2013 Millinery Classes...Workshops...Courses

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.

May 18-19, 2013
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...

Millinery Class at Wayne Wichern's Studio--California

This will be the last post about my incredible week spent teaching in the San Francisco Bay area in late July.  Posts about the French Flowermaking class and the Sinamay Fascinator class are further down this blog.  THIS post is about the fabulous one-day class I taught at master milliner Wayne Wichern's studio in Redwood City, CA, south of the Bay Area.  If you don't know who Wayne Wichern is, let me tell you a little about this wonderful milliner.

Wayne is, without at doubt, THE foremost West Coast millinery instructor and certainly one of the most knowledgeable milliners in the US.  He is a generous, talented, influential milliner and friend.  He is also the man behind the Millinery Artisan Guild, what was a West Coast millinery guild, primarily Pacific Northwest, but due to his vision, foresight, direction, and leadership,  now encompasses most of the Northern Hemisphere, as evidenced by this year's Hat Camp in Los Angeles.  (See past posts here on this blog.)  If you get a chance to take classes from him, either privately in his studio or through the classes he teaches at Canada College in Redwood City...you will be a better milliner.  Trust me.

SO!  Wayne and I met last year, when I was teaching at Lacis.  He graciously invited me to visit him in his studio after I finished all my classes.  We had a fantastic time talking all things hats before I had to leave for the airport and my flight home.  We briefly talked about me teaching in 2012 in his studio.  I was so honored he would ask. 

Later we met again at this year's Hat Camp and further got talking about classes.  Alas, we worked out all the details and made arrangements for me to teach when my classes were finished at Lacis this year.

Class title:  Abstract Shaping.  And wow, did we have some gorgeous hats come out of this VERY full class at Wayne's studio.  Thanks Wayne, for offering the class to your many followers and students.  I think it was a pretty cool class and I loved working in your studio for the day.

Below...some of the amazing pieces that came out of the class.  Enjoy!

I love the above shot.  Not only is the hat gorgeous, but I love the picture of Wayne in the back taking a sneak peak!  Couldn't have set this shot up better if I'd tried.  :-)

 After I left Wayne's that afternoon I headed BACK to San Francisco to have dinner with long-time friend, former student, and current millinery shop owner (Hats On Post) in downtown San Francisco--Peg Purcell.  Peg is such.good.fun!  I love her to pieces!  We always have a great time talking about hats until our tongues fall out...or I have to head to the airport!!!!  Dang if that wasn't the case this time. 

I packed so much into this trip to the Bay area--teaching at two venues, meeting wonderful students and practicing milliners, fabulous Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit, shopping for vintage millinery materials in Oakland, and taking in all that I could pack into my once-a-year California trip.

I'll be back again next year!  So keep your eyes open for 2013 class dates!

Fascinating Fascinators--Sinamay...at Lacis

Hello, again!  This post is about my second class at Lacis in Berkeley, California, in late July.  The first class (French Flowermaking)  is further down the blog, past Jean Paul Gaultier. 

Fascinating Fascinators:  Sinamay Headpieces, was the first time I've taught a millinery class at Lacis.  It was a one-day class, specifically about using unstiffened sinamay to create abstract and whimsical fascinators.  

Unstiffened sinamay can be harder to find than its cousin, stiffened sinamay.  However, you cannot create the free-flowing curves, loops, and twists with stiffened as you can with the unstiffened.  Unstiffened usually comes in natural, white and black, although you can sometimes get it in other colors.    Seems that right before class, as we were ordering materials, we couldn't get anything but natural.  Some students brought their own unstiffened yardage, but natural was about all there was to find on the market at the time.  That is why you see so much natural in the following pictures.

 The bias of sinamay is what gives it the wonderful curving properties needed to get shapes.  Above, Donna starts the process of using the bias to create line and shape.  You will see her finished piece further down the post.

 Miko brought in ombre black/grey sinamay.  Here you see her creating some beautiful loops and bows for a lovely finished piece.

