Tomorrow I’m off to the region of Normandy (North-Western France), Lower Normandy to be more precise, a rural area known for it’s dairy produce, apples and horses. I thought it’d be interesting to show some pictures of traditional norman headwear. Of course, such headwear was only worn for special occasions, simple bonnets were worn for day [...]

Yay!! I received my diploma this weekend! It’s officialy official, I’m a qualified hat maker/milliner!! No more studies, just sew, sew, sew! Youpi!! J’ai reçu mon diplôme ce weekend! C’est officilement officiel, je suis une modiste chapellière qualifiée!! Plus d’études, que de la couture encore et encore!

  I just got some really cool mirror tiles from a really kind seller of Etsy who specialzes in quality stained glass and supplies. Here’s her shop, http://carriezsupply.etsy.com . I’m going to use the tiles to make a sort of mirrorball helmet (that’s the prototype of the helmet base there at the top), I’m really looking forward [...]

Just thought I’d post this picture of a friend wearing my ‘Valentine’ hat. Snazzy! You can see a clearer photo in the ‘Gallery’ section. Je voulais juste poster cette photo d’une amie qui porte mon chapeau ‘Velentine’. La classe! Vous pouvez voir une image plus nette du chapeau dans la section ‘Gallery’.

  I recently ordered for the first time from Parkin Fabric’s, a english company who sell millinery and hat making supplies. I was really pleased with their service. Their website is very clear (compared to other millinery supply sites that I have taken a look at) and the staff  are very helpful (I had a couple of [...]

  Here’s a really great hat book , ‘L’Encyclopédie du Couvre-Chef’ (The Headwear Encyclopedia) which was published a year ago. It has nearly 4000 entries that go from ‘Aamra’ (an arabic word for hat) to ‘Zylindertracht’ (an austrian top hat for women) and in between you have every other hat-related word that exists!! Aswell as [...]

I don’t have much space in my flat for all my sewing things so yesterday I picked up some more shelving (from Ikea) and put it all together today. It’s so practical to have everything in one space. It’s pretty much sorted out, boxes for felts, boxes for straw… The boxes of fabric are a bit [...]

Here are some pics of a headpiece I recently finished.  To begin with I was going for a jungle theme and the headpiece was much larger but I ended up using blue and white fabric and things just turned out differently!  I’ve used silver, gold and ‘pearl’ plastic beads to brighten up the whole thing, [...]

Just had a quick look through the latest issue of  ‘Chapmod’. ‘Chapmod’ is a small magazine (a bit bigger than half an A4 and roughly 40 pages) done by the (french) National Trade Union for Hat, Flower, Feather Manufacturers and Suppliers. They’ve recently started to try and spruce it up a bit but this magazine [...]

This week I’ve been making a bunch of cycling caps for a polo bike team (http://saucylobstarz.wordpress.com). What do you think of them? Cette semaine, j’étais occupée à fabriquer quelques casquettes de cyclisme pour une équipe de polo (http://saucylobstarz.wordpress.com). Vous en pensez quoi?