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!