Queen brought in a brilliant red.  Using the balsa utility head as a base, she created a great headwrap.  See the finished piece further down.

Check out the following pieces.  Finished except for the final sewing together.  The design is complete.  Not much embellishment needed for these type headpieces as the curve of the piece speak volumes as to style.

So pleased with the progress and finished pieces everyone did.  Most students in the class had no millinery experience.  I think they did a fabulous job of using a millinery medium most do not use to full advantage. 

Donna in her finished piece.  You saw her just beginning the piece up at that first picture.  Oh, and that huge and smashing flower? ....created in the flowermaking class she took the two days before.  Wow!  Love it, Donna!

Ok, ok, I promise...the class at Wayne Wichern's coming up next.  Right now I'm busy packing for my annual teaching week at John C. Campbell Folk School.  That post up after I return...and after the post for Abstract Shaping at Wayne's.

Happy hatting and thanks for reading!  Tell your millinery friends about our blog.

French Flowermaking Class---2012, Berkeley, CA

This post is about my trip to the San Francisco Bay Area--Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland, and Redwood City.  Lots to report over a few posts.  This post is about the Berkeley part. Stay tuned for more!

 If you've been following this blog for awhile, you know I love the airplane view landscapes while traveling.  This mocha scape reminded me of lace for some reason.  Bleak, remote, but beautiful.

Not sure where this is, other that about 2 hours (by aircraft) outside San Francisco International Airport.  I think this must be a salt lake but not THE Salt Lake.  Anyone have any ideas?  Again, stark and beautiful.

 Sierra Madre Mountains?  Note that in August, our hottest month in the USA, there is actually snow on top of these peaks.

OK, so the class was held at Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles in Berkeley, California.  This is an incredible museum and retail store where you will find many obscure sewing, lace-making, tapestry, textile books, implements and enthusiasm for what might be considered dyeing arts.  Classes offered on a continuing basis. Check 'em out.

 Antoinette starts the process of putting the flowers together.  We started with natural fabrics, stiffened them, cut out patterns and then began the process of actually making the beautiful flowers.

Close-up of the assembly process.  You will see finished flowers further down this post.  Pretty!

 Cori and Reba work on their flowers.  We made 3 'exotic' flowers in this class.  All patterns came from a book I am the English Technical Editor for.  Editing all started last year after I taught flowermaking at Lacis.  I'll be posting more about this later...and where you can buy the book!  Stay tuned!!!

 The following pictures are of a few of the beautiful flowers made in class.  Depending on many factors:  fabric, sizing, shaping, the flowers all came out a little differently, just like Nature.

  

 Below, Mother Nature tempting me on the way to class one morning!

   Lacis had curated an exhibit on hats while I was there.  Lots of amazing examples of hats through the ages.  Interestingly, the name of the exhibit, That Hat!, was the name of my first online website!

 Above, a smashing lace cloche!

Next post will be about the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit I saw while in San Francisco...and the other class I taught at milliner Wayne Wichern's studio in Redwood City.

Happy hatting and thanks, always, for reading! 

'The Millinery Guild'--Hollywood Milliner, Extraordinaire

Last post was about Hat Camp 2012.  Great event meeting so many fellow milliners from here in the US and Canada.  This post is about an extraordinary milliner who has been my 'phone friend' for a number of years.  I don't remember how we connected, exactly, but I do remember that I thought she was pretty special from our first phonecall.  I'm talking about the milliner behind Chapeau du Jour, a blog I'm sure you will want to visit, Montez Murphy.

Montez, or Monty, and I have a strong connection.  She and I are both breast cancer survivors.  That makes you a very different person, I think, than who you were before diagnosis.  Not in a core sense, but in how you view the world after that diagnosis.  Montez is one of those people.  She is a strong force.  A person to take heed of.  And I mean ALL of this in a very postive way.  You will find a post on her blog about her 'birthday', the day she received a heart transplant as a result of the treatment she received because of her cancer.  She has my vote.

