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New Hats and New Thoughts

January 16, 2021 by HatJunkie 7 Comments

Hello, hello! Seems that I have done it again. I have let far too much time go by before reaching out. I searched my book of excuses and the one that seems most honest is…Slow. I’m just slow at everything. And as I approach my 53rd birthday I am finally coming to terms with the fact that I have chosen slow. It’s my comfort speed.

I do have a batch of hats for you today and the theme that bonds these hats together is…you guessed it….slow. I have so much to say about these hats and the cloth they are made from, but I will first share these hats with you and chat afterwards. These are all ready to ship. Please pay attention to the size of the hat in the title and the description. If you see something you love, but it’s not your size please reach out. If you don’t mind waiting I don’t mind custom making your hat to fit.

If you click on the image of the hat you will be taken to the listing. Local Hat junkies, if you would like to pick the hat up I will refund your shipping charge.O.K, here we go…

Pink merino felt hat

I had so much fun making this pink felt hat. I had it in my mind for ages and it was only in the middle of the process that I realized I was bringing my shop sign to life. It’s hand felted merino wool. I recently learned how to make this job harder by making the template much bigger and then felting it down to size. The result is a stiffer felt. Also warmer and stronger. I’m not exaggerating when I say that my hands were destroyed for a few days from hours of friction. Ah well, you must suffer for your art. (That last line should be read with a Russian accent.)

The Hat Junkie Headquarters
Hand Knit and Felted Hat

Stripes and flowers, anyone? I hand knit this hat from Canadian Dorset wool and then felted it. This creates a very dense and warm fabric. It has the structure of a felt hat, but the stretch and crushability (I think I made that word up) of a soft hat. The flowers are all made from merino wool. A hat to brighten any pandemic. There’s quite a bit of stretch in this one, so it comfortably will fit a medium to large head size.

Blue Dorset Wool Beret

O.K, all eyes on the beret please. I know, it’s being upstaged by the shawl. I knit this shawl for Tony for Christmas. It’s ridiculously warm and he loves it, but there’s no harm in..ahem…”borrowing” it when he’s at work. I have a bit of a problem fully relinquishing my knitted gifts. Dustin has banned me from borrowing his sweater. I’m holding out for that tall child to grow a few more inches. But I digress….I hate to play favourites with my hats, but I really adore the hand knit and felted ones. I have always been drawn to hat styles that can be sat on or lost under a pile of books and still come out looking beautiful

Cabled blue beret

Blue and orange. I can’t get enough of this colour combination in my life. It’s so darn cheery. This is the second cabled beret that I have made. The first one sold within minutes of sharing it on Facebook. I was curious what would happen if I knit a cable and felted it down. I love the result. It also made the beret a bit deeper, so it pulls down nicely over the ear. I made this one a bit larger than medium, so if your head size is slightly larger that average this will fit.

Sunflower beret

I wish I could have modelled this one for you, but it makes me look severely jaundiced. I love this colour so much, but I will have to enjoy it from the spectator’s seat. Somebody out there will be able to bring a bit of sunflower hat shine to the winter.

Handwoven Charlotte in grey

Oh, Charlotte. This is a hat I have made in fleece and in cotton/hemp jersey, but these handwoven wool versions are where my heart lies these days. It’s lined with a very soft silk blend, so unless you have a true wool allergy you will find the hat soft next to your skin. These fabrics were handwoven for me by Marrie of Double Handwoven Designs in Lunenburg. I’m not sure how else to say this, but that’s a big deal. It takes so long to make me this fabric, so I can only get her to do this occasionally. This cloth is precious to me. She weaves me five yards of each colour and then, it’s gone… sometimes forever. I’ll blather on about precious cloth later, but first let me show you the others that I made.

Handwoven Charlotte in Green

Funny thing about this green, When I chose the colours with Marrie I picked out a strand of chartreuse and a strand of teal because I love those two colours together. What I did not realize is that when you weave two colours together you end up with a third colour. I still love this green, but it was a lesson learned.

Handwoven Charlotte hat in Claret

Here’s one for the small headed ladies in the crowd. When I first saw how this colour turned out I was a bit disappointed, but that’s all behind me now. Sometimes I can’t see the true beauty of a fabric or colour until it has become a hat. It’s such a soft colour. It was made by combining a light purple yarn with grey. If you know the true name of this colour please fill me in. It’s almost mauve, but not quite. I’m calling it Claret because I have a dye that produces a similar result.

