Wired for Fashion: Wire Frame Hats--Atlanta, GA

OK, all you readers out there. You are going to have to bear with me on this post. LOTS of pictures from last weekend's classes in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Spruill Center for the Arts. There were so many people interested in constructing wire frame hats that we had to add another class.

I've divided these pictures into two sections: Saturday/Sunday class, and Monday/Tuesday class. Each one diverse and exciting in the work they did! Scroll down to see!!!

Firstly, the picture above is by one of the four costumers we had in the Sat/Sun class. Wendy, from Savannah, Georgia, created these frames from black millinery wire. The piece on the left was the first piece she made. Everyone started with a simple headband to get the feel of how to cut wire, bind wire, bend wire and design with wire. Not as simple as it sounds. After they got the hang of that we moved to a more complex piece. Wendy choose to create this great hat of circle pieces. Isn't it wonderful?

Jean, from Austin, Texas, working on her headband. She chose to add some curved bracing wires to her piece.

Here you see Jean's hat frame for the second piece--a modified madhatter. The fabric you see is what she will use to cover the frame.

Randi, from Asheville, North Carolina, another of our costumers, was making a traditional Edwardian frame to use in her costumes for SASS, an organization of people who love to shoot vintage firearms...while in vintage costume! She had everyone excited about what she does and the organization she represented. Later in this blog you'll meet another member of SASS. SASS stands for Single Action Shooter's Society--a worldwide organization. Fascinating!

Another shot as the piece began to take on a final form. To the left you see Kenna, another of our costumers. She's creating a crownless hat.

Here's the beginning of Kenna's crownless hat. I always love to have costumers in a class. They know soooo many secrets to sewing...and vendors.

Kenna's finished frame, right before she began covering it with a lovely sheer fabric.

A couple of other frames from students in class, before they are covered.

Carole, from Nashville, Tennessee, in her eyelash covered frame. She chose not to cover the whole frame, just the wires themselves.

More info: Students took an incredible amount of time creating these frames and then, in most cases, covered the wires with either ribbon or fabric. They could then chose to cover the entire frame with sheer fabrics. Due to the time it took just to do the first two skills, I don't have any pictures of finished product. But I hope some of the students will send finished photos to me so that I can upload them to a future blog entry. (HINT!)

Carole with her completed headband hat. She purchased some vintage leaves, flowers, and ribbon roses to cover the frame. She came into class on Sunday with this hat on and I truly believed she had a vintage hat on her head! She worked hard the night before finishing this piece.

Sandra, another of our costumers (actually a wigmaker!), with her second wired piece. She is wearing this to a Black and Orange Ball (Halloween). The frame will incorporate a skeleton on that curvy piece you see. Sandra, please send a picture of the finished piece!

Bethany with her second wired piece. She planned to crochet around the wire. Neat, huh?

Below you see the Monday/Tuesday class, minus one, who's taking the picture. A few of the frames can be seen in this shot. That's me on the far right, with my wacky madhatter wire hat.

Some of you readers (especially you Facebook readers) know Andre Baxter of Christine Designs by Andre. Andre is a long-time student who has worked with me before with my hat fashion shows. Here he's working on a frame to be used later in the week for a Haute Atlanta show, part of Atlanta Fashion Week.

Close-up of Andre's frame. He was covering it in lavendar organza!

Meet Jeanette, from Albemarle, North Carolina, another costumer, and member of SASS, as described above. Her wire frame was to be an abstract flower with a bee embedded in the center. This is the beginning of the work.

Here you see Jeanette's finished frame. Lots of time-consuming, hard work to get this far!

Another long-time student, Diane Shaggot, of Hats to Di For, who does complex, beautiful work. She, also, was very helpful to me in last year's hat fashion show here in Wilmington. Sent some beautiful hats!

Diane's inspiration for her hat is a rose with a VERY large leaf. Note the raised round section
to the far left. That is the base for her rose...eventually. Love, love, love the leaf. She's beginning to cover the wire with green ribbon and green pipe cleaners in this picture.

Is this cool or what?! Diane, you are sending a picture of the finished product, right???

Maggie was really into Steampunk and was making this piece for a costume she was creating. Yes, another of our costumers!

Couple of headbands by this class. On the left you see Paula's piece and on the right, Shirley's. Shirley used velvet tubing, in the true vintage style, to cover the wire.

And another two headbands. On the left is Rebecca's and on the right another of Shirley's pieces.

I was very, very happy with the creativity and sheer amount of work these classes demonstrated. Wire work is something that is rarely taught, not understood my many, but a large part of the history of hats. I think you will agree that whether the hats you see above were historical or contemporary, they were very creative. I can assure you of the huge amount of planning and work involved.

