1 week with Rose

What a week I have had.

I spent last week soaking up knowledge from the millinery legend that is Rose Cory, and I am so hungry for more, I have signed up for another week in November. Yay!!

I am not going to bore you with too many details in this post, so I will just show you a couple of the things I worked on, and then do 2 different posts, showing the process from start to finish, and also how to make a silk velvet rose.

This week saw me learning how to block hats using a wooden hat block, sewing the blocked pieces together, wiring the edges of the hat, and then finally trimming the hat. I made a rose from silk velvet, and that was so interesting. We used a velvet board, which I had never seen before, to preserve the pile of the fabric. Rose said in the absence of a velvet board, a thick towel can be used. I will talk more about that in another post.

It is all I seem to do these days....

Hanging out with people that is.

I reluctantly dragged myself back to London from Belgium on Friday night,and then promptly hopped on the train again first thing Saturday morning to meet Mela at St.Pancras station. Destination? Leicester people. Ah Leicester, home to Marie and Kat, and random people who insert themselves in your pictures uninvited ( I have proof of that).

Mela and I went down to spend the day with Marie and Kat on Saturday, and what a fun day it was. The food was AMAZING!!!. I quickly set aside my dieting plans for the day. Can I at this point remind you that I am eating for two?  There is the possibility I might not be getting another invite soon from Marie, so I made sure I memorized the route to her abode. I know I shall visit that house again. Invited or not. The food was that good.

Millinery day 4: Sinamay flowers

Today marked the end of my four day millinery adventure. We made roses from sinamay, and used some straw to cover a headband. More rolling. My fingers will be glad its over I tell  you. I had so much fun though, and I hope I can get better at rolling. It produces such beautiful pieces if you get the rolling right.

So Today, I painted more sinamay leaves and squares for the roses.

Millinery day 3: working with sinamay

Another day another millinery adventure.

Today we worked with sinamay. I got to class 3o minutes late, so had to spend time catching up. Not good Dibs, not Good. I did not do so well today. We had to cut out sinamay shapes and dye them. Since I was late, I missed part of the instructions, and paid for that later. We were told to cut the shapes on the bias, which I did, but was not aware we had to stretch the bias strips before cutting out the shapes. When we finished rolling the sinamay shapes, mine had become so thin. The teacher said it was okay, but that I could cut bigger ones if I want, and that it all depends on what I want to make. I cut out bigger shapes afterwards, this time, stretching to sinamay to within an inch of its life. I will work on that one tomorrow.

White sinamay......

Flower Making Day 2: Seeing red

Today was the last day of the flower making class. Yesterday, we dyed fabric and carved lino blocks.
We went on to make the flowers today. The pictures should give you an idea of the steps involved in transforming the fabric to a flower.

I ironed some bondaweb unto some fabric and cut out petals and squares for each petal.

Next we embossed the petals, using the lino blocks we carved. When embossing the petals, you have to insert some paper covered wire into the grooves.

Flower making Day 1 and a surprise encounter

Today I started the first of my two millinery sessions at Kensington and Chelsea college. Monday and Tuesday will be spent flower making while Wednesday and Thursday will be used to explore the use of sinamay and straw in millinery. 

Our teacher is Bridget Bailey, a really talented and down to earth milliner. I really loved the way she taught us today. I went in thinking she would be very uppity, especially as she is well known, but I was pleasantly surprised by her teaching style. I've decided I like her....very much actually. You can see some of her work here. These are my favourite of her pieces

What I did today

What a day I've had.

My day started with me waking up at 7am, and going across town to spend 6hours with a legend in the millinery world. Those of you who have been bothering to read my ramblings will remember that last year I was going to take lessons with this living legend but unfortunately, I got knocked up, and due to complications could not attend. Many of you said I could always do it the following year. And I just did. Yay!!.

Today is the start of a number of classes I will be having with her. My next class will surely be sometime in August after my holidays, but no matter. Today was everything I hoped it would be and more.

