Felt and Straw Blocking; Puzzle Blocks, Vintage Blocks, etc

Atlanta, Georgia!  I teach here, at the Spruill Arts Center, about twice a year.  This Fall I taught a class that is relatively new.  It was Open Studio Blocking:  Straw and Felt.  The premise is that I bring a whole bunch of blocks--new, vintage, puzzle, odd, interesting, unique, fabulous! Each person blocks as many hats as they can over the blocks OR they learn the basics of blocking in a broad atmosphere of other, more experienced milliners. This class was divided into two groups, a group that is very comfortable with blocking millinery materials...and a group that has little to no blocking experience.

I'm always intrigued by these buildings in the area of northern Atlanta where I teach--Perimeter Center.  These high-rise office buildings have what I think of as wonderful wire frame construction tops!  The first time I taught wire frames in Atlanta I stayed at the hotel next to these buildings. I was back at the hotel this time and caught them at sunrise.

I loaded up my car and took about 35 hatblocks for class.  That's a big load...and heavy!  But I wanted a huge array of hatblocks for everyone to choose from.

More blocks!  These are mostly crown and whole-hat blocks.

I had 6 ladies who had never blocked before.  We did a comprehensive study on capelines--blocking, sizing, cutting crown from brim (and why!), re-attaching crown and brim (plus the specialty stitching), adding petersham, adding wire, and some other skills and techniques too.

'Olive and Jane' working on some beautiful parisisal capelines.  Great work, ladies!

Long-time students, Judy and Diane block block block block block!  Gorgeous royal blue fur felt capeline Diane is working on! I had 4 students who blocked an incredible amount of hats over 2 days...to be finished at home.  This was about taking advantage of the many blocks available for the weekend.  And they did!

Andre works on one of MANY hats he blocked over the weekend.  Most of the experienced blockers blocked on average 6 hats.  They were only interested in using the blocks over the weekend, as they know all the finishing and embellishing techniques from past classes.

Love the colors, love the styles!

 I'll be teaching this class again next year, somewhere around the country.  I think new and experienced milliners liked the opportunity to use blocks they may have never purchased or used if not for class.  Looking forward to seeing what others do with these blocks.

Happy hatting and I'll see you real soon for another post on my blog!

San Antonio Millinery Block Making Class

 I love San Antonio, Texas!  I've taught here for several years, on and off, and it is always a pleasure to go back.  Above is a colorful shot on their famous Riverwalk.  Margarita, anyone?

From one of the many river taxis that ply the waters, I made this shot of the river entrance to Southwest School of Art, where I'd be teaching.  The school is on the grounds of an old convent and is beautifully landscaped with large trees, shaded verandahs, and a lovely gazebo.  These steps lead from the river up to the school.

Just another beautiful view of the San Antonio River.


Now on to class.  This class was one that had been asked for several times while teaching at the SSA.  Hatblock making is one of my most requested classes, particularly since the hatblock...the building block of millinery, if you will...can be very expensive, especially the more unusual shapes.  We had a full class of 8!

We are using a common building material, found in home improvement stores, to carve our blocks.  I always caution students to keep their first attempts fairly simple.  The more you know about hat blocks and how straws and felts block over them, the more you will know about how block shapes can be rather deceiving in their complexity.

 JJ is adding some detail to her slope tipped crown block.  We carved only crowns in this class, but you can certainly carve brims as well.

Jean works on a fascinator block from some of the residual foam.  Save those knocked off bits for small hats and fascinators! Jean always does great work. 

Rita, one of my long-time SA students, made two blocks in class.  The first is actually covered in the blocked toasty straw you see in the forefront.  Pretty little cloche block that will get lots of action, being that cloches are one of the most sought after hat shapes. In the background she is working on the saucer hat/brim.  You'll see the results further down this page.

Couple of finished blocks.  Note that they are simple in shape but will create some lovely, usable crown or whole hat shapes.

Austin milliner, Laura Del Villaggio was in class.  What an honor to have one of my peers in class.  Above, you see two hats she blocked on the pieces she made in class .Love the simple lines.  My kind of hats, Laura!

And here you see the saucer hat/brim that Rita created from one of her blocks, using windowpane sinamay.  She later sent me a picture of how she finally finished it off...which you see below.

GORGEOUS, Rita!

Next blog post will be about my June class in Alexandria, Virginia...lots of fascinators!

Thanks for reading and please pass this blog on to your friends.

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!

International Millinery Forum--Part 2

Ready for another post about the International Millinery Forum in Australia?  I've decided to post another two entries about my experiences in Australia, and particularly IMF.  This is post #2...scroll down the page for post #1. Post #3 coming up in the next week or so.

OK!  Last post I left you after the fabulous opening cocktail party.  Early the next morning, a Monday, we began classes for the approximately 200 delegates.  Each tutor (instructor) taught 3 full day classes and 2 half-day classes.  My full day class was entitled Dyeing to Make Hats--taught on Mon, Thursday and Friday; my 2 half-day classes, Rock the Block, were taught on Tuesday morning and afternoon.

I was interviewed twice for local television.  IMF is a huge draw for the city of Wagga Wagga and it is widely covered on TV and newspaper, as well as their tourist information bureaus.  Here are a few screen shots of my interview.

Lots of pictures below of the dyeing class, where we concentrated on cold batch application, tie-dyeing, and immersion dyeing.  I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Cold batch application to sinamay, jinsin, raffia, silk straw.

Tie-dye, below, of the same straw yardages--jinsin, sinamay, raffia, silk straw.

Immersion dyeing of hoods and capelines.

Check out the gradient dyeing below!

And a couple of experiments in dip dyeing straw yardage.

And finally, the results! 

I'm thinking those dyed pieces of straw are going to make some incredibly beautiful, interestingly shaded hats and headpieces. 

On to the Rock the Block class, where everyone was learning to make inexpensive fascinator blocks, similar to the ones they had seen at the Trade Expo.  I'm certainly not trying to diminish what blockmakers do, because if you've ever tried to make a block, of any type, you know that the DESIGN is not always as easy to execute as one might think.  There are subtleties that you wouldn't even think about, believe me. 

I was, however, very pleased with the blocks the delegates made, and pleased that they listened when I instructed them to keep the design simple, at least for this first block.  Again, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

We even had a few who finished in time to actually block some sinamay over their new fascinator blocks.

The past two International Millinery Forums have been incredibly fortunate to be able to offer classes by one of Australia's foremost and most highly skilled milliners, Jean Carroll, OAM.  Jean began her career at the tender age of 14.  Yes, 14!  And this year, at the age of 89, she decided it was time to hang up her needle and thimble. 

IMF gave a stirring tribute to Jean at an afternoon reception after classes were over one afternoon. Although Jean didn't teach this year she told me she just couldn't stay away.  We were all so pleased to see her at all the festivities. Sydney milliner Neil Grigg emceed the proceedings and spoke of Jean's wonderful 75 year career.  I can tell you there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

Jean and Neil.  Isn't she gorgeous?  And so very classy!!  Neil, you did an amazing job!

Congratulating Jean on her career.  I asked her what she would now be doing with her days.  She answered she didn't know but that she would enjoy whatever life gave her.  How sweet.

I will leave it there for now.  Honoring Jean is a great place to end this post. 

But one more shot, below, of a very relaxing evening at the local pub with my host family, Kim and Scott; joining us were delegates Helen and Jill from Darwin.  Cheers!

Post #3 will be about the Gala and my last few days in Sydney.  Hope you've enjoyed the post!!