They Came, and didn't eat the candy: Vogue 8175*

Second time around, I had four students vs. the 9 who crowded into the Vogue Fabrics Classroom on Sunday, Feb. 15. For what lacked in human mass, we made up for in sheer number of hats, Alice, sister of Laura Proudfoot, bought a whole hatbox full of vintage chapeaux. She pulled out so many hats, I thought for sure she was a magician. How many could she possibly fit into this round cardboard the size of a floor cushion? At least five, include the saucy straw number above with its bright chartreuse vine leaves. This particular picture hat, which looks like it's from the 1940s, would be most suitable for Easter, I think. Alice also had some hats from the 1950s, and another one she made using Vogue 7476, view C, which she says, was reaaaally hard to make with lots of hand-stitching. I have a picture wearing it, but it's not very good so I skipped uploading it. Most of her finds were for a few bucks at garage sales. She'd pick up and hear, "You like that? I got more at home. They were my aunt's." Now, how often does that happen? I am not going to the right garage sales clearly.

Jenny L. Gerst had a straw hat from the 1960s or 70s (we're not sure which). She had all these ace millinery supplies, the likes of which we've never seen at Vogue Fabrics. To wit: this supremely thick millinery wire that would easily survive a gust of Chicago wind. They shoudld build locally-made umbrellas with this stuff. Plush 100 percent wool felt not seen in these parts of Illinois. Other doo-dads I know nothing about, most of which she's purchased at Judith M Millinery, a two-hour drive from the Windy City. (Incidentally, Judith M bought out Manny's Millinery after it closed.) Turns out, Jenny and I know lots of fellow milliners. Eia. Laura Hubka. Laura Whitlock.

While Jenny and Alice worked on Vogue 8175, Laura and Barbara labored over the Flirty Fedora. This was an interesting project, since the pattern was drafted for fabric with a grain. Felt doesn't have a grain which makes it so great for a beginner. Plop down. Cut. No worries about the felt going that way when it needs to go this way. Also, felt doesn't need to be lined, so Barbara and Laura skipped that part of the instructions. Laura finished her hat by the end of class. She only needs to insert her petersham ribbon inside the hat, right at the part where head meets the rought texture of the hat.

This is the last of the hat classes for Vogue 8175. But don't cry into your Pale Ale or Guinness. I'm going to teach another hat class using Vogue 8405 in March. I figure results from this workshop can either become Easter bonnets, summer hats or just something to wear during these amusing times to Costco...I hope my students eventually email pictures of themselves wearing their work. Either that I'll come after them with my terrible digital camera. That should scare them in snapping something far more flattering than my uploaded pixels. Sometimes, you just need to instill the fear of God (or my photography) to get humans to do things your way.

The Great Hat Society, The Thursday edition

From the Sartorialist, great hat, warm and graphic scarf, a knit beret pattern (new!) at Blue Sky Alpacas, a skinny striped one for kids (a freebie) also at Blue Sky, three spots are left in the last of my 1930s hat-making class at Vogue Fabrics in Evanston this Sunday. Oh yeah - Chicago milliner Eia was featured in the latest issue of WWD (with Madonna on the cover). That's Thursday's list of hats, posted today Friday!

Considering the Flirty Fedora in Wool Felt

There are days when I tell people I'm a hat-maker just to be silly. There are even months even I pretend I'm a milliner with hats so beautiful that they are snatched out of the window display within minutes of their debut. There are even years when I contemplate filling out the occupation section on my income tax forms with that word: hat designer. Some decades (I've been living a while, it just doesn't readily show) I even dream of pitching it all (the residence, the family and the clothes) and just moving somewhere like Australia or England where hats are a Way of Life, not just something amusing like they are here.

Which is a sort of a long way of saying that I think that I've arrived, at least in the town of my birth (Evanston, Ill.). My first hat-making class on February 1 is nearly full. To date, no one is interested in learning how to make a poodle skirt, a tie or even an apron. But a hat? Bring it on, shut down the business office and get me signed up! I've got seven milliners-in-the-making on the list for the first workshop, another two signed up for the one on the 22nd.

Now the hat I really wanted to work on was Vogue 8175, but wouldn't you know not only is now out-of-print, it's unavailable on the Vogue Patterns web site. Views E and F - which have that 1930s tyrolean theme going - are extraordinarily easy to make. However, if it's not available to the masses, I can't use it to instruct my students. To my great (about the size of the Grand Canyon) disappointment I cannot use Vogue 8175 - although if any of my students finds it, he/she is more than welcome to use it.

So...I have to use another pattern. I'm reluctantly selecting the Flirty Fedora. My biggest reservation is that it doesn't call for wool felt, the fabric of choice for Vogue 8175. But I'm going to use the high-quality wool fiber (which differs significantly from craft felt, friends) for the fedora. It will be an experiment of the Tim Gunn "Make It Work" school of thought, but I'm really confident wool felt will be more than up to the task.

Since the wool felt is so firm, I don't think I need to do all that stitching on the brim. I don't consider the top stitching on the crown essential either. Now the profile of the fedora vs. Vogue's rendition looks a little more 1960s Twiggy or Babe Paley ready to hit the social circuits and less Katharine Hepburn or Ginger Rogers headed to the local dance club for a little jitterbug, but that's ok. But I'm cool with that alternative silhouette if my students are.

