Millinery Meet-Up 2014--Millinery Education Event

I am very pleased to announce an unprecedented millinery education event to be held Oct. 18-21, 2014, at world renowned Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  MILLINERY MEET-UP!

This has been a long time coming. So a little history. I was one of 4 international milliners invited to the first International Millinery Forum, back in 2007, in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia.  Being at that first forum of students and instructors gave me a sense of belonging that I'd not experienced before.  At that time no one was using Facebook or any other social media and it was quite difficult to connect with others of like interests.  I had found common ground.

International Millinery Forum has been held 3 additional times since that first one, and I've been invited to each.  And each time I come back from Australia I'm asked when we'll have something like that in the USA.  Well, now's the time!

Last year, while teaching a week-long millinery class at Arrowmont School Of  Arts and Crafts, I had a conversation with the Assistant Director about bringing a group to Arrowmont to study millinery under a number of instructors--domestic and international.  My good friend, studio assistant while at Arrowmont, and accomplished milliner in her own right, Diane Shagott, (of Hats to Di For in Atlanta, GA) and I stayed up late those nights at Arrowmont hashing out what we wanted Millinery Meet-Up to be.  We think you'll be pleased!

Please click over to www.millinerymeetup.com to find out more about classes, housing, food, instructors, and all the other activities we'll have over 4 days!  We're having a Millinery Marketplace too!  Come see what the millinery suppliers will be bringing for you to purchase...and more!

Instructors:  Eugenie van Oirschott (The Netherlands), Wayne Wicherns (San Francisco), Daria Wheatley (Washington State), and Lina Stein (Ireland). Read their class descriptions and biographies on the website.  You'll be amazed.

Registration begins on May 12, 2014, so start your planning.  We hope to see you in Gatlinburg for MILLINERY MEET-UP!

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...

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!

Buckram, Surface Design, and French Flowers--JCCFS, 2012

For the past three years I have been fortunate enough to be asked to teach a 'Unique Offerings' class at John C. Campbell Folk School in the Appalachian region of North Carolina.  The motto of the school is 'Sing Behind the Plow' and the logo is the plow team you see above.  This metal piece I found tacked to the entrance to one of the many craft discipline studios on this beautiful 300 acres campus.

There is a very rich history to the Folk School, named after Olive Campbell's husband.  The Campbells were enamored with the rich society mountain folk lived in and documented and cataloged that society for many years.  The School is a culmination of that effort, founded by Olive Campbell and Marguerite Butler.

Gorgeous vistas all around this campus.

This year I taught a week-long class and then a weekend class.  Week-long classes start on a Sunday night and end at lunch on Friday.  Weekend classes start on a Friday night and end on Sunday at lunch.  It made for a full week of great classes, fun people, new experiences and some fabulous work from my students.

The first class was entitled Hats and the Fabrics That Love Them (Buckram and Surface Design).  Yes, that is a mouthful! The class was designed to incorporate three different ways to make a buckram frame hat, and then (the really fun part) to create your own textiles from a fabric stash, using a number of surface design techniques. 

Surface design techniques included, pleating, slashing, dissolving, overlaying, embossing, and more.  In the photo below you see a few samples and a covered buckram form without the rich textile covering as yet.  Each student was required to make at least 4 textile samples to take home with them.  They could choose whatever technique they wanted to cover their buckram hats.

Below, Cat works hard on her buckram pillbox.  Three buckram hats were made:  one was a pre-formed shape from a millinery supplier, another was a self-created dry buckram pillbox, and the other was a wet-shaped buckram form of the student's own design.

Beverly working on her pillbox.  Beverly is a committed hat-wearer and wore one each day to class.

As we progressed through the week we also progressed in difficulty of technique.  Pictures of the shapes from the wet-shaping part of the class and the most difficult of the three buckram techniques.

Marilyn gets silly!

 At the closing ceremony each week-long class displays the work they have created during their study.  I wish I had better pictures of all the work tmy class did.  Unfortunately, I only had my phone camera.  My bad.  But each student displayed some of their sample textile pieces and at least one of their hats, most displayed two and WORE one!  When it was time for me, as the instructor, to introduce our work to all the other students from the week, ALL my students paraded to the front of the auditorium so that everyone could really appreciate the WEARING of the hats!  And everyone loved it!!

Before I get into the French Flowermaking portion of my time at the Folk School I'll show you a few more pieces of the magnificent JCCFS puzzle.  These photos are from displays in the History Museum on campus, to further explain this magical place.  Read the short bio of John C. Campbell below.

John C. Campbell

Olive Campbell and Marguerite Butler.

A few more photos of sites around campus.  You walk almost everywhere on campus and all these lovely little vistas appear out of nowhere.

On to the weekend class!  French Flowermaking.  On Friday night we all processed our fabrics so that we would be ready with dry fabrics the next morning.  Weekends are very full classes here!  Because they are very drippy after the processing, we hung them out to dry under a covered area in front of the Fiber Arts Building on make-shift clotheslines.  When I went by to check on them early the next morning, the whole area was covered in fog.  Makes for a beautiful and eery photo.

Enjoy the lovely flowers made during the class from many different fabrics--silks, linens, cottons; sheers, opaques, velvets, velveteens.  Each student made two flowers--a large rose and a peony.

Many fiber arts are offered by the school over the course of a year.  If you are interested in finding out more about the school and the many other offering throughout the year, click here.  You will not be disappointed!

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.