Millinery Workshop Weekend in Seattle

GETTING THERE

I should have rented the GPS.

I just got back from an amazing weekend in Seattle, where I attended a fantastic workshop in felt and straw hat blocking lead by Wayne Wichern, of San Francisco.  Given the shoddy mapquest directions I was attempting to follow, it’s amazing that I didn’t end up in San Fran proper, actually.   After spending HOURS trying to make my way to my friend Shawn’s place, in Bothell, I pulled into a random convenience store and tried to get the cashier to point out on my mapquest map,  where we were.  He didn’t seem to speak much english and I started becoming rather frustrated in his direction, with my situation in general.

That’s when a voice piped up behind me “Well, maybe I can help…”

I turned around to face my potential benefactor.  The voice belonged to someone who can only be described as a blond Kevin Smith (with longer hair).  Never one to turn down an offer of help, even if it did come from someone with enough mustard stains on his shirt to dress an entire hotdog, I replied, “Really?”

“Yeah, sure, I have GPS in my truck.  I just need to buy some smokes and a lotto ticket and you can follow behind me to your friends house.  It’s not far from here.”

I thought to myself – ‘You mean, the dungeon where you lock up unsuspecting and lost Canadian girls is not far from here…’   “OKAY!” I chirped.

I followed this unassumingly tech savvy guy out to his white pick-up truck (of course it was) and sure enough, there was his laptop set up with GPS.  He punched in my destination address and moments later, after finally introducing himself as ‘Joe’,  I was following him to Shawn and Bethany’s.

Getting lost on my way there was the first of many such instances over the weekend.  My driving misadventures taught me that GPS is invaluable and worth whatever it is the car rental company is charging, and if one must print out maps, googlemaps seems to be far more accurate than mapquest.  Still, driving around Seattle was nothing short of a Fright of the Navigator!

The Workshop!

The whole purpose of my trip was to learn how to block felt over a wooden hat block.  Hat making, as Wayne puts it, is relatively low tech.  You have a felt or straw hat body, you apply steam to it, you stretch it over the block and allow it to dry.  Simple?  In theory.  I knew that it would involve the aforementioned steps, but what I was not aware of, was how much physical work it takes to stretch the felt over the block – all the while wrestling with the hood or capeline to try and anchor it into place but tacking it in and stringing it up.  One uses one’s whole body in the process, it’s really quite exhausting!  But, the results can be worth it, as I found out when I lifted my beautiful Bordeaux coloured, velour felt cloche from the amazing Italian block which Wayne so kindly brought for me from his studio in San Francisco.  I had emailed him about this particular block after spying  it in the background of one of the photos of his atelier on his website. I never thought that he would bring it all that way for me and when I saw it on the table, shortly after arriving to class, my heart leaped! I was beyond delighted!  How thoughtful of him! What an absolute gem of a fellow to so generously share his knowledge of this once common trade.  Millinery is a craft that is not as abundantly found as it once was a few short decades ago.  It’s very difficult to get good training in and equally challenging to find the precious hat blocks that milliners use to form their creations.  If anyone reading this knows of a former milliner in their family or you suspect that there may be some old hat blocks kicking around your grandparents attic, PLEASE let me know – I will gladly dust them off and get them back into their intended use!

The workshop was extremely fun and I was so lucky to have been able to participate as one of the 8 students.  I am very much looking forward to seeing Wayne and everyone again  – perhaps at the upcoming Hatcamp, which will also be held in Seattle this year!  Please check out my flickr site for photos of the weekend and I will post photos of my finished and trimmed hats soon – I am still putting finishing touches on them!  Thank you Wayne and thank you Pam.