Montez came and picked me up at the end of Hat Camp, and off to Hollywood we went, which is where her incredible millinery shop resides.  'The Millinery Guild', as the shop is known, is across the street from CBS studios and on a street with fabulous shops.  Next time I'm that way I want to find out all about those shops.

We had so much to talk about and for a few hours we talked non-stop.  What a gracious hostess she was, opening wine, offering treats and a time to discuss the millinery world from our different parts of the US.  Did I mention she has the cutest French bulldog? 

What some of you might not know is that Montez is a great friend and mentor of Project Runway's Mondo Guerra, who learned sewing and millinery from Montez.  Just days before Montez and I got together, Mondo had won Project Runway's All Stars.  That puppy you see above was a gift to Montez from Mondo.  What a sweet puppy dog she is!  Almost feline in her playing antics.  I loved her from the first!

The Millinery Guild represents a number of milliners, both nationally and internationally, including Barcelona's Cristina de Prada, from another blog I'm sure you know--Rantings of a Mad Hatter Wannabe.  Saw some fantastically sculptural hats there, including intricate straw work from Morgyn Owens-Celli.

What I also loved about The Millinery Guild was the fresh, clean lines of the shop--all white and very sparsely decorated.  That's very different from my almost Victorian-styled shop of more and more hats, jewelry, and other eye-candy.  Nice to see a different take on displaying hats--purely hats.

Thank you, Montez, for a special afternoon of talking about everything millinery we could pack into a couple of hours.  You are a special lady.  And a special thank you for the quick tutorial on vintage millinery sewing machines!!  I'm still in awe!

Hat Camp 2012

It has been an incredibly busy Spring!  I've been making hats as fast as I can for all the hat-wearing events our area supports like North Carolina's Azalea Festival and Garden Party, plus Kentucky Derby, other horsey events, and weddings.  I'll post some pictures of those in a later blog entry, but I want to tell you about an event I attended a few weeks ago called HAT CAMP!

I couldn't decide if I wanted to treat myself to seeing what I know must be a fabulous display of hats, curated by none other that Mr. Stephen Jones, in New York City (it is ending April 15th)...or by attending the annual Hat Camp, held this year in Los Angeles. 

I chose Hat Camp for a variety of reasons.  Mind you, I had no business leaving a crazy schedule of hatmaking in my own atelier, but I just felt the need to meet milliners from around the US/Canada, and this was the best place to do that.  Seemed I knew more international milliners than I did in my own country.  That was about to change!

Since I live on the Atlantic coast and had to travel completely across the US to the Pacific coast, it started as an early day and ended very late, but oh, the things I discovered.

Crossing the Rocky Mountains, above, and the Grand Canyon, below.

Once I arrived, checked into the hotel, and found my bearings, I headed to California Millinery to check them out.  I've never bought much from them and didn't know what to expect in the way of supplies.  I knew them mostly as a supplier of buckram frames. 

What I found was practically a museum of vintage materials.  Veiling, flowers, petersham, feathers, straw braids and other niceties. 

The braid above is about 3" wide!

Do you see those stacks of boxes?  Full of things I'd just love to get down in the floor with and check out.  Unfortunately, that was not possible.  But I did get some great vintage veiling, braid (which I'm partial to as a millinery medium), and a few other items.

Here's Diego, the guy you'll talk to on the phone or in person if you contact California Millinery.

OK, I get back to the hotel to hook up with my roommate for the weekend, Margo Nickel of Hatshadows.  I had wanted to meet her for a long time.  Margo lives in Tuscon, AZ, and is a supplier of handmade buckram frames.  Check her out! 

We hooked up with several other milliners in the lobby and went for drinks and to search out other Hat Camp attendees! 

That's Margo on the left, Holly Coffman from Santa Monica, and Ingrid Ostheller from Spokane, Washington.  I was already meeting so many incredible milliners and we hadn't even started the sessions yet.

