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Category: Millinery

Hat Tricks: the Fastest Pillbox Base in the West!

File this under “Reasons missa is going to milliner’s hell” for 100, Alex.” This is the WRONG WAY to recover a hat. DO NOT DO THIS. It’s bad bad bad Wrongy McWrong. It’s really bloody fast. But it is wrong, and will probably get you mocked by anyone who knows what they are doing. You have been warned…  ;)

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How to Reblock a Felt Hat

It’s a sad commentary about my life that I am sitting here in mid-December still trying to finish writing all the demos I did photo work for during 1776 last spring. Life’s been a little crazy lately. Great/fantastic/amazing (grantasticazing?), but crazy. Anyhoo… One of life’s great mysteries seems to be “How do you alter a hat?” I’ve talked about straws, which are basically a “just add water” operation. Reblocking felts is slightly more dangerous exciting, because you get to play with steam. Ready?

9 Comments

How to Make a Hair Wreath from Living Flowers

So there’s always that scene in midieval movies where the heroine is seen romping around a field with a wreath of real live flowers on her head, and maybe there’s someone shown doing some totally random bit of jiggery-pokery  that effortlessly causes flowers to form into a neat little chain. These scenes annoy me. I’ve tried everything I can think of to make flowers turn into neato little wreaths and chains — braiding, twisting, weird-pokey-stem-through-stem things, everything. And it never works. So I end up buying a dried flower wreath at faire. Well, no more…

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The “Jiffy Pop” Hat

Hats - 168
Hats - 169

This is one of my favorite Elizabethan era hats. It has style and panache, and it’s often completely over-the-top in stature. You can pull the wired brim into a lovely arc, which has always seemed to me to be the Millinery equivelent of a raised eyebrow. It’s a smart hat, extremely suited to the prosperous merchants and casual nobles. Women should be careful to make this hat a bit small, so it sits on the hair rather than the head and allows the caul to be seen.

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The Floppy Pleated Cap

Hats - 139
Hats - 140

The Floppy Pleated Hat, which I’ve heard called a ‘Muffin Cap’ is a hat comprised of a Soft Brim and a Pleated Crown. When made from a softer fabric, this hat has a very unstructured look apprpriate to lower class characters. From stiffer fabric, as above, it’s a rather charming style formiddle class characters trying to make their fortunes.

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The Floppy Toque

Hats - 141
Hats - 142

"Floppy Toque" is not the correct name for this hat. I don’t know what is. It’s a slightly untidy look that’s great for characters who are a little down on their luck, generally dishevelled, countrified, or who generally wish to convey that "aiming for fashion but missing" appeal. The following instructions assume that you have already made your Basic Brim Patterns. If you have not, you’ll want to follow the link and do so.

The Toque was a popular style in Spain and Italy. (Hence, “Spanish Toque” and “Italien Bonnet”.)

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