Last weekend I finished up a 3-Saturday hat making class with Wayne Wichern. Wayne is an awesome guy and I learned so much in this class. Mostly I learned that millinery aka hat making is far more work than I originally thought and far more hand sewing that I originally thought. There’s more than I can put here, but I’ll give you an idea of what we did in case you want to take a millinery course at some point.
We made three kinds of hats. The first hat, and the one requiring the most work, was a buckram form covered in fabric. Wayne went over everything from the fabric selection to the molding of the buckram to the application of the bias tape. We did everything ourselves except the molding of the top buckram (we still did the brim and the sides) because there weren’t enough hat blocks to go around (so Wayne made all of those for us although he did demonstrate how to make them).
I made mine out of green polyester speckled with gold and went for gold accents. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I especially like the gold lining which to me is like a secret pop! of color.
The next hat was a straw hat. Again there weren’t enough hat blocks for the class, so we picked a style and color we liked and Wayne made them for us (I think he made 40 in one week!) and we got to decorate it which has its own set of techniques. Wayne of course demonstrated how to form a straw hat on a hat block. It’s pretty cool.
I went for a very summer time look for my hat. The bow is actually made up of 3 separate pieces, not counting the part which goes around the hat. I have a skirt made of the same fabric and I think it will look super cute together.
The final “hat” we made is a fascinator which is still technically called a hat since it sits on the head. Mine actually uses a clip rather than a buckram base, but that was an option as well. Mine has a floral element. I was feeling very spring time when I took the class. My original plan was to do a fabulous Carmen Miranda-inspired fascinator, but sadly, the bananas at Michael’s were too big 
So, this was option 2.
All in all, I’m very glad I took the class. Learned a lot and had a fun time. I’m looking forward to trying my hand at tiny buckram hats to be used as fascinators when I have the time.
