Hats Off

I love hats! A new friend, Stella Pesci, who just so happens to be the mother of Edera Jewelry's (http://www.edera-faerie.blogspot.com)lovely Ivy, just got me thinking about hats again. She is a very fine milliner whom I think is definitely worth checking out: (http://www.stellapesci.etsy.com)

Check out this fun hat she has for sale on her Etsy site:






You might not know that I used to make and sell hats in Seattle for a short time in the early 90s. I had a tiny little business called "Over My Head" and it truly was. I think I had one of the best, if not THE best teachers out there, Wayne Wichern (http://www.waynewichernmillinery.com)

Here is one of his hats from his website. As you can see, he is truly a master.



Back in the early 90s, when I was making hats, Wayne was living in Seattle, and I used to hang out at his Ballard home/studio on Tuesdays for several hours with another friend, Sandy, to practice millinery techniques and just dink around making hats. One December Wayne helped me make a crazy green charmeuse Christmas tree hat. I had seen something like it on the cover of an old Vogue or Bazaar magazine, and just had to have one. It was a giant cone shape draped with the green charmeuse, had black netting hanging low in the front and red Christmas balls attached in various spots. It was quite a hoot. I wore it Christmas Day to the home of some rather conservative types and they were a bit overwhelmed, I think :) I wish I still had it, or at the least a picture of it.

The picture in my profile, was taken back then (I guess that makes me nearly 20 years older now -- egads, time passes quickly when you are having fun!) by that same friend, Sandy. We had a blast taking all the hats we had made and photographing ourselves in Lincoln Park in West Seattle. She made Renaissance hats of all sorts: Big jester hats, hats for a fine lady or queen, that sort of thing. I was more the modern fashion hat type. The photo in the profile picture is one of the hats I made with Wayne's help. I really didn't have many places to wear it, and it didn't stay on real well anyway, but I have always thought this picture was really fun. I think I finally gave the hat away to a friend's child for her dress-up box.




The only hats I have made recently have been doll hats, and a couple silly hats inspired by a fun friend who is silly and willing enough to wear the one I gave her. That would be Carol Ann Jones of Carol Ann Jones and the Superchargers (http://www.myspace.com/carolajones). She is an awesome singer/songwriter here in Vermont, and if you are ever out this way, definitely catch one of her shows. I don't have a picture of her in the hat I made, but here she is in one of her own:



Something about a well worn hat just makes me smile! Hats off to all you creative people. Keep on cranking it out!