Hats & Tats

Some photos from the Autumn Hat Exhibition last Sunday at Yuga Cafe - was lots of fun & there were lots and lots of Hats!

And that's the piano I played:  do hope everyone heard all the good notes and that no-one heard the mistakes!

And Now to the Tat tat tatty tat - Tatting

I'm going to be teaching how to tat this week so a good time to get out the threads and dust off those shuttles ...




They say that tatting developed from net-making - fishing nets that is and I guess that does make sense. 






It is an easy form of lace-making that was very popular in the 1930s & 40s ... I really can't understand why it is not more popular now.

I like to make lace edgings ... not sure what I'll put these on though the pink would look nice on a pretty frock for my granddaughter.
In 2008 I tatted about 5m of mauve lace for this 'Munchkin' costume ... can you see it on the Jabot and at the cuff?

My Munchkin was Quite a Dandy

I don't usually use tatting to make motifs and this butterfly was the first time I'd used beads on the thread.  The beads weren't difficult though I had problems with the slippery metallic thread and my picots are quite un-even! 

Tut tut Tat tat








As I'm going to be teaching How to Tat I was looking at the diagrams in all my books - they seem to leave out half the 'moves' - so I looked at some YouTube clips but there the hands move so fast ... I'm not sure I could learn from them. 

So, being an inveterate DIY person I've decided to Do It Myself and make a set of How to Tat notes with LOTS of photos to show every step.  Last night we set the camera on a tri-pod and my hubby darling took oodles of photos ...  now to put them together with some words...

Oh but my poor old hands look so wrinkly and old.  Sigh! I used to be proud of having pretty hands!  Guess they've done a lot of work though.   I'll just have to be proud of having hands that can Do & Make things ... and have the wrinkles and age-spots to prove it!

Hats hats hats

Hats hats hats - these are hats I've made - they'll be for sale at the exhibition on Sunday 18th at Yuga Cafe - 172 St Johns Rd, Glebe.







Big Red ??   it's looking rather cherry colour there but is in fact a rich burgundy red - the felt has a lovely velvety finish. 


Style & trimming inspired by 1940s Hollywood Glamour  - Rita Hayworth, Heda Lamarr, Ava Gardner.

A fabric hat in Gray with black pleated insert. 

Inspired by 1930s Hollywood Glamour - Marlene Dietrich wore pancake hats like this.  The rakish angle is de rigueur  and I've shaped the crown so it fits snuggly when worn at an extreme angle.





And - as we've been going backwards through the decades - my Cream & Cafe Latte cloche - very 1920s Flapper Girl, very Miss Fisher, Great Gatsby, The Artist ...









It was inspired by the hat in the bottom row - 2nd from the left.
From a 1928 Sears, Roebuck & Company catalogue, reproduced by Dover Books. 

Hat Exhibition - Sun 18th March - a Sneak Preview

Yea!!   I'm part of an Exhibition (& sale) of Autumn Hats at Yuga Cafe - 172 St Johns Rd, Glebe - on Sunday 18th March.

Bold Red Hat by Carole Maher

There will be over 40 Couture Hats - all lovingly hand-crafted by a dozen Sydney Milliners who are members of the Australian Milliners' Guild.  The range will be diverse - as each milliner has a distinctive style of their own.

For example, Carole's style is bold and current, whereas my style is very vintage inspired.   There seems to be such a 1920s buzz at the moment with The Artist  winning so many Oscars & Miss Phryne Fisher solving crime on the TV ...

Flapper Girl Hats by Lyndell

The French call the 20s - les années folles.

Interestingly, from the hats I've seen so far - several of us are going for 

strong - swirling - contrasting lines 

Black & White Swirl by Carole Maher

Orange & Black Swirl by Lyndell

Swirling Beret by Jene Walker

The venue - Yuga café - combines great food, with a relaxed exhibition space and beautiful floristry.  On the 18th you can enjoy a delightful long Sunday brunch while contemplating magnificent millinery - and (if my nerves don't get the better of me) there will be live piano music a-tinkling in the back-ground ... 

The Milliners will be there to help you select a fashionable hat that flatters you.  Something perfect for the Autumn Races or to complete an ensemble or – just because hats are irresistible!

Well getting everything prepared for the exhibition it quite tiring - I think it is time for a nice cuppa' tea ...

Sweet Tea Cup Hat by Amalia Pearl

Hats in The Muse

Well work & life definitely got in the way of the Certificate IV Millinery course especially towards the end of the year and -Big Sigh - I've basically flunked out. Am trying to look at it as a Lesson that - You Can Make Too Many Compromises!

However, I do have 2 hats in the end-of-year exhibition - and they are hats that I'm proud of. The wire-work covered in red chunky knitting I've blogged about before and here it is with my be-Petalled Silk & Straw hat.

The Exhibition is at The Muse at Ultimo TAFE college - lots of lovely hats and some hand-made shoes too.

Goodness Gracious - My hat was on ETSY's Front Page

My "Flapper Girl Cloche" hat was on Etsy's Front Page - this is a copy, my hat is in the middle of the lowest row.