Maisie in Blue

Last, but not least is Maisie in blue. The one that I have made up is a small/medium. It will fit between a 22″-22.5″ head size. If you can’t focus on the hat because you are distracted by the beautiful mug in my hand you can order one from my talented friend Joan Bruneau. I pretty much want everything she makes.

Alrighty, that’s it for hats. You can, of course, peruse the rest of my shop for custom made hats and I added a section called, Hats Gone By. I can usually make similar versions of sold hats.

Now for the blathering part of the show. As I mentioned earlier, the predominant theme behind my hats and the rest of my life is…slow and tied to this word is one of my least favourite words…money.

If it were up to me I would never put a price tag on my hats. I would just slowly work away and you might supply me with a season’s worth of potatoes in exchange for a pretty hat. Better yet, you could come and clean my house. But as much as I like potatoes and hate cleaning I live in a world that requires money and quite a bit of it.

I know that as a crafts person I am not supposed to talk about money with my customers, but I always want to. Deciding how much something costs takes up an enormous amount of brain space and I want to share some of these thoughts with you. It’s against all the rules, but I’m going to do it anyways.

There’s a conversation that always happens in my head when working on a slow hat. As I begin, I imagine that I can make the hat in x amount of time and keep the price down. But I never actually hit that mark. After hand stitching all the details, hand sewing the linings, fussing over the layout of the flowers, felting the hat just a little bit more, adding in one more beautiful detail….I always end up overshooting that imaginary target in my head, sometimes by days. Then I worry. I really wanted the hat to cost this amount, but it should cost this amount. It’s an exhausting inner conversation. In the past I have often set the price at the imaginary target price. This is the part that I have decided to change. It’s the only way to keep making the slower hats that I love to make.

One of the things that has really helped me to take this leap is fashion history. I often immerse myself in fashion history podcasts as I work. I won’t turn this blog post into a dissertation, but the one thing I’d like to highlight is the value of cloth and how that has changed over time.

I don’t think I would have joined the Luddites and smashed those new fangled sock knitting machines, but I would have had a lot of sympathy. The Luddites feared that this machinery would devalue the work of making cloth and, yep, they were right. Not that the industrial revolution was all bad. For the first time in history regular people had access to clothing that was only ever accessible to the upper classes. Women could spend time doing other things than darning socks. If we could have controlled the output of cloth production then things might have gone differently, but profit and moderation are not good bed fellows. Prices for textiles can only be kept artificially low by over production.

Within a very short time in history we have gone from cloth being a precious commodity to cloth having no value at all. The challenge for me has been how to properly charge for something that people believe should be cheap.

Wet felting a pink cloche hat

What I most love to do is create cloth by hand. A while back I looked into knitting machines for making hats, but soon discovered that there are techniques that can only be done by hand. The same with felting. I could buy felt bodies that are made for hat making. This would take a couple of days work out of the hat, but factory made felt and handmade felt have different qualities and I love the texture that can only be made with two hands, soap and water. I also love the process itself. I can buy machine woven fabric and it will still be beautiful, but handwoven fabric has a different quality. I could make decisions based on what would be faster or cheaper, but I’m so tired of that. I want to make decisions based on what I truly love.

I have lately been sewing clothes for the menfolk and myself. I’m slowly replacing my wardrobe with items that I truly love. Making my garments changes the way I feel about them. Each garment feels special. I don’t think you have to sew or knit to love your clothing, but I do think it takes a shift in thinking away from the concept of disposable clothing and embracing a time in history where a well made dress or hat was an item of true value.

O.K. Thanks for letting me ramble. I got so carried away that I almost forgot to share the truly big news in my life…

I

I chopped off all my hair! I’m so happy with it. It still stands straight up in the morning, but a little water and hair product performs miracles.

I hope you stay healthy and happy. Love from Lunenburg, Anna

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Anna shoub, cloche hat, handmade hats, handwoven fabric, hats, lunenburg, natural textiles, nova scotia, pink felt hat, slow fashion, the hat junkie

Flapper and Edwardian Hat Distraction

April 1, 2020 by HatJunkie

Hello hat friends, I don’t have much wisdom to bring you today in terms of the state of the world, but I can offer you some pretty handmade flapper and Edwardian style hats along with plenty of knitting distraction. A friendlier alternative to the news.

