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My Off The Grid Sewing Machine, Custom Masks and My Market Day Socks

September 13, 2020 by HatJunkie

Leslie modelling my straw braid hat.

Well, I have done it once again. Despite every best intention to write things down as they come to me, I have piled up the many things I want to tell you about and created a lot of clutter in my mind. And now I will have to pass my cluttered mind along to you. I have got to begin somewhere and it won’t be with the above photo. I just thought Leslie’s adorableness might draw you in. I’ll tell you about this talented girl later.

My Market Day Socks

I’ll begin at the literal bottom with My Pink Market Day Socks. Back in March when the reality of this pandemic was settling in I needed to knit something small and mostly mindless. I knit, I ripped, I knit, I ripped until finally I settled on a mostly stockinette sock with this beautiful little lace chain. Now, I know that there are 5 million sock patterns out there in the world and so many of them are free, but I think this little lace chain is totally worth the price of admission. You really have to knit it to understand what I mean. It’s so simple and cute and addictive and you’ll want to put it everywhere. It’s knit with Lichen and Lace 80/20 sock from The Mariner’s Daughter in Lunenburg. If you make an online purchase from them I will send you the knitting pattern for free. Just send me a copy of the invoice.

I’m currently designing this sweater and that same lace chain is climbing up the fronts. I hope to write this pattern up one day, but it takes months to write a pattern up properly. I love doing it, but finding the time is challenging.

Cone Flower Mask

Moving along to the opposite side of the body, I have been sewing a lot of masks these days. The last I left you I had made a batch and then sold them, but as I repeat a task I make new discoveries and I realized that with a few measurements I can easily customize the masks to fit your faces. The words: small, medium, and large can mean so many different things, so now, instead, you give me your measurements and I’ll do the figuring out for you. If you read the description of each mask you will see how to measure. I have actually been having a lot of fun sewing these masks because I am making them on my new, state of the art, off the grid sewing machine.

Behold my beautiful Singer treadle machine, circa 1910. This machine belonged to my great grandmother, Anna, who I was named after. Legend has it that she used it to sew men’s tuxedos. I’m also wondering if she sewed masks on it during the Spanish flu.

This beautiful machine came into my life many years ago courtesy of my Auntie Isa. I always remembered it in my Grandmother’s apartment in Montreal. She had it electrified. When I got it, it still had the motor on it, but about six years ago Tony had it restored to a treadle for me. At that time I tried to get the coordination, but I couldn’t figure it out. With orders in front of me I put it aside and just treated it as an object of beauty.

I’m sure you can all relate when I say that this pandemic has taken away the order of time. In the absence of structure I found myself letting one day flow into the next without any sense of accomplishment. I decided that I would demarcate the weekdays from the weekends by giving myself permission to garden, sew clothing, or take on other projects that I had filed under “no time for that”. So, a few Sundays ago I stared at my great grandmother’s machine, took a deep breath and took the plunge. A little oil, and a few Youtube videos later and I was treadling away like a pro.

Can I tell you a secret? It’s so much fun! It’s not hard and it’s as fast as my electric machines. The whole experience has really made me question this whole new fangled electricity thing. Alright, I will admit that electricity does have a place when it comes to things like light and heat and washing machines, but when it comes to can openers and sewing machines, it’s dumb. I have been sewing for 26 years and I have only just discovered this. The energy required to make my sewing machine work is the equivalent to gently rocking back and forth on a rocking chair. I think the treadle just needs a good marketing campaign to get it back into common use…Off the grid, energy efficient, green, burn calories while sewing…….

After the success of treadling on my Singer, I decided to tackle my antique Wilcox and Gibbs Chain Stitch Machine. This one takes a bit more foot power, but it sews beautifully. These old machines were built to last and built to be repaired. No planned obsolescence here. Can you tell I have a bit of a thing for old sewing machines?

That’s why I couldn’t say, no when my friend asked me if I wanted her aunt’s sewing machine from 1959. I tried to say, no. I swear I did, but I see these beauties like orphans. So, I took this one in and it got a bit crowded in my studio. I wanted to move it into the house, but it was causing a bit of marital strife. Tony started asking me questions like, will you take another sewing machine if someone asks? Like, what does that have to do with the price of milk? O.K. fine, I might have a problem.

So, this brings us full circle back to beautiful Leslie at the top of the page. Just when things were beginning to come to a head in the “just one more sewing machine” marital conversation, my friend Allyson came for a visit with her daughter, Leslie. Leslie has, completely on her own, taken up the hobby of sewing historical costumes. I mean Victorian dresses. She is teaching herself and doing an incredible job….all by hand. Not because of any allegiance to hand sewing, but because she doesn’t have a sewing machine. Are you thinking what I thought? You don’t have a sewing machine?…Would you like a sewing machine? She was so excited and I was so happy to pass along that beauty to a young girl with a passion for historical sewing. And we all lived happily ever after….

