Talks
If there’s one thing I enjoy as much as making hats, it’s talking about them!
I give talks to organisations such as as Womens Institutes, Craft Groups and U3A. I am on the official speakers list for both the Essex and Cambridgeshire WI federations.
I’ve now got a range of talks that I can give, and brief synopses of them are below.
Please get in contact with me if you’d like me to come and speak to your group. I’d love to share my passion for hats!
Wherever I lay my hat
In this talk I give an overview of how I got started in millinery. I was working in IT at the time, and travelling the world with hat making supplies in my suitcase, hence the talk title.
I’ll talk you through the process of making a hat, using an example of one of the first hats I made.
You’ll see hats that have been inspired by the Sydney Opera House, and one that has been made whilst sitting next to a film star.
I’ll share the background of the famous ‘Brussel Sprout’ hat, and how a Christmas Pudding was inspired by a 1950s French hat block.
If time and numbers permit, I’ll get you all to make a small straw flower using my offcuts.
There will be an opportunity for you to ‘dress up’ and try different hats on, and of course pose for photos!
100 Years of Hat Making
I’ve got quite a substantial collection of magazines, books, materials and tools which I’ve accumulated over the years, so I’d love to share them, rather than leave them on a shelf. When I was sorting them out recently, I realised my first magazine dates from the 1920s, hence the title ‘100 years of hat making’.
I’ll talk you through how hat making has evolved. Some of you may have parents or grandparents who were involved in hat making. Nowadays, several crafts associated with hatmaking (eg hat block making, straw plaiting) are now on the Heritage Crafts endangered lists.
I’ll bring along some true vintage hats as well as ones I’ve made using vintage materials and trims. And to bring it right up to date, I’ll show you the materials used in constructing a pantomime dame hat.
Flowers and Plants in Millinery
I was asked to do a talk to a ‘Flower Club’ and hence the idea of a talk around flowers and plants in millinery came about.
I’ll share with you some of my collection of vintage flowers, which I found purely by chance when on a business trip to Vienna!
I’ll also talk you through how I make different types of flowers, in different materials so you’ll be able to see the difference in making a ‘leather poppy’ and a ‘silk rose’. I’ll also bring along my ‘crocus’ hat, and I’ll talk you through how I made the flowers for that!
I’ve recently acquired some vintage ‘flower irons’ so will share with you how I am progressing using these.
I’ll talk about how plant fibres are used to make the foundation materials of many hats. I’ll share examples of hats made from these different plant fibres such as pinopok, sinamay, abaca and buntal!