Hi there everyone,

Although this is not hat related I thought you might enjoy it. I made a beautiful (if I may say so myself) shawl as a christmas gift for my sister in law, and I posted a tutorial on the Burda Style website. Today it has hit 1000 views and because of that I’ve decided it deserves to be on my blog!

It is made using gorgeous kimono silk, and I suspect it looks particularly nice because my sister in law Helena is a pretty good model!

Enjoy!

Fall is here already, but better late than never, here are the details of the hat I made for my friend Eulalia.

I tried to make a hat that is very wearable, but I suspect that Eulalia thinks it still quite dressy!

You saw on my previous post the blocked crown and how I stay stitched around the headsize. After doing that all I did was cut just below the stitched line, separating crown and brim.  Here’s the picture:

Here are some pictures of the blocking of the brim.

When starting to block it might seem that there is too much material. Do not worry, that material is on the bias and it’s easy to “shrink in”.

Also important is to keep in mind that when a brim folds upwards (like with a breton style hat) the good side of the straw must be on the underside of the hat (so that the part that folds upwards looks beautiful).

As you can see I used a wax crayon to mark the edge of the brim where I would have to cut.

I decided to use “brim lock” (nylon wire) to help keep the brim in shape. I taped it first to the wood block to get the right length (the brim hat stretched a little when unblocking and getting the length from the block means that I will be able to bring it back to it’s original shape).

I used a joiner, and with an exacto knife cut the tip into a fine point to be able to enter the ends of the nylon into the joiner. As you can see the ends get squashed when cutting the nylon with scissors. Afterwards I taped the nylon to the edge of the brim and used a zigzag stitch to fix it in place.

Yes, you can do that by hand, but the result is very good done by machine and it will be covered with a bias biding.

Here is the bias binding process. I do have a bias binder maker, but it’s very easy to make them with a long pin on the ironing board as you can see. I machine stitched the binding to the outer edge and them flipped the binding inside and stitched by hand the inside part making sure that no stitches are visible on either side (the stitches on the outside come out just below the binding, invisibly).

The last steps were the grosgrain headsize ribbon (previously curled), hand stitched but because the stitches will not be visible on the outside (covered by the crown) it was ok to do long visible stitches on the outside.

Nothing more left to do but to hand sew the crown to the brin, and add the trimming. I hope you enjoyed it!!

I’m making a summer straw hat for my dear friend Eulalia, I’m sure she will use it often (we have no lack of sunny days here in Barcelona).

I am using a brim block that does not have a hole in the middle and because of that I’ve had to first block the crown, and then cut the straw material separating crown from brim in order to block the brim separately.

Having to cut through a straw capeline is a scary thought and it’s important to think it through before getting the scissors. I’ve finally decided to run a row of stitches all around the crown before cutting it in order to avoid the straw from fraying, and also to have a good guide for cutting.

The tricky thing here is to have an even depth all around the crown and that is why I Macgyvered a way to do it. After deciding the desired depth I taped a ruler to the front of the free arm so that when the tip of the crown was in contact with the ruler the needle fell exactly at the point where I wanted my stitches to be. As I was sewing around I kept the flat tip of my crown in contact with the ruler thus keeping the stitching at a constant crown depth.

I will let you know how the hat progresses!

These beautiful pictures were taken 1 month and 11 days before my dad died of cancer, today it’s 19 years since he died.

Don’t we just look wonderful in our hats?

Dad we miss you terribly…

Our thoughts are also with Ewald Kooiman, who would have celebrated his birthday two days from today, but who is no longer with us and is also very much missed.

My brother’s homage to our father following this link.

And my mother’s homage to her beloved husband following this link.

Estas preciosas fotos se tomaron 1 mes y 11 días antes de que mi padre muriera de cancer, hoy hace 19 años que murió.

¿Verdad que estamos fantásticos con nuestros sombreros?

Papá, te echo de menos una enormidad.

Nuestro pensamiento también está con Ewald Kooiman, que habría celebrado su 72 cumpleaños dentro de dos días, pero que tristemente ya no está con nosotros y a quien también echamos mucho de menos.

Puedes ver el homenaje que hace mi hermano a mi padre siguiendo este enlace.

