Category: Millinery

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why should a hat always have a front and a back?  Why can´t it have two fronts?

This thought follows me for years.

This Little hat actually HAS two fronts.  I turn the hat with the change of my clothing and moods.

One front shows some flowers, I made from a damaged petersham ribbon and some vintage satin-ribbon.  The “other front” shows a beautiful and rare example of art nouveau-lace.

So don´t be afraid to leave the path of “convention” in milllinery. As long, as the hat does anything for you, it´s also good enough for your  environment and you shouldn´t care what they say.

And if you have flawed, vintage peterham ribbon, don´t throw it away. Just rip it off. It can still make good centers for some kinds of millinery-flowers.

 

Usually I´m very carefull with expensive and high-quality panama-hat bodies. But sometimes, everything goes wrong.

I wanted a yellow cartwheel with lace on the edge. But after finishing, the hat looked a bit “aside”.  I removed the lace, but had to life with the fact, that some clearly visible sewing-holes remained. I simply couldn´t wear the hat this way. So in the end it turned out to be a asymmetrical cloche. I stayed with black & yellow, but let alone the lace. Instead I took some vintage petersham ribbon, old velvet and a handmade vintage flower. Now everything is satisfying and I wear the hat a lot.

And after all, I made another cartwheel from the same material and color!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You think, only vintage hat bodies are balky? Chance would be a fine thing! In this case, I had a surprise with a new, high-quality and expensive velour-capeline. After dry-spell I noticed, something had gone wrong. There were those furtive folds again on the back of the brim.  That ment: Straining, damping, ironing…..At least for nothing. The folds laughed themselfes half to death about my efforts –  and remained.  But there is one thing, I can mention to my defense:  The capeline was uncommonly stiff  in some areas and not on the same gauge everywhere. Maybe that´s an explanation.

Well, I wear the hat anyway and the art nouveau-decoration is a good red herring. (So the eye of a beholder will not pause on the folds, but on the big colorful  ribbon-roses! And that´s the way it should be!)

So don´t worry, if something goes wrong with your own millinery projects. Things happen usually and perfection is a state, that can only be reached seldom (or never!)

 

Sometimes hat bodies are balky!  This time I worked with a never used vintage hat body from the 1960s in nightblue.  But in the dry spell it began to show, that the hat body  didn´t go on with the cloche hat block. I had to strain several times, laid weights on , damped and ironed under a cloth more than once and in the end, there where still some nasty folds on the back-brim, I couldn´t remove, no matter what I did.

I had this strange phenomena often seen on vintage, never used felt hat bodies.

Anyway, I made some pretty felt-feathers from the scraps and embellished the cloche with an antique bead-embroidery from Austria.  I think, thats a good compensation!

I saw a vintage helmet-hat like this in the web and  wanted one for myself, but had no time to work on  it than. Some weeks later a similar hat appeared in a scene from an early  Hitchcock-movie (Murder!) I saw.  This time I had no choice but to make my own Version. I took a modern feltbody, some vintage petersham ribbon, cut it up and began to stitch. It doesn´t really suit my “assistent” Helen, but it suits ME. And that´s enough.

Guess, which series fan I am…..Isn´t there a little bit of “Phryne” in every woman? 

Last year I got a heap of vintage millinery items, including two strands of white cellophane-braid.  Braided cellophane was popular for hats between the 1920s-50s. Today it´s nearly impossible to find.

Unfortunately the material is delicate and  don´t get along with sunlight or dampness.  Accordingly to this, both strands where in a poor condition, parts of them half rotten. However, I tried to make a hat in a 1920s style, to practice the handling of difficult material. I had to damp it, keep it wet in a cloth and sew it carefull with needle and thread over a hat block, without ripping the braid or dissolve it. After that I stiffed it with starch and millinery wire at the edge.

To my own astonishment it worked! The hat may be a little eccentric and every touch makes a crackling sound like  withered leaves (no wonder, cellophane is made of cellulose), but it is wearable at all!

No, you can´t always succeed in millinery. I made this hat two years ago and wanted a abundant flower-decoration. I worked for days on the embellishment and used some of my precious vintage ribbons and a veil from a 1949´s never used (but partial sun-bleached)stock.

After finishing, I really didn´t like it.

Some month ago, I decided to end the tragedy, because the hat is acctually really pretty and I love the midnight-blue color and velvet trim on the border.

So I removed parts of the decoration and made a new start. This time I created an Art Déco  glasbead-decoration from a picture, I found on the web.

After finishing,  I really didn´t like it again.

Seams, the poor hat have to wait another two years, until I embellish it for the third time….If I have the right idea than…..

So, if you have your little defeats, may it be millinery or whatsoever….don´t worry. Just try again. And again, and again…..One day you will succeed!

Usually I avoid the use of feathers for my millinery. I don´t like the thought of birds beeing killed for my personal vanity. Let alone the captive breeding of birds under poor conditions. But sometimes the feathers come as a gift or are part of a lot with some other items for millinery. In that case I use them, but not with quiet conscience. Years ago, I got an  antique feather embellishment from an old Lady. Actually it was a bellow with the skin of the bird still on it. I don´t think, I will ever use the thing. It is one of the examples for the killing of millions of exotic birds around 1900- Just for Millinery!

But there are alternativ solutions! Make your own feathers out of yarn, paper, woolfelt or collect feathers, the birds have lost during molt. Some hobby-breeders in the web sell those molt-feathers from their own birds.

For this hat I used a molt- feather from a whooping crane.

So if you decide to collect molt-feathers in your environment, fine…do it! But don´t forget to damp your loot under a cloth with a hot iron for sanitation!

You don´t need some professional tools to change the style of a hat. This was a 1960s widebrim-hat with a front damage. It suited me, so all I had to do was to change the hatband, cut out the damaged part and secure it with some ribbon, hand sewn around the now open space. A decoratíon made of  art déco brass stampings,  vintage ribbons and leaves, made of self-dyed gaze and framed over millinery wire.

So if you possess a hat, that is damaged or you don´t really like and also don´t want to donate, change it so something better. Use whatever you can find: Fabric, ribbon, leather, metal, chaines, flowers, veils……

You lack ideas?

There a some books that will help you. For example “Hat Tricks” by Terence Terry.

Everything is better than dump things!