Next morning we were all to meet at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising for a behind the scenes archival viewing of some of their most recent millinery acquisitions.  Dave Temple, who hosted Hat Camp along with Louise Green, pulled some nice strings to get us into the netherworld of their archives.  Below you see us waiting to go inside.  That's Louise on the far right.  She's American millinery royalty, although she's British by birth.  I've always loved her hats!  (More from her further done this blog post.)

Oh, and we got to view the 20th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design exhibit at FIDM. The exhibition includes selected costumes from all five 2011 Academy Award® Nominees for Costume Design: W/E, Hugo, Jane Eyre, The Artist, and Anonymous. Others on exhibit as well.

Dave giving us the lowdown on entry into FIDM and the rest of the morning.  Dave owns Clever Vintage Clothing in LA and later in the weekend he showed us just a few of his vintage millinery and clothing pieces.  All I can say is WOW!  If you are ever in LA, you must look him up if you love vintage!!

Hat Camp started about 6 or 7 years ago when Wayne Wichern, who now lives and teaches millinery in Redwood City, CA, moved from the Pacific northwest to the San Francisco area.  They all missed each other and the Seattle/Portland milliners decided to travel and 'camp' in Wayne's house for the weekend.  Hat Camp was born!  While it has always been a mostly West Coast millinery get-together, and specifically northern CA, Oregon, and Washington, it has now become an annual North American meeting of milliners, thanks mostly to word-of-mouth and social media.  You will want to join in. 

This year there were milliners from New York City, Nashville TN, Boise ID, Austin TX, Vancouver BC, Indianapolis IN, Chicago, and many more places.

Above you see Wayne (left) and Dave (right) at the Saturday session.  All milliners (45!) were given a chance to show some of their work through slides and give self introductions.  It was very eye-opening to see so many styles and to hear about how we each work, where we work, what training we had done, etc.  We all do the same work but amazingly differently!  Very interesting!

Chicago milliner Eia Radosavljevic and I gave a presentation to the group on our experiences at the International Millinery Forum this past January.  Lots of interest about the USA doing something like this.  Anyone interested?

Dave gave us some great information about a woodworker he knows who agreed to replicate hatblocks for him.  Here's an example.  Below you will see more.  As many of you might know, hatblocks are little mysteries unto themselves.  Not always as simple as they might look, especially when someone outside the millinery world is trying to make a copy. 

End of the first day and off to The Pattern Bar for a few drinks and some down time!

Here are a few more pictures from throughout the weekend.

Sunday was a VERY full day but the highlight of the weekend was a trip to the offices and workspaces of Louise Green Millinery in the evening.  Louise and her husband Lawrence welcomed us to take in their amazing workspaces, showrooms, supply areas, and trim tables...and served us dinner and drinks too!  Thank you Louise and Lawrence!

Louise led us through the creative  and design aspects of the business, and what a special treat that was.  She is a very gracious lady and we were all thrilled she was so open to having all of us traipsing through her facility! 

Lawrence, who knows the technical and financial end of the business, led us through some costing information which was as eye-opening as the creative side.  He also showed us the blocking stations, vintage millinery sewing machines and served the wine!

Monday morning we had a quick wrap-up session before we headed to the Los Angeles International Textile Show.  We were likes kids in a candy store!  So many incredible trim companies--ribbon, rhinestones, braids, appliques, flowers and even more.  I found a couple of vendors I've needed for a long time to help with bridal as well as hat trims.  A couple of the companies are even making custom pieces for me...now that's special.

Last of the group to leave the textile show...and Hat Camp as well.

I am so pleased I decided to attend.  I met so many people I've wanted to meet for a long time.  I look forward to the NEXT Hat Camp.  If you are a Canadian or American milliner, you need to plan for next year's meeting.  You won't be disappointed.  Lots to learn.

Next post...I meet LA milliner S. Montez and get to hang out at The Millinery Guild in Hollywood!  Stay turned.  You are gonna love her if you don't already know her!