Y el homenaje de mi madre a su querido marido en este enlace.

I had a bunch of handsome gentlemen in need of a spring hat for the last Passejada amb barret, and decided to start from scratch and design and sew a stylish hat for them.

Do you remember that a while ago I sculpted a hat with plasticine and extracted a flat pattern from it? If you don’t remember or want to see it again, follow this link.

Well, for my gentleman’s hat I decided to follow the same process. I used a round block as a base in order to save on plasticine (aka Play Doh), and as you can see it starts quite messy and seems hopeless, but little by little it takes shape. I like to smooth it out really well when it’s almost finished. Once the shape is ready I cover it with cling film and ideally I use masking (painters) tape to cover the whole shape, carefully following all the curves. When I made this pattern I was out of masking tape (and it was Sunday, so no hope of finding any) so I used packing tape which is messy and does not adapt as well to the shape, but in the end it did the trick.

Then I drew lines with a felt pen where the cuts (seams) were going to be. I think this is the trickiest part of the whole process, trying to visualise where the seams should be, but it’s a process that can be repeated as many times as necessary, covering the form again if we need to, and marking different seam lines. Once happy with the tape pattern it’s time to transfer it to pattern paper and true it up with a french curve.

I believe I got really lucky because I love the resulting pattern (the crown is made from one piece of fabric), but I should point out that the finished hat is not exactly as the plasticine version… if you check it out carefully you wil see that I marked the seam to be on the top edge of the sideband, but on the finished hat the top edge is a fold and the seam sinks down. When I had the prototype sewn I saw that it had to sink down, there was no other way.

If you check all the pictures I’ve taken of the sewing process you will see that I cut the iron-on interfacing without seam allowance, then iron it to the external fabric, and then cut the fabric with the allowance. That minimizes the bulk, and serves as a guide when sewing… I’m not really sure if it’s a good idea of just a crazy one but it worked for me…

In any case, the pattern still needs some perfecting. The last version is the one being worn by Paco Peralta (my couturier friend, the one on the far left picture), and you can see how the brim curves better than on the other ones (Peter and Joaquín).

THERE IS MORE…

(more…)

I was approached recently by Castelltort to give a few classes on how to make a fascinator. Castelltort is a  Spanish wholesaler that has just recently started carrying material to make fascinators (sinamay bases, sinamay by the meter, some feathers, veil and horsehair). The classes are aimed at customers (owners of shops) who want to get an idea of what can be done with the material being sold, and who are interested in selling it in their shops.

Today I gave the first class, 3 hour long , in which the ladies attending learnt to make a fascinator. They were supplied with a kit bag containing instructions, templates and the material needed to make the fascinator that I designed for the occasion. This is the table just before the class stared:

Here’s a picture of the ladies that have attended the course with their fascinators on (I’m there in the center):

It has been a very interesting experience and I’m really happy with the results, and really lucky I met such wonderful ladies!

Last Sunday, April 11 2010, we celebrated the VI Passejada amb barret (Hat stroll) in Barcelona, and that was an excuse for a couple of friends to stop by, try on some hats and decide which one they wanted to wear for the event (about which I will blog shortly).

Above you can see the lovely Helena (a wonderful storyteller, checkout the blog that she writes along with my brother José Manuel: http://escuchandoconlosojos.blogspot.com/), she’s in front of the harpsichord which is serving temporarily as an exhibition area for my hats (I knew it would come in handy one day… naaah!! just kidding!!! Sorry Peter!!).

My friend Eulalia also visited me to try on hats and they both had a great time, and had to try every single hat (some of them more than once!).

It was a pleasure for me to see others taking pleasure in my hats. Thank you Helena! Thank you Eulalia!

Truth be told, the only traveling I’ve done with this wonderful vintage Samsonite Streamlite hatbox is the trip a couple of years ago from Cologne (Germany, where I bought it at an antique fair for a hefty 50 euros) to Barcelona where I live. But it’s such a beauty that I could not resist buying it, specially considering its mint condition -key included- (after buying this one I saw others cheaper, but they where all dirty or damaged). These come up frequently on eBay (US) and can be bought at a reasonable price.