Thanks Spruill, for hosting these two classes! Always a pleasure!!!

John C. Campbell Folk School--Millinery Class

Last weekend I taught for the very first time at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. The Folk School, as it is affectionately known, is 85 years old and was started as a means of preserving the crafts of the Appalachian Mountains and the people who lived there. Today there are an incredible number of arts and crafts taught there every week and weekend--from blacksmithing, to basketry, to woodturning, to clogging (a traditional mountain dance style), to printmaking, to....just name it!

The Folk School is in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the shadow of the Great Smokey Mountains. Here you see a little of what the scenery is around the School.

There are numerous original and new dormitories and studios around the campus, which sits on many, many acres. Here is the Farm House, where I stayed for the weekend. It was lovely!

Mountain tradition is that every day starts with MorningSong. At the Folk School either one of the locals comes in, or in this case one of the weekend instructors did MorningSong. This is Aubrey, who taught clogging over the weekend. Turns out she also sings beautifully and plays banjo, mandolin, and guitar. This picture show her playing banjo and doing some fancy clogging steps. She was fabulous!

Here you see the last morning of class, right before we went to the final presentation of each class' work for the weekend. We had a class of 12, including my assistant, David, whom you see at the far right. Many of the class had to leave before 'presentation' due to the great distances they travelled to get to the School.

The purpose of this class, 'Crowns and Brims: A Millinery Survey,' was to learn through observation and practice, skills including wire construction, fabric covered buckram, blocking straw, and sewn straw braid. This was not an in-depth study of any of these, yet a means to be exposed and practice at least two of the skills into one hat. e.g. straw crown with wire brim, buckram crown with straw brim, etc.

Here's Sonja with her finished product, a gorgeous wire construction brim (covered in black and white silk) with a fabric covered buckram brim. Just gorgeous!

Here you see her after she's finished the construction and is covering the frame with silk.

The early work in the construction process. Not quite as easy as it looks!

David, my studio assistant, chose to create a wire frame brim with buckram crown, as well. What a colorful guy in his elegant hat! Great job, David! Now here's a hat lover! You should see his collection! And what great guy! He kept us all sane...well, most of us!

Ah, David and Sonja HARD at work on their wire frames. Sooo much time spent in creating the frames, but with such wonderful results.

Gerald was the other man in our class. I didn't get a chance to photograph his finished product but he did an amazing job! Here he's working on this fabric covered buckram brim. He chose a blocked sinamay crown to pair it with.

Below you see some of the class with their final project, minutes before we did a catwalk before the whole school (about 100 attendees/instructors). Most classes displayed their work on tables, we strutted ours!! Such fun!!!!

Beautiful Sara in her purples and lavenders! She worked incredibly hard on her hat.

Mollie in her wire frame brim, draped in a sheer dotted fabric, with a silk covered buckram crown.

Pictures don't do this hat justice! This was a smashing hat!

Robbie begins her huge, no HUGE, wire frame hat!

See where this is going? Love the conjunctive wires.

Trying it on for size. This took an amazing amount of work to get it this far.

The final hat! The wire frame was draped in a stretchy netting that beautifully covered the circumference and area of this hat. Note the tiny silk crown--covered buckram.

I have to give Robbie, Mollie, and Sara some extra credit. They each stayed up until 3am to complete their hats before presentation on Sunday morning. Others of the class stayed up working in the studio until midnight! Now that's dedication!!!

Cathy working on combining the straw brim with the buckram crown.

Cathy's final product. Love the color combination! Cathy did beautiful handwork.

Leslie and Jan work on their hats. Leslie chose a wire frame crown and a blocked straw brim; Jan chose a straw crown and a wire brim.

Love the final outcome, Jan! And the neutral colors are soft and pretty.

Karin chose a blocked sinamay crown and a blocked straw brim. Note the stash of embellishments in front.

Karin in her finished product; again, right before presentation. Nicely done, Karin!

Thanks to the students who listened, took challenges, worked hard, played nice with each other, and trusted me as their instructor. Your willingness to trust me in the work I outlined for you is muchly appreciated.

And thanks to the amazing Folk School for the opportunity to teach there for the first time. I do look forward to returning next year for a week-long class, followed by a weekend class.

Silk Straw: Hat or Headpiece?

Several posts back I showed the results of a day's worth of dyeing sinamay and silk straw. At the end of the post I showed 3 different manipulations of the silk straw. While a couple of people liked example #2, as did I, it is almost impossible to re-configure this amazing fabric into a pre-conceived style. So I had to go with example #3, which I also liked...otherwise I would have taken IT apart and tried for another style I liked.