I am dead tired, so without further ado, here are a few pics of my day.

And now for the head......

Thanks everyone for all the lovely comments about my last dress. I was so happy to know that you all loved my fabric choice.

This weekend I decided to make some fascinators. I had all the supplies at home, bought last year when I wanted to start millinery classes. As you all know, I was unable to attend the lessons because of pregnancy related complications.

The Gift that keeps Giving

Hi folks, how are you all? I trust you have recovered from the excesses of the festive season. I know we are still in the “season”, but surely now that the actual day has come and gone, I think it’s safe to say it’s all over right? This year Mr Dibs dragged me and Junior Messrs’ Dibs (born and unborn) up to his village. Mr Dibs grew up in a lovely little village called Heighington in the North East of England, and he always gets excited when we go up North. The weather in the North of England is usually worse than what we have down South, and it’s been known to snow up there long before we get snow in the South. This year however, there was no snow, which I thought was nice. I do not handle cold weather very well. Last year was really cold, and we had snow even in London and as a result, I spent Christmas week in bed, with a nasty flu. I was hoping for better tidings this year, as there was no snow on the horizon. Alas, I was still to suffer the same ailment as last year. I spent this Christmas week as well under the weather, and I am still trying to recover from the flu. It’s even worse this year because due to a certain bump, I am not allowed to take strong drugs to fight off the flu. I have been religiously drinking a mixture of hot water, lemon, honey, ginger and ground paracetamol. It actually helped, although my illness is dragging on for longer than it would have if I was actually allowed to take stronger medicines.

Millinery Course Interview : Part One

I am in a little tight spot.

It seems I started jubilating too early over something.

Remember a couple of months ago I stated that I was going to start a millinery course in september at Kesington College? Well it turns out I had spoken too soon. For I received an email stating I was to come for an interview, with samples of hats I have made, on the 8th of September. hmm!!!

Now, I have not made many hats, and the ones I have made might not get me unto the course. So I have to make more. I had planned on starting my autumn sewing as soon as I got back on saturday, but I´m afraid this will have to be pushed back until I am sure I have made about 3 or 4 hats. Oh boy!!

I don´t even know where to start. Does anyone know anyone who has done this course before, or something similar, and who had to present samples of their work?

For the hats, I am thinking since Autumn and Winter are around the corner, I could start with hats relevant to those seasons. So :

• Cloche
• Beret
• Newspaper Boy

 Cloche Hats

Can anyone remember Angelina Jolie in Changeling???

 Beret!!

Newspaper Boy!!

Curtesy of Stained Couture

I love cloche hats, so I think that is a good place to start. The Weekend Designer has a lovely tutorial to make this Banana Republic cloche hat.

I also have two millinery books which I think will help me with the beret and the newspaper boy cap.

Hats!! by Sarah Cant

Design and Make Fashion Hats by Karen Henriksen

These are a couple of Karen Henriksen´s hats which gives me an idea of the type of newspaper boy hat to make.

Curtesy of Chicago Sartorialist

and I just love this piece by Sarah Cant

So all in all, I have my work cut out I think. It does not help that next weekend I have to go to Germany (Dusseldorf actually) to see my step-mom who is visitng my cousin. My step-mom is visitng from Cameroon, and this is an opportunity for me to see her as I am not sure I will be going home this christmas.

I wonder what colours I could make the hats in. What do you recommend?

Have a nice day everyone.

Wine and Fascinators at Craft Central

A couple of months ago, I was able to convince my friend at work to accompany me to a craft event at Craft Central. On the menu, was fascinators. At the time of booking, and even now, Craft Central had Katherine Elizabeth down as the instructor, so I was really excited to go to this event, as I would have loved to meet a real life milliner. And a successful one at that. When we got there however, no signs of Katherine Elizabeth. In her place? 3 other instructors. Now I don't mean to be grumpy, but I bought the tickets for my friend and I because Katherine Elizabeth's name was on the flyer, and I expected to see her. Oh well, I suppose you get what you pay for. The tickets cost £19.99 so maybe it takes more dosh to get a star milliner.