A complete surprise - I didn't even get a notification that it was in the treasury!

A Plaid Pudding and Petal Power

Work commitments have meant that I've missed even more of the Cert 4 Millinery Class but I'm back to it again and trying to do a bit of catch up - the current exercise is on "Fabric Covered Foundations". That's millinery talk for the most time consuming hats! The 1st one had to be a pill-box and I've made this plump pudding of a hat to match one of my favourite suits -




The suit is in the same plaid fabric and is from a vintage pattern - very early 60s and very Jackie Kennedy! I love the colours and crazy one-way check but the fabric is acrylic which made things difficult - a wool fabric would've been much easier!





The 2nd hat has to have a straw brim, a fabric covered crown and fabric trims - and I must have a bad dose of Spring Fever because can't think of anything I'd rather make than a hat with petals all over.

Being crazy I'm making the petals myself - and I don't really know how to make silk flowers but I had great fun.

Because the traditional stiffeners are nasty petrochemicals I stiffened the silk fabrics with PVA glue which made the fabric quite paper-like - the white organza petals are painted. Then I 'tooled' and shaped them using the traditional brass silk-flower making tools.

The Little piece of Knitting with Everything

In the space of 14sts this knitting has
Cables, Eyelets, Bobbles (lots of bobbles) and Short Rowing

It is also made from lovely cherry red hand-spun yarn, me-spun :-) nice and chunky.




Ok you say, Enough already.
What is it ?

Is it a strange scarf? no
Is it a collar for a coat? no
Is it the tail of a toy dragon? no


it is the brim of a hat ... and here is the crown - in place on the wire frame.

Miraculously I did manage to get both those wire-frame hats finished in time for marking AND they are both on display at Ultimo TAFE (as part of Fashion Week).

Here is a decent photo of the black one






and a close-up of the trimmings ...
Bought the paper butterflies in Paris :-) - the lace is actually 2 antique hankies one is Maltese lace, the other is Bedfordshire.

Head Cage? and other millinery

I've been busy trying to catch up with all my home-work - I've missed 5wks of millinery class !

Have just finished making this Head Cage -
Well, that is the beginning of a wire frame hat, tedious work that breaks fingernails - but now the REALLY tedious work begins because I have to wrap all those wires with tulle - then cover the hat with frothy fabric and stuff. Should be fabulous when it is finished - a modern version of the big "Titanic" hat - from the 19teens.

Have to make 2 wire frame hats for this exercise, No: 2 will be very similar - not as wide in the brim and I'm going to cover it in knitting :-)


The other millinery exercises have not been very happy - still haven't even started one [Oops!] and mixed results for the other.

I posted about my plans for glamourous 1930s style hats ... hmmm Marlene Dietrich would not wear this -
and the pattern-making took me ages. Very Big Sighs!

There are 10 pattern pieces - asymmetrical crown, asym brim, that godet with the pleats ... I had head spins! had to work with seam allowances - so confusing for someone so completely mathematically challenged as myself!! (in costume-making you usually do patterns without seam allowance and I'm really out of practice) .

Well, the pattern isn't too bad really - but I made this prototype using far too soft an interfacing in the brim - it really is floppy. One day I'll make another with stronger stiffening and I think it just might be an OK hat. The contrast pleats over the eye are quite glam.


The other part of that pattern-making exercise only had to be made as a toile. I didn't think I'd like this hat - based on a photo of a real hat from the early 1930s - but it turned out better than I expected. (this is only a calico toile, it'll look better in a nice wool fabric ...)
The top is reather silly and over -complex (trying to comply with course requirements) there is an inverted pleat down the middle and ... ears - yes the 1930s had had the ears too .... really, truely it did

But I'm really pleased with the brim - it has a nice turn up and disappears into a bow at the back. Quite neat!

Think I'll be making this one again - as a cloche with a less complex tip - though the ears are rather cute in a way - perhaps I'll make one for Easter! :-)

Busy with Hats

I've been forced to admit that yes, I do have too many hats. So, to make room for the new hats that I'll be making this year in the Millinery class I'm selling some - mostly in the Etsy shop though the cheaper ones will also be listed on ArtFire.

But having great photos is very important when you are selling on-line and hats don't seem to sell unless they are shown on a head, with hair etc. This was a problem until I realised that although her eyes have fallen in (and now rattle about in her elongated neck) Linda the half-a-mannequin would make a great hat model. I'm not sure where our daughter found Linda but she has had a few adventures while she has been with us including several strange hair-dos and some interesting make-up. Well we've scrubbed her up, repainted her make-up and today I bought her some new hair (the previous wig had faded and was almost green). It is only a cheap joke-shop wig and a bit shiny but it is long, wavy and a nice red/brown.

Here she is modelling a green felt that I made some years ago. I love this one but I never did get around to sewing an outfit to go with it. Strange but perhaps because most hats shadow the face and Linda has extremely long, camel-like eyelashes you really can't see that she has no eyes! I thought she'd have to wear sunglasses.


Well, it worked ... one of the hats (a pink free-form fabric hat) sold within minutes of being listed - Yea! - it's going to a lady in Canada :-)