Moving Away From the Winter Blues

I finished my final “Blue” piece for the Winter—well, at least I thought I did. I feel like I still might have one more in my brain somewhere before the month is over. I have moved quickly onto a possible Hatalk competition project. There’s no telling whether I will make the deadline because I am all “contest” out so to speak. Two is just plenty for me, but I am remaining hopeful. I am trying something new this year. As I mentioned last week, I am learning to sew with straw braid. I almost gave up the first two days because I could not get that disk to lay flat. But eventually, and after half a dozen failed attempts and wasted straw (argh), I made something that looks blockable (on the block now), only to discover that it’s about four strips of straw too short for my crown. Live and learn right? I am fairly satisfied overall since this is my first attempt to create a flat piece as opposed to shaping the straw onto a frame.

I have been obsessed with some vintage straw hats as of late, spending loads of my scarce free time trolling the internet for vintage images for an inspirational shape. Sadly, nothing to report. If I had an inkling, I wouldn’t tell you because I hate ruining the surprise or setting myself up for failure—whichever comes first. But let’s just go back to the remaining hopeful bit shall we? Hats are a fun challenge! I do say this with great conviction when I am bandaging a bleed on an unsuspecting finger.

I don’t know what most milliners do, but I can guess that most of us practice blocking on new shapes or fabrics pretty often, which leads to many UFO hats in a box somewhere in the corner. Mine was definitely overflowing with forgotten objects. Most are salvageable, not defective, so what happened? Somewhere between the blocking and the next project I forgot about them. Millinery life I guess. Some just didn’t inspire me. So one January day, I sorted through my box of forgotten hats, and found many, many gems. I turned a couple into studio samples, and I swear I am not feeding this bad habit in 2020. There’s at least four more good Winter and early Spring hats well overdue.

I had some crinoline love in my Blue Collection. I posted my final piece “Lois” this week. She is my fourth one, and I do feel a little superstitious about having four instead of five in a collection. Reminds me of my trip to Los Angeles where I was purchasing ramen bowls in Little Tokyo, and I only found four matching ones, and the sale lady and I just stood there perplexed, me torn about getting only four, and her feeling terrible about giving me bad luck with four. I said I would buy something else that wouldn’t add to the number four. Problem solved. Japanese and Chinese culture don’t like the number four, because the word for four sounds like death. So I bought four bowls, plus one teas set, and five little Chau Wan Mushi bowls, and one matcha tea stir thingy. So there, no number fours in the end. Everyone happy.

But there still might be a fifth Blue Collection hat coming. Just in case. But here’s Lois, and excuse the mannequin shot. I will update it once I get my model in at the end of the month.