Now I might purchase the Flirty Fedora to try it on for size (where did that expression come from anyhow?), and so I can converse knowledgeably with my workshop participants. I can also have a completed project for show-and-tell, which helps all those who are visual learners. Ideally, I should have both the Vogue 8175 (it sounds like I'm talking about a product, and not some unique work of art) and the Flirty Fedora, so the two will be on hand on the first of the month. What would be nifty is if I made both hats in the same fabric, and embellished each differently. But who needs two hats in the same color, fabric? Not me. Boring!

Anyhow, part of me is hankering to make a hat in bright raincoat-yellow, something that would be a huge jolt of color in our bleak Chicago landscape. I could see that with a small brown feather, worn with a smart black and white houndstooth jacket. Shoulder pads mandatory! (That's me, although you might disagree fervently.) Vogue Fabrics only has the wool felt in black and white in the Evanston store. Rogie Sussman tells me there will be some hat-worthy felt online. For something really unique, I'd try felting - buy an ounce or two of the roving that's near the sewing machine department. Cut the hat parts, felt, sew to make a conversation piece that will start on the street and end with you getting a free drink somewhere! What do you think?

Saturday's Hat*

Here's my version of Dizzy, which doesn't make my head spin despite the name. My rendition, however, is a bit scratchy. Warm, but itchy. I may have to layer it with another hat to make it useful and not just a dust-catcher in my household. Overall, I'm pleased. The hat fits. It's made from yarn from my stash. I did it all by myself, with virtually no help. I only had to buy one set of DPNs to complete it. Truly thrifty. Next up, is some sewing at Vogue Fabrics this afternoon and knitting a pair of toe warmers using an ounce of vintage Fleisher's EverMatch in a bluish green yarn. I've already butchered the heel once already! It's a great feeling to knit something with a bump that's actually supposed to be there.
*The scarf? It's actually a bolero jacket I sewed.

Saturday's List of Hat Links*

While I'm working at an elephant's pace on my knitted hat, I haven't touched my sewing machine in over a month. I'm not certain how the Viking Husqvarna would react if I were to turn it on now. It might give me an electric shock for ignoring it for so long, eat my fabric for lunch or to show how hurt it really feels, just rebel completely and not work at all. Really I think about sewing, and I'm disinclined to do any real-time stitching until there's a day's worth of freezing rain or snow. So there. I also love to dream about hats, and here are some great links about all things chapeaux:

* Two hats from Interweave Knits, Winter 2008.
* One man's impressive collection of hand-knitted hats. He made them all.
* Information on La Fete de Catherinettes, coming up on November 25. Warning: the link is completely in French.
* The Rutland Trail cap from Anthropologie.

* The image above? Drawn from part of my collection of fall/winter 2004 collection of playing cards from Eugenia Kim.

Thursday's Quick Hat Hits

First off, I need to know whether you wore a hat to the polls on Tuesday. I did. Specifically, I wore this knitted topper. Yes, I did what I could to make the planet a little less serious that day (I frequently like to paraphrase Monty Python: "The problem with the world today, There aren't enough people wearing hats."). I'm not sure it worked. Well, ok, I heard fireworks later that evening after 10 p.m. Maybe it was belated recognition for my millinery? Anyhow, here are some quick hat hits if you're so inclined.
1. The hat above? It's Caityquilter's. Yes, those really are zipper roses. Now you know what to do with all those old metal-edged ones you find at garage sales. I've also seen them turned into clip-ons for shoes.
2. Have you wondered where to find high-quality flat wool felt? Here's a link. Now you can make those Vogue Pattern hats. I plan on ordering some soon (the Autumn gold looks beautiful).
3. So you're not inclined to sew, knit or spider spin a hat? Here's a whole blog post on what to buy: Refinery29's 15+ hats for fall.
4. I'm actually knitting another hat, no surprise I suspect given what I've made and uploaded to date. This one's called Dizzy, and I'm the ditsy making it. I will return to sewing in good time. I'm just waiting for some crummy cold weather. It's been like summer here the past few days, hardly appropriate for lowering the presser foot and getting down to business. That I'll do in good time.

Head in the Clouds: Aqueduct Hat is Complete

I've completed my latest hat after ripping it back because I discovered it was more worthy of a baby's head than an adult. That return trip was, honestly, worth it. I think this could be my best chapeau yet! The yarn is Classic Silk, left over from the High Society Hat. Naturally, I had to buy another skein just to finish this piece of art. I stuck to the pattern save for a purl/knit/purl part that I didn't like...so I just I filled in those three of four lines of stitching with regular stockinette. I used millinery wire from Vogue Fabrics; it was thinner than the 1950s variety that I had gotten used to (I had a supply from a woman's estate). I doubled it up per Annie Modesitt's instructions in her book Knitting Millinery. I tacked it in using sewing thread (I should really try to match it to the yarn because I can still odd bits peeking out where I secured the wire to the hat). The hat feels a bit more snug than my previous works of art. At least I can be certain that it won't fly away in the wind!