I am actually somewhat used to isolation as this is what crafts people do. I often turn to knitting and sewing videos, not so much for the information, but more to bring a friend into the studio with me. So, in the above video I ramble on endlessly about hats and knitting and show you a pretty walk through Lunenburg and even give you a little glimpse into me practicing The Charleston (it strangely helps me). I hope you can use the little video I made in the same way. Have me over for a little visit while you do your chores or drink your coffee…Why yes, I’d love a cup…cream, no sugar, please.

Before I go, I will mention that I have added lots of new hats to my website. Don’t hesitate to ask for other colours. Here’s the one I am most proud of at the moment. It fits a slightly larger than average head size. I talk lots about it in the video. Also be sure to click on the little button for your currency. It’s not exact, but close.

Ladies Straw Boater hat

Here are links for some of the designers I mentioned.

The OA Hoody by Kate Davies
From Grandma with Love blanket by Melanie Berg
Bag made from old conveyer belts.

And, Lastly….I would so appreciate you sharing this post with your circle of friends. If you enjoy the video please give it a like, or better yet, subscribe. I wish you all the best of health and I look forward to hearing from you. Love, Anna

You can find the original soirée sweater herehttps://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/soiree-4

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Anna shoub, boater hat, Edwardian hats, flapper hats, handmade hats, hat video, Kate davies designs, knitting, knitting podcast, knitting video, lunenburg, Melanie Berg, straw hats, the hat junkie, the oa hoody

Scrappy Happy Hats and a Zero Waste New Year

December 31, 2019 by HatJunkie

Row House Zero Waste Hat

Hello, hello! I am writing just in time to wish you all the happiest of New Years. I’m one of those people that happens to like New Year’s resolutions. Not in a write a list sort of way, more in a mindful mess of intentions for the future way. So, I’ll begin with this hat and everything it represents to me.

This hat is made from my scrap pile. These fabrics are all remnants of the handwoven wool that Marrie of Double Whale Handwoven Designs made for me. I know I repeat myself in my blogs, but I also repeat myself in my daily life, so I’m consistent. Zero Waste. It’s not an achievement by any means, but it is a goal. Zero Waste is actually what keeps me up at night. I know, I know, there’s a drug for that, but I feel that this is a small corner of the world that I can impact. It is, however, a very hard goal to incorporate into a business.

Working from fabric scraps takes a zillion times longer than laying out yardage. This is why so much fabric ends up in landfill. It is way more cost effective to throw out large amounts of fabric scraps than to turn them into wearable art. Fixing this problem requires that designers and large scale manufacturers choose to slow down, but it also requires customers to understand that this is an expensive process.

Actually, it also requires that designers collectively choose to charge for this work. It’s just damn hard to make something by hand and then look someone in the eye and casually say this costs $325. Well, it is for me, anyways. I know I don’t throw around $325 easily…well, unless it’s for yarn. It’s scary to charge what an item is actually worth. Particularly when most designers are seriously undercharging.

The whole zero waste, sustainability, handmade movement will only work with a massive change of perception and that’s going to take some time, and I’m O.K. with that. In the mean time I will also make the hats I need to make in order to feed the tall kid and I won’t achieve my zero waste goal in 2020, but I think I will get there.

I had to keep this one for myself.

I have also been on a mission to come up with hats that have the same qualities as polar fleece, but are made with natural fibres. I played around with cutting up used textiles, I ordered some organic wool jersey fabric, the whole time muttering to myself that I just wanted to knit the hats. But, if we are on the topic of undervalued work, there ain’t nothing as undervalued as knitting. So, I had this story in my head that I could not sell a hand knitted hat. Instead, I needed to take a piece of knit fabric, cut it up, sew it back together, add to the scrap pile and then, only then, could I charge what I needed to charge to feed the kid and keep the heat on.

I made a few hats like this and then the insanity just became too much for me. Why in heaven’s name should I not take yarn, use only the amount it takes to make the hat, making the world’s oldest zero waste hat. That’s what knitting has always been. There is no cutting. All the shaping is made while making the fabric. It’s serious zero waste innovation, except that it’s hundreds of years old.

So, that’s what I have been doing. I’m knitting up a storm of hats and then felting them for super warmth and then wet felting pretty flowers to sew on and nothing is added to my scrap pile. I don’t have these hats up in my shop yet, but if you would love one then please let me know.

I have a thing for flowers on the top of my head.
This is Faye from The Mariner’s Daughter modelling this beret.
Felted seed stitch is truly a wonderful thing.
I just want to hug these hats

O.K, what else did I want to chat about? Instagram. I went back on Instagram. I just got to a point where I missed seeing what everybody else was making. There is much to be wary about with social media, but I do love how it can connect people through common passions. I am going back with open eyes. I don’t engage in anything remotely political or controversial. I prefer long form thoughtful media for the harder topics of life, but for connecting with local friends, knitters, designers and other local businesses Instagram is a pretty good tool You can find me @thehatjunkie.