Rant over, I had fun though. The girls who were teaching us were really nice, and had some really cool tricks, which I hope I can remember in future. I think I can feel another grumpy rant struggling to come out.

Okay, so, we were kind of thrown in the deep end. There was a short explanation of what you could do with feathers and felt, and then we were asked to make our own fascinators. Make!! Ok, if I did not have an idea about fascinators, I would have been lost. But then again, I suppose with only 2 hours, there's just so much you can fit in. I am happy they had this format though (despite my grumpiness), because it encouraged us to express ourselves through the hats. I kinda went crazy ...lol.....i think!!

I think I was more interested in the wine. My friend does not drink alcohol, so I was quite happy to help her with her wine. This is me trying to figure out what to do with my piece of felt, while drinking wine of course.

Trying to get a feel of the felt. Notice my feather?

On the way home. I felt absolutely fine on the walk to the station and during the train ride home. Stopping to ask people if they liked my hat, and if they thought it was something Lady Gaga would wear.

I think I have been watching too many Lady Gaga videos of late. I have no idea why I made this feather piece. I just liked the madness of having a purple feather jutting out from my hair.

My friend made this one, but she gave it to me because she said alice bands hurt her head. So I came home with three pieces. Cool right?

Purple and proud!!!

All in all, I had a really fun night. The wine had a large part to play in that though. One thing I will keep in mind for future attempts at hat making though, is to keep the wine well away. Wine and hat making don't go together in my case. The wine made me bold (?), and I imagined myself as a world famous couture milliner working against time for a collection for Lady Gaga's world tour.

I wonder if these two pieces I made are indicative of the kind of milliner  I would be. Not for me the shy and retiring cute little fascinator. Oh no!! I was more interested in the bold and wacky. Maybe not wacky....hopefully not wacky....lets settle on interesting shall we? I really like making hats, because you can let yourself go wild with ideas. Whether I will ever be able to make hats people want to wear is another matter, to be explored at a latter date. For now though, I shall contend myself with making and hopefully wearing things which I think are an expression of my personality.

The purple one, I don't know where I'll wear it to yet, but I know I will definitely wear it because I am proud of it ( even if it is admittedly abit wonky), and I have made up my mind to celebrate my makes by wearing them all the time. Me Made June has instilled in me a sense of pride and I will continue to wear everything I make (nice ones of course). So a big THANK YOU to Zoe for giving me the confidence to wear my stuff. I don't care if I get laughed at, as I am sure I will when I wear my purple construct, but I don't care. I made it, and I shall wear it ( with a glass of wine just before stepping out of course).

The red one shall be worn on saturday the 16th of July for my friend's wedding. I don't know what dress I will wear yet. But I was recently handed a Lulu Guinness Lips clutch:

 

So I have a red clutch and a red hat, I wonder what colour dress and shoes I could wear. Any suggestions?

I am going to Belgium today after work, so I might not get time to blog as often as I would like, but I will take loads of pictures to share, so you can see me looking like an excited muppet in fabric shops.

have a nice day.

Hat block issues

Ok, so I am officially overly excited about millinery now.

 I am still to take a single lesson, and I am already trying to find hat blocks. Hat blocks are the corner stone of traditional millinery, and any milliner worth his/her salt, would do well to invest in some of these. They can be made from wood, aluminium, plastic, fiber glass or styrofoam ( there are possibly more).

Now I am not pretending to be an expert on this subject, but from the books I've been reading ( and they are alot), it seems wooden hat blocks are the best. However, they also the most expensive of all hat blocks.  So for someone starting out, that will definitely be a major investment. One which I am not prepared to make at this juncture.

Having decided to make my own hatblock (crazy right?), I started scouring the internet for ideas. I found a very helpful site called Hatstruck . The lady who blogs there, Lee, is so talented and so generous with her knowledge. She makes some of her own blocks, and uses even woden bowls as blocks. Wooden bowls? Oh yes! you read right. Wooden bowls. Ever since I read that on her post, I have been looking at every piece of wooden bowl I see with added interest. Analysing its shape and trying to see a hat in those bowls. I think I'm definitetly going crazy, but when your pockets are as threadbare as mine are, improvise, you shall!!.

She even did a tutorial on how to make your own hat blocks using styrofoam and then coating it with wood filler. Genius non? I shall be trying that one soon. ohh boy....filling quite giddy now...

I also fell accross another method to make your own hat blocks, on Threadbanger. Yes, trusty old Threadbanger. With this one, you use expanding foam. So basically, you take an old hat that you want to copy, spray it with sizing ( for us UK peeps, its fabric stiffener.), let it dry, spray some cooking spray, then use the expanding foam. At the end, you'll have a hat block which can be sanded and carved and I hope drilled too. You can watch the video here. I have already ordered stuff to try this one out at home. Though finding the right stiffener here in the UK is proving quite tricky. Apparently, the best stiffener to use would be gelatin stiffener. But I can't find it. Does anyone have any idea on where to get this?

So there, if you, like me, don't have the wonga to purchase hat blocks, you should try making yours at home. It does not repalce the need for professionally made ones though, but as an amateur, investing over 100 bucks for a hatblock is not what I would do.

Plus if I find these don't work, I will have to rely on my father-in-law to make one for me. His hobby is wood turning ( how lucky am I?), so I am hoping hat blocks will be easy peesy for him.

If you are daunted by the idea of using a hat block, there are so many tutorials and books out there that will teach you how to make hats, but I think that merits its own post, so a roundup of tutorials will be coming along soon. Watch this space.

For those of you who can't wait, I found an interesting hat making tutorial on Threadbanger. This tutorial teaches you how to make a pill box hat from felt. oh goody!! Very Jackie O if you ask me.

Is anyone else into hat making? Do you have any advice for me, or any tips? or would you like to know more about hat making? Would any one be interested in a sew along for a hat? Please leave a comment if you are interested, or have some knowledge to share.

many thanks and have a nice sunday

xoxo

Dibs

Someone's feeling as light as a feather!!

Hi everyone, today is the last day of June, and also of MMJ. Its been an eventful month for me, and I thank God for everything that has happened this month. This is not a Me Made post, so no pics of me prancing about in handmade clothes. Today I want to share a little bit of what is making me happy and light.

So, whats this "THING"?????????????

Hat Making.!!


Royal connection......



I don't wear too many hats, but I love seeing hats on other people. I always look for Ascot pictures to see the wonderful creations. I put the Ascot hats into 3 groups. The good, the  interesting and the WTF hats. lol....oops!!!



I've also been going through the websites of many milliners in London, and a few in the US. They are all so very inspirational, and I kept wishing I had the skills to make all those beautiful pieces. Admittedly not to the same standards, but close.



Food on my mind....








Gravity defying......







So, where does all this gushing about hats lead to?

Oh well, yours truly has enrolled on a hat making course at the Kensington and Chelsea college, starting september. It is a part time evening course, and classes will be held every Tuesday from 18:15 -21:15pm. Exciting non?

Plus, I am also starting hat making classes with Rose Cory in August. Now for those who don't know ( just like I did not until I started taking an active interest in millinery), Rose Cory used to make hats for the late Queen mother. How cool is that? Not only that, she's got some pretty amazing things said about her:

“Rose Cory the milliner’s milliner”
Vogue

“…Rose Cory who seems to have taught every
couture milliner in the country”
Harpers & Queen

Well, I might certainly not be a couture milliner, but I hope by the time I have finished absorbing all that I can from Rose, I will be able to call myself a milliner, even if I only make hats for myself, and my family......umm my high school friends....... university friends?....definitely some of the wonderful people I have been blessed to meet through blogging......i think thats it...wait....my colleagues, and their wives??????, maybe not wives. Anyways, the point is,

I AM STARTING HAT MAKING COURSES WITH AN ESTABLISHMENT IN THE MILLINERY INDUSTRY!!!!!