Anyway, here is the finished product, with added beading on the edges of the 'waves' and a swath of vintage veiling. Since I live near the ocean, the whole thing reminded me of waves, and water, and currents, and yes, a fishing net! Confession: I've actually added more beading, and larger beads, to the veiling since I took these photos. The extra beading added some weight to the veil, which held it in place better, without having to tack it down, plus it adds even further to the fishing net theme--the beads are splashes of water caught in the netting!

Side view. See the silk shine?

Close-up of the veiling. Gosh I wish I had a picture with the extra beading. Oh, well. I might post it later.

Chicago Millinery Classes--Block Making and Fascinators

Last week I was fortunate enough to teach in Chicago, at TLD Design Center. I've been teaching there for probably 9 years and it is always a pleasure to go back. Great students come from all over the mid-West to take not only hatmaking classes but a wide range of textile classes from the owner, Tammy Deck and other instructors. This year we had students from New York, Florida, and Kentucky, as well as Chicago.

I taught two one-day classes this year. The first was Block Making. Everyone made a least one hat block and then blocked a parisisal hood over their new block. Above, Ann and Rebecca are hard at work on their projects.

Clair and Abby begin the blocking process. Abby attended the Kentucky Derby for the first time this year and came away wanting to know more about hatmaking. Here she begins free-forming on a hatblock.

And here is her hat just as it was coming off the block. She was thrilled with the result! A few embellishments and she'll be ready for the Derby next year!

Lyn made a very simple but elegant block. Here she is blocking her black parisisal hood over it.

The next day I taught Fascinating Fascinators. One of the first things I asked the group was, "What IS a fascinator?" Of course, there is no definitive answer to that as they can take many forms. And that was my point. They can pretty much be anything you want them to be. They take no specific form! Go for it!

I demonstrated numerous skills that could be used in making fascinators: feather-work, sewn braid, free-form sinamay, fabric covered buckram, along with how to attach elements to combs, hairbands, hat elastics, clips, etc.

This photo, and the one above it, are of feather mounts created by Betty. She will probably use these on her fabulous felt hats since that is really her forte. Love the color combination!

Close-up of the fascinator base Betty created with a very dark navy braid. Nice!

Rebecca starts the final process of curling feathers on her silk covered buckram base. She created the feather mount from coq and biot feathers using the technique she learned in class.

The final product! She used an orphaned rhinestone earring as the focal point and a base for the feather mount.

Betty models Rebecca's hat.

Rebecca does the HAPPY DANCE she is so thrilled with her hat! And I agree!

Great job, Chicago class!!

Dyeing Sinamay and Silk Straw

I've been having a great time doing some dyeing lately. I don't consider myself having strong skills in doing this kind of work, but I enjoy it. I don't have the scientific part of the brain to do all the measuring needed to come up with specific colors. I mix up Procion Fiber Reactive dyes and frankly, I get what I get. Below you will see the results of dyeing some natural colored sinamay straw and a short piece of silk straw. More about that further down the post.

Here is what sinamay looks like naturally. While I'd get much stronger color strikes if I used bleached sinamay (white sinamay), I have rolls of the natural colored and save my white for specific projects.

I've skipped over all the messy business with powdered dyes, water, buckets, gloves, face masks, etc., to show you a fairly easy way of 'batching' the sinamay. By batching I mean letting the dye sit in/on the sinamay until it exhausts itself and the sinamay can no longer accept anymore dye. This takes about 12 hours, but I sped it up a bit by placing the dyed sinamay in plastic bags, placed it outside in our HOT North Carolina sun, and let it process. I continued to turn the bags over every hour or so.

Above you see the bags opened at the end of the day. I'm ready to remove them from the bags and wash out the residual dye.

All balled up and getting their first shower! Because these dyes are non-toxic I don't mind washing them out on the grass in the garden.

And here they are all washed out and ready to dry. Note the smaller turquoise piece in the center of the group. This is silk straw, which I loooooove! The warp of the weave is silk and the weft is straw. The sheen on this straw is unbelievably gorgeous. Gorgeous!

Here I've taken the small piece of silk straw to the studio to play with. Can you see the sheen? This particular piece is about 18" wide and about 30" long. So not a big piece of straw yardage to work with, but wait until you see the resulting headpieces I fashioned out of this.

The following pictures are the 3 styles I came up with while manipulating the straw. The straw weft is really the only way to bend the straw for design possibilities, the silk warp being too limp to make much of a design statement. If you are familiar with Jin Sin, it works by the same concept. Sinamay bends equally on warp and weft.

Example number 1.

Example number 2.

Example number 3.

Which one do you like best? Leave a comment here on the blog.