Tis the season to be jolly...

December 2012

"Tis the season to be jolly...." and with the fast approaching Christmas has come my first foray into the world of craft fairs.  It was far more nerve wracking than anticipated putting ones work out there to be judged and I've discovered I am not so great at self promotion.

My first fair was with some other students from my hat class where we all shared a stall at the Morley Christmas fair.  It was very busy and there was alot of interest in the hats and alot of questions from people asking if I could co-ordinate with outfits to make the hats more individual.  I only took my smaller hats as I thought these were a better idea as they are less expensive for a gift and you do not need to worry about a persons head size.  Success I sold my first three hats! :)

 

I then had a stall at my works Christmas craft fair which was held in a rehearsal room and it was so lovely to see everyones talents outside of the work environment.  People had made chutneys & jams, delicious fudge, Christmas wreaths, body products, knitted and crocheted.  Also some beautiful photography of local landmarks by Peter Chrome and of course it wouldn't be a Christmas fair without the obligatory glass of mulled wine and a mince pie!

This time I had chosen to display some of my period hats aswell as people had seen me working on them at work and were intrigued.  Everyone was very kind and positive and I sold one hat.  There are alot of performers at work so hopefully they might remember me if they need a co-ordinating hat in the future for any events/concerts.  It was a really valuable experience to get feedback on my hats and I will definitely think about doing more craft fairs in the future :)

Burlesque night

October 2012

Some friends and I went off to a Burlesque night and I felt I needed to look the part, so a co-ordinated hat was definitely on the cards.  I borrowed my friend Tami's stunning under bust silk paisley print corset.  I made a small tear drop fascinator with little pin wheel pleats to fan out the top giving the hat some height.  I embroidered some co-ordinating paisley motifs on the hat to link in the two.

My very talented friend Jade Patterson did my hair for me and another friend happened to have a camera handy for when we were getting ready, though sadly no good photos of my final look.

It was a really fun evening and not like anywhere I'd been before.  I loved seeing other peoples outfits and saw some amazing headwear including a very impressive Cleopatra's headdress.  I really enjoyed seeing the acts the most, with fire eating, burlesque and some pole dancing (I did not participate in that skirt!).

Bridport Hat Festival 2012

September 2012

What a great fun event the Bridport hat festival weekend is, what is there not to love?!  Lots of hats, hat themed, food, stalls, museum displays, entertainment. I particularly loved how every shop display seemed to have hats in it including the estate agents! Unfortunately I was only able to get to the Sunday events but I very much enjoyed it and hope to get back next year.

I had entered my hat in the hat competition and it was my first go at using one of my new hat blocks and covering a concaved shape.  I used a trim from a vintage hat in beautiful ombre blue and based the design on the idea of a crashing wave, taking inspiration from my boyfriends parents home in the Bournemouth area.  It was a tricky make and I learnt alot from doing it.

I did not win the competition but was selected as a finalist.  The winner was Matthew Eluwande with his "Spiral Bean" hat, who did very interesting things with sinnamay.  Below is a photo of the finalist hats taken by the BBC who did an article on the festival and a photograph of my wave hat.

 

Hat Block Course

July 2012

I have been attending Morley College courses for the last year or so studying millinery and jewellery making.  I signed up for a summer school class in block making.   When working with felt or sinnamay you quite often mould these materials over a wooden block to create the shape of the hat.  For felt you use steam to soften the felt hood and the stretch it over the desired shape and pin it in position and wait for it to dry out.  Wooden blocks are, unfortunately, very expensive as it's a very specialised skill to craft a hat block using special wood that pins can push in to.  The course was to show us how to carve hat blocks using a dense polystyrene which is then cut and sanded into a recognisable shape.

The course was lots of fun though we all looked like we had escaped from a crime scene in our plastic boiler suits!  16 people all sanding polystyrene meant lots of mess like being in a snow globe.  It was a very productive 4 days, after initially trying to wrap ones head round working in 3D and getting a feel for the materials.  I can definitely say by the end of 4 days with the intense sanding and carving my arm and neck were ready to fall off!  The result was definitely worth it though as I now have a lovely selection of blocks to use to expand my future designs.

Go team GB!

July 2012

Way back in 2012, I was lucky enough to go to watch the Womens Olympic Gymnastics qualification at the 02 arena.  Feeling I should be patriotic and support team GB who were in the group qualifications that day, I quickly put together a fascinator hat.

I went with the obvious theme of red, white and blue to co-ordinate with a recently bought a Cath Kidston skirt with a pattern of the Queens Guards printed on the fabric, very British!  I picked up the Union Jack print flower at one of my favourite haberdashers and made it the central point of the fascinator.

We had a great time watching qualification and saw some fabulous gymnastics as we watched team GB perform.  I was pleased with my fascinator but the prize for support definately went to the lady sitting next to us who was heavily pregant with a "Go Team GB" sticker on the front of her protruding bump!

Celebration - finally my first post!

March 2014

So finally after many, many months of preparation and various business with work and not to mention a wedding, I am FINALLY writing my very first blog post, hooray!

I'm hoping to use this blog mainly for hats and other things that interest me, exhibitions, crafting, vintage clothes...I'm going to back date some blog entries with bits I hope that you will find interesting too!

So I think that this is a cause for celebration!  As you can see from my beautiful copy of V & A notecard.  Please keep your eyes peeled for the upcoming launch of my facebook and Etsy page :)