I am so excited. When she called me yesterday to confirm the classes, I almost passed out at work. It took a lot to calm me down. I'm still on a high.

The good news for you my friends, is that I will be able to share some of the things I learn with you, and you could also make your own hats at home.

Where are they?

I have not been able to sew a dress this week, but I have noticed one thing about myself this year. I have been wearing the dresses I have so far managed to make this year more than once. Which is alot in my case. Last year I made a few dresses, wore only 1 out of the house, and now I don't know where they all are.

Last year though, I was not so fussed about the finishing of my garments, and I was not remotely bothered about seam edges and all that. Coupled with the fact that my machine(Brother LS 2125) was the most basic machine on the planet, I did not have fancy things like an overlocker foot which I now have with my Pfaff. Plus being the lazy little minx I am, hong kong seams and french seams were not to be even considered.

I think I am taking a more healthy approach to my sewing this year, and even my husband has noticed, and is asking me to consider buying more expensive fabrics ( who would ever have thought men would encourage you to spend more aye?).

So, I thought I should show some of the things I made last year that I was prooud of ( for about 1day).

First up, the coffee date dress. Things did not go quite as planned with this one, so I changed the neck. Fortunately Elaine May (the selfish seamstress) was quite understanding, and actually helped me with more instructions on my all in one facing.

Where is it? - I have no clue. Will have to tackle it again this year because I really like the pattern, and it reminds me of me when I just started sewing seriously.

Next, the vogue 8470. I managed to do this dress, wore it round the house, then decided I did not place the zip well, took it off, and never put it back. I saw it the other day, and have kept it aside, to be looked at later this month hopefully. So I might (torchwood) be inspired to put a new zip by the time I go on holidays. I think it will be a nice holiday outfit.

Where is it: - Future project basket. Waiting for Princess Dibs to take pity.

Then I made this Burda magazine dress. I did actually wear this one to work, but i think I outgrew this. My pear hips decided to acquire more fat. So, I can't fit into this one anymore, and I THINK i donated this to a charity. Who will buy this, I don't know.  The pleats at the front were a bit dodgy i think . but nonetheless I wore it a couple of times.

Where is it: - no idea.

What I was most proud of that I made last year was the Vogue 8280. I cried a couple of times during the making of this dress. My husband had to tiptoe around me during the week I made this dress. I was quite happy with the end result though. I still have this pattern, and plan on making it again when i get a really good fabric. I will be using a cotton or wool fabric that has some stretch, so it will fit better. I did wear this one to a party the very day i finished it, and also a couple of times to work.

Where is it?: - I don't know to be honest. I grew bigger round the hips, and could not fit in anymore.

So, those were the things I made that I was proud of. The rest did not reach a noteworthy state of completion, so sadly (thankfully), won't be getting some blog time here.

Other things I made, and which I was proud of last year, were my wedding cake ( which I decorated mysefl) and my fascinator.



I bought a plain cake from M&S and decorated it. I made the flowers from sugar paste.




I folded the fabric and attached it to my top, to have that pink effect, and I just loved my fascinator.




I also put together the bouquet.

 I hope this time next year, I will be going through a list of what I made this year, and hopefully wearing one of them every week. Thats a big challenge, but I think with sewing, you have to push yourself all the time. I have 8 months to prove to myself that I can do it.

I am away for a week from today. Going to spend Easter with my in-laws. Unfortunately I won't be taking my beloved machine. So I won't be overlocking my seams. My mother-in-law has a machine so I will be able to make at least one dress. Hopefully I will have time to actually sew it and put some pictures up.

Happy Easter to everyone.

XX

Dibs