The vintage style Loewe umbrella on the other hand was a gift, a couple of years ago, from my wonderful mom. The umbrella has a green leather handle and luscius fabric that is green on the inside and shocking pink on the outside, with the lettering LOEWE making a repeated circle pattern. I believe these umbrellas are still available, although from looking at their website I think the handles are now all brown, which is a pity.

Funny enough, after having bought the hat box I happened quite by chance upon the corresponding patents, one for the manufacturing process and one for the design.  The patent allows us to date the design to 1955 (that’s when the patents were filed, although they were granted in 1958). I’ve also found an old ad for the hatbox, dated 1955, already with the famouse catch phrase “… it’s strong enough to stand on!”.

If you check out the patents you might be surprised (as I was) that they are not under the name of Samsonite but Shwayder Bros. Jesse Shwayder founded the company in 1910 and Samsonite was a trademark (that was first used in 1941). The name of the company was not changed to Samsonite until 1966.

All pictures can be seen in more detail on Flickr if you follow this link.

My most grateful customers, here you can see Emilia and Philip wearing their new hats:

And here is the cloche of Emilia while on the block. It’s a 5 piece puzzle block, and all went dandy, including unblocking (a miracle how when you pull out the middle piece the whole thing collapses and you can take out one piece at a time) until I folded the bottom edge in, and it buckled!!  there was too much felt!! It was supposed to fold in nicely but it didn’t and I had a hart time shrinking the felt so that it stayed flat… I’m thinking of modifying the block shaving off the extra wood, so that the next time it will work properly.

I recently bought on Ebay the wonderful book “Manuel de Modes Sunlight”. It’ was published by Sunlight (the soap brand) , and it contains individually bound chapters and a hard cover held together by a ribbon. I suspect that coupons came with the soap allowing interested ladies to put the book together.

I was not really sure what I was buying, but the auction images showed illustrations of hats, so I went for it. When I received it I was delighted because it turned out to be 80% about millinery and it’s packed with wonderful illustrations and instructions. What is funny is that it was advertised as being from the 40’s, when it’s so clearly from the 20’s… I guess some people are “period blind”. I find it very interesting that the author puts a lot on emphasis on technique, pointing out that fashions come and go and what is fashionable today might be completely out of fashion tomorrow.

On the first chapter there is a very simple project, a brimmed turban, intended to compensate the reader for enduring the hardships of the preceding pages (mostly a description of millinery stitches). The turban, according to its description, can be used as a driving cap, sports hat and rain hat, and can be worn by women of all ages, depending on the fabric and colours chosen.

This is a small format book, and has no full size patterns. In this case one is supposed to make the pattern oneself by following the detailed instructions (click on any of the images to see the scanned instructions -in french- and pictures of the process). I made the pattern almost to the letter, only adding a little curve to the inside of the brim so that it wouldn’t sit so close to the face. The author herself (I’m thinking it’s a woman, but who knows!) tells us that the brim could be made narrower, and I think it would look better narrower, and the version on the illustrations is indeed much narrower than the one from the pattern proposed.

For this project I have upcycled (a term I learnt from Jane) a viscose velvet jacket I was not using anymore. The velvet is quite thick and heavy (although it drapes nicely), and I suspect that with a lighter, stiffer fabric  the turban would look fluffier and better. To make things worse, at the time of cutting the fabric I realized I was a little short, so I have an extra seam at the back where I’ve had to add a little strip to get the right size. The ends are supposed to have a big tassel, but I didn’t get to that, although I believe it look  decadent and beautiful with them.

The author of the book recommends the following fabrics (I write the names of the fabrics in French as they are written on the book, because I don’t know most of these fabrics): “Crêpe de Chine” flexible and yet solid would be perfect, on an elegant note we can also make it in “soie paillette”, “charmeuse” or “pongée”. It would also look pretty in (…) “crêpe suisse”, “crêpe coton” or in “duvetine légère”. I believe the first four terms are silks of some kind, still available (except for the soie paillette, which I believe is silk with sparkly bits), and also the crêpe suisse seems to be unavailable these days by that name.

If you decide to give it a try, will you let me know and send me a picture?