Spring 2013 Hats--North Carolina and Kentucky Derby Hatwearing

Long time...nothing from me.  Sorry!  Wow was it a busy Spring and early Summer.  Spring is my very busiest time of year.  This post will be showing some of the hats I made for Spring hatwearing events and the photoshoots that were able to capture, beautifully, some of those hats.  While most of the hats I make are custom-made, to coordinate with a client's ensemble, these were made specifically for my shop--aMuse: artisanal finery, here in coastal North Carolina.

In the next few weeks I'll be posting quite a bit--hats, classes, tutorials.  Please stay tuned.  In the meantime, please enjoy these handmade hats, all hand sewn using couture millinery techniques.

All the above pictures were made during Kentucky Derby Week.  These were made at Keeneland Race Track, in Lexington, KY.  For those of you around the world, the Kentucky Derby is held at Churchill Downs in Louisville, KY; Keeneland is about 60 miles away and is a sister race track.

What you don't see in this album is that is was pouring (pouring!) rain during the shoot!  Pleased the hats withstood the humidity as most of these sold to racegoers in Louisville within the next few days.

BELOW are hats from an earlier shoot here in Wilmington, before our biggest hat wearing events...during the North Carolina Azalea Festival.

I'll be back soon with a tutorial on adding bias edgings, two new teaching venues, and info about some upcoming classes around the country.  Annnnnnddd...and big announcement!!!  :-)

Thanks for reading!!!

Dyeing Straw--Millinery Class in Atlanta, Georgia

This past weekend I taught a spanking new millinery course at the Spruill Center for the Arts, entitled 'Dyeing To Make Hats.' It is a class I've been thinking about for quite some time; a skill I've been working on for my own hats for a few years now.

Have you wanted to dye your own straw, whether a hood, capeline, or one of the straw yardages like sinamay, paris cloth, jinsin, silk straw or raffia? See the results of this class' wonderful dyed straws.

All these beautifully dyed straws began as natural or white straw and were dyed with professional, permanent, fiber reactive dyes. Easy, safe, and effective.

HINT: International Millinery Forum attendees...check this post out. Details forthcoming about this class at IMF in January 2012.

A look at some of the dyed straw yardages as they dry and are made ready for the hatmaking portion of the class. Note that each straw is different...from painted flowers to stampings to abstract usage of dye on straw.




Here are a few of the stamps used in class. Very simple but used to beautiful advantage!

Suzanne did a fantastic job of using stamps and stencil brushes to create this design on silk straw.


Absolutely love this Asian-inspired design (partly done with chopsticks) by long-time student Judy. Great colors too.




Claire created this simple but lovely polka-dot design on raffia. See the great fringe?


Oooohhhhh! Gotta love this stamping/drizzling piece by milliner Diane of Hats To Di For! Pretty blue butterflies!






Here's an example of a free-hand design created by Margalee. Quite nice!



Claire and Suzanne hang up some of the dyed and washed out straws. More about that next.


After we vat dyed, tie-dyed, painted and stamped our straw yardage, and then allowed it to 'batch' for a period of time, it was time to wash out the residual dyes. Rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse. Right class? Rinse, rinse, rinse....


Sonja and Gloria with a couple of end result hats dyed in class. Sonja (left) in her tie-dyed sinamay and Gloria in her vat dyed parisisal hood. Both free-style shaped. Lovely!






Claire in her chartreuse dyed hood which she then free-form blocked. This was Claire's first true millinery experience and she did a fantastic job!


Sonja in a free-form silk straw. GORGEOUS! Love, love, love the lines!




Margalee in hot pink silk straw fascinator. Don't you love this?


Pretty tie-dyed sinamay from Gloria. Gloria is the milliner behind Gloryous Hats.


Stop the presses! Sonja's free-form styled green raffia straw topper. Everyone loved this! Vat dyed raffia yardage.



Another of Sonja's hats...dyed and styled in class.




Ooooooo. Love Margalee's tie-dyed headpiece you see here. This is an easy technique of dyeing but with dramatic effect. Margalee and her sister Melissa (see later post) have heretofore done mostly Kentucky Derby type hats, since they are from Kentucky! But I have a feeling they will be expanding their scope of styles for those ladies attending Derby next year.




Claire in her purple tie-dyed fascinator. Her second hat ever! Great job, Claire!




Diane takes her 'eggplant' knotted sisal hood and creates this amazingly styled fascinator. Who needs embellishment with design like this? Love it!




Melissa (from Kentucky) spent alot of time designing and creating this bias-fringed, tie-dyed fascinator. I think it is a fantastic piece, and a departure from the styles she and her sister Margalee are usually creating. Love it that they are open to new styles for their clients.


Suzanne, an art history major, used her vast artistic knowledge to create her pieces of tie-dye, stamping and drawing yardage. Great use of color ranges and styles, Suzanne!

As usual, you are looking at pieces that may or may not be completely styled and finished hats and headpieces. I always treat my classes as 'process not product'. In other words, you will know a number of techniques at the end of my classes, but your hat may or may not be complete as far as embellishments, etc. I think learning the millinery techniques is so very important. Everyone can embellish to their heart's content either in class (time permitting) or at home with all your accoutrement. A very personal decision, and one I really shouldn't even be involved in with your hat. I'm soooo much about the technique being perfected, NOT just the embellishment.

I hope you enjoyed just a taste of what it takes to dye straws. Look for classes in 2012 that will expand this newly created class from moi!

Fascinators, Kentucky Derby, Hat Wearing Events for Spring

Hello, everyone! It has been an incredibly busy Spring. I've been making hats non-stop since January. First for the hat show (several posts back), then our city's largest hat-wearing event in early April--Azalea Garden Party, then Easter, then the Royal Wedding, then Kentucky Derby.

I'm posting quite a few of the hats and fascinators I made for these events. Most were made to coordinate for specific dresses, but some of these were made for a trunk show before our local Royal Wedding event where, I'm happy to say, almost everyone there wore a fascinator! Thanks, Kate Middleton!

Sinamay base with 12" diameter silk flower, vintage green veiling, stripped coqs, curled biots, and a swirl of vintage rooster feathers.

Close-up of the fabulous vintage veiling--delicate and stylish.

Made for a client who had not been, up until this one, a hat-wearer. In fact, she specifically didn't want a hat that would draw attention to herself. However, after she wore this hat, gained some 'hat confidence' she came back and had me add more feathers and some hot pink veiling for another event. I love that kind of story! Now she is a dedicated hat-wearer!!

Close-up of the dyed peacock feathers, coarse petaled flower and a bit of the sinamay.

This hat was made for one of my models from the Spring in Paris show in March. She wanted a show stopper and this what she got. I love the way this hat turned out.

Made for the official photographer for the Azalea Garden Tour. She needed a hat that didn't have a brim, so that it wouldn't interfere with the camera, and one that was NOT traditional. Hence, the free-form, tri-colored sinamay fascinator. I actually added a vintage button to this after the picture was made, but was too busy to make another picture. Yikes!

Another custom-made hat to match a dress. Love this big lily.

Close-up of the lily and the peacock eyes. Guess you have noted that I love the green peacock feathers since they were in another hat further up this post.

Grape parisisal bowl base, 12" magenta flower, and ripped horsehair. This was made for the trunk show and was sold to a very happy customer for Kentucky Derby.

Vintage ribbon, fuzzy pussy willows, yellow rose, and forget-me-nots, all from my collection of vintage embellishments. This was one of my favorite traditional styled hats I made this season.

Black calla lilies, beauty-marked veiling and some rhinestones on the stamens. I added some aqua stripped coqs and this little darling went to the Kentucky Derby!


Vintage blocking net (lacy) form with multi-colored posies, some soft veiling, and a tuft of ostrich feathers.


Close-up of little yellow fascinator.


Simple and sophisticated. I made this as a give-away for a lucky attendee to the Royal Wedding event we had at the beautiful mansion next door to the shop. Confetti feathers!


Custom-made for a grandmother for her newborn grandson's christening! And she has the personality to pull it off.


Store stock...now sold. Made for the trunk show. Horsehair, guinnea feathers, and netted 'jewels' on a hairband.

Hope you enjoyed these. My next post will be about a custom made hat you are going to LOVE. I'll be showing each step of the process. So stay tuned! Thanks for reading and happy hatmaking!