lightweight woolen--to create your flowers.
REGISTER HERE (You will be taken to the venue’s webite for registration).
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Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles, 2982 Adeline Street Berkeley, CA 94703
July 24-25, 2013
Shaded French Flowers:
Interested in creating more natural looking flowers for your hats or home decor? Learn not only two methods of creating beautiful hand-made flowers using heated flowermaking tools, but learn tips and techniques for shading, granulation, and mark making. You will learn how to use the various heated tools to create petals full of curls and veining, but also how to add further realism to the flowers by adding color and shading for beauty and depth of perception. Two assembly techniques will offer you choices on entirely different types of flower backs, important in how they are used on hats, garments and home decor. Patterns for flowers included in class materials--rose and camilla.
REGISTER HERE for Shaded French Flowers (You will be taken to the venue’s webite for registration).
July 26-27 , 2013
Buckram Hats — Pre-Formed and Wet-Shaped:
Create two fabric covered hats using techniques for working with a millinery foundation material--buckram. Learn not only the different types of buckram available, but about pre-formed shapes/frames as well. One hat will be created from a selection of commercially available pre-formed shames; additionally you will design your own hat frame using the wet-shaping method. Learn to cut designs, wire the shapes, cover with domette, and ultimately several fabric manipulation techniques to beautifully and uniquely cover your hat frames. Linings will also be demonstrated. Both hats will be small cocktail or fascinator type hats, but bigger shapes (and the differences in covering with fabrics) will be discussed in class.
REGISTER HERE for Buckram Hats (You will be taken to the venue’s webite for registration).
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September 14-15, 2013
The Art League School/Torpedo Factory
105 North Union Street Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Block Party — Open Studio Hat Blocking
Beginning through advanced milliners will enjoy this class of blocking straws and felts over traditional hat blocks. The Studio will make available over a dozen new and vintage hat blocks to use over the weekend. Beginners will learn the very basics of steam blocking and more advanced students have an opportunity to block as many hats as they like over the more complex hat blocks. Each will progress at their own comfort level. Learn about the blocking differences in felts, straws and other millinery mediums; puzzle blocks; shaping and couture finishing techniques for incredible hats. Many hat styles. Individual coaching for all skill levels will be available.
REGISTER HERE (You will be taken to the venue’s webite for registration).
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September 22-28, 2013
Arrowmont School for Arts and Crafts, 556 Parkway Gatlinburg, TN 37738
Hats, Textiles, Straws to Dye For
Immerse yourself into a weeklong study of millinery techniques, surface design/fabric manipulation, and multiple methods of dying straw for hats. Firstly, learn to dye natural straw millinery forms and yardage, add some fabric manipulation (slashing, overlaying, dissolving, etc.) to create rich textiles for embellishment, and finally learn some old-world steaming, blocking, and free-form millinery techniques to create a number of unique hats. A rare combination of skills that beginner to advanced milliners and surface design students will appreciate. Many styles of hats, many embellishment options, and m,any colors and hues will be combined for beautiful, even quirky resulting headpieces. Fun and inventive!
REGISTER HERE (You will be taken to the venue’s webite for registration).
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October 19-20, 2013
Spruill Center For the Arts, 5339 Chamblee Dunwoody Road, Atlanta, GA 30338
To be Announced...