Wait, I am almost done organizing the clutter in my brain.

Denim Cap and Happy dots mask.

I would like to thank you all so much for my most successful Imaginary Craft Show (from my last post). I sold every single cap and more. I edited the caps section in my shop, so that you can now preorder one in your size. Click on the above photo to get there.

Scrappy Charlotte in denim

Making a batch of one type of hat and then posting them at once has been a very good way for me to keep myself motivated. I really can somehow convince myself that I have a deadline. Imaginary or not, it works. Currently, I am working on a batch of Charlotte hats. It’s slow going and happens in between filling orders, but as soon as I have enough to bring to the (imaginary) market I will let you know.

Hope you are all keeping well. Until next time..Happy Hatting.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Anna shoub, antique sewing machine, denim caps, hat shop, ladies hats, lunenburg, milliner, nova scotia, Nova Scotia craft, the hat junkie, treadle sewing machine, Wilcox and Gibbs sewing machine

My State of the Art Marketing Technology

March 6, 2019 by HatJunkie

Snowy Lunenburg

Last night I wrote this very long winded post explaining why I deleted my social media accounts. When I reached the end I looked at it and thought, this might be the most boring thing I have ever written. There are so many interesting things happening in Canadian news right now and somehow, The Hat Junkie Deletes Her Social Media Accounts just doesn’t compare. So, I deleted it and with the rising of this morning’s sun I am writing a new post.

As I explained in the previous paragraph, focusing this blog post on what lead me to make this decision would just put you all to sleep, but I will lead you (at this end of this post) to the interview on CBC that started it all. The interview lead me to the book and after that there was no turning back.

What I will talk about though, is my new Facebook/ Instagram free marketing strategy. It’s really quite revolutionary. I got the idea from walking into The Mariner’s Daughter, our local yarn shop here in Lunenburg. My excuse for going there was that I needed a skein of yarn to complete my latest sweater, but really it’s because I sometimes just need to stare at all the colours on the shelves and I really like the owners.

After inhaling all the yarn I noticed this strange looking device on their counter. It’s called a clip board.

There was a piece of paper attached to it that said, Mailing List. Hannah explained to me how this innovation works. Apparently, customers pick up a pen (no batteries required) and if they would like to be notified of shop updates they simply write their email addresses on the piece of paper.

Slack jawed, I considered this new technology for a few minutes. So, let me get this straight, I said. Are you telling me that I can actually communicate directly with my customers? You mean that Facebook does not have to be a go between? Holy Macaroli! Wait, wait….and if I communicate directly with my customers do I have to collect copious amounts of data and use their data to manipulate them and then go sell their data to other companies to make an even larger profit? No???? But, how many people who sign up for my mailing list will actually receive my emails? All of them? This is staggering, I thought to myself. Will wonders never cease.

So, that’s what I did. I made a mailing list. And you guys signed up for it. (well, I admit, I took the liberty of adding some of you myself.) And if you ever you get tired of hearing from me, all you have to do is scroll to the bottom of that email and click “unsubscribe” and I promise I will still like you.

Now that I have you here, let me show you some of the pretty hats I have been working on.

Christiane’s hat

This is my latest straw braid hat. There is actually a video of how I make it in the previous post. I don’t so much recommend watching it. I geared the video for other milliners because I had a request for help. Plus, I look horrible in the video. It’s so hard to find any information on how to sew these kinds of hats on antique straw braid sewing machines.

I have also been working on making a whole bunch of my hand dyed organic cotton and hemp jersey hats for Beauchapeau hat shop in Niagara on the Lake. This is Charlotte and one Eloise. You can scroll to see all the photos. Amazing how different she looks in different colours. Now that I’m not on Facebook, I might even have time to put these pretties into my online shop.

Organic Charlotte Royal Blue

Organic Charlotte Royal Blue
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Hand dyed, organic cotton and hemp jersey

More snowy Lunenburg

And lastly, I leave you with another photo of my town that I love so much. It’s one of the rare places left on earth where people know their neighbours. It’s not that we are are one big happy family where everyone gets along. It’s a true community filled with all kinds of personalities. Just like Facebook, except with nuance, context, tone and facial expressions. These little things help us navigate our differences. On the streets of Lunenburg we are more than the latest opinion we just posted to social media.

Thanks so much for joining me here. If you know anyone else that would like to join my mailing list, just let them know the box to fill in their email is on my home page and I certainly won’t hold it against you if you’d like to share my blog. See you all soon,

Anna

Click here for the interview that started it all.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 1920s hats, antique sewing machine, custom hats, deleting facebook, handmade hats, hat maker, hat shop, hemp hats, ladies hats, lunenburg, nova scotia, organic cotton hats, spring hats, straw hats, the hat junkie

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