Speaking of thoughtful…If you are someone that likes to think about those big topics like climate change then you might like this podcast. It’s actually the first interview regarding climate change that made me feel hopeful. If This Link doesn’t take you to the specific show, it’s called, How to Save Climate Change and Make Life More Awesome.

And Lastly, I need to show you the coat that I knit.

The pattern is called Sylvie, by Mari Muinonen

Well, that’s about enough for now. Thanks for spending some time with me. Have a wonderful new year.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Anna shoub, canadian milliner, eco fashion, handmade hats, hat shop, lunenburg, nova scotia, sustainable fashion, the hat junkie, winter hats, zero waste

The Slow Hat Shop, a Slow Walk Video and a Slow hat maker

October 31, 2019 by HatJunkie

A seriously Pink Felt Hathttps://www.hatjunkie.com/product/pink-felt-fedora-hand-felted-merino-wool-size-medium-plus/

Hello! I have emerged from under a pile of fabric and yarn and I’m excited to share what I have been up to this past month.

For starters, I have finally added a web shop onto this site. Well, technically, I have had my Etsy shop linked here all along, but this one is a bit different. It is my Slow Hat Shop . It’s questionable whether I should be promoting the fact that I work at a snail’s pace, but after years and years of fighting my desire to do everything slowly I have finally given in. Slow has won the race.

Because Grey is so beautifulhttps://www.hatjunkie.com/product/grey-felt-ladies-hat-hand-felted-flapper-cloche-size-medium/

I’ll try to explain. Since I began The Hat Junkie 25 years ago, I have been trying to make beautiful hats that are accessible and affordable to many women. (Don’t worry, I have not completely abandoned that goal.) No matter what hat I was making there was always a timer in my head keeping track of how long the process took. I confess, I have often wanted to throw that internal timer off of a cliff. I just love making hats. Making a living has always been secondary to me. I’m not proud of that brain deficiency. My teenage son who eats a full size container of yogourt a day serves as a reminder that this having an income thing is no laughing matter. All I’m saying is that money has never been my motivator. I am motivated by beauty.

So, to make this long story even longer, I am constantly putting the hats that I most love to make on the back burner because they take so long to make and the price that might seem like a lot of money is actually not enough.

But lately, I have been rethinking…everything. I’m finding it harder and harder to separate what happens in my little studio from what happens on this planet. I’ll try to keep my insufferable preachiness to a minimum, but I have come to the conclusion that figuring out how to make hats faster, so that I can make more and make them cheaper is not the future I want. I want to make hats slower. I want to make hats from fibres that biodegrade, that are grown sustainably and most of all from fibres that already exist in the form of used textiles. I want to make hats where I can pay attention to all the beautiful, time consuming details. Yes, this means hats that are more expensive and I have way too many thoughts on that word, but I’m afraid if I go there you will click that little x in the corner of your screen.

So, I hope you will join me on my slow journey of setting up my Slow Hat Shop. If I have thoroughly confused you with having both a Slow Hat Shop and an Etsy shop, here’s the difference: The Slow hat shop will have my one of a kind creations and hats like my my hand woven hats which just take forever and a day, whereas Etsy will have the hats that I can reproduce, like my fleece hats and my Organic Jersey hats. Right now there’s an overlap, but I’m working on it.

My Goodness! Sometimes I just can’t stop talking.

Pockets For All!

Here’s another one of my latest creations. It’s made from upcycled denim jeans. I have been wanting to put a pocket on a hat ever since I listened to this Podcast about the history of pockets. Did you know that the French Revolution was the beginning of the end for women’s pockets? It began as a movement to downsize women’s dresses. Large dresses were considered excessive. This new style of less fabric meant no room for interior pockets on women’s clothing. From there the fate of pockets for women spiralled downwards. And in case you fear the current level of division in the world today has never been matched, take heart in the fact that two hundred years ago this issue of pockets was so controversial that people were grouped as pocketists and antipocketists. To this day, women’s clothing is often made with decorative pockets that are completely useless. It’s a wonderful bit of history.

Now, you may be asking yourselves if a pocket full of flowers is a useful thing, but I argue that there is nothing more useful than beauty. (I know…I’m just a bundle of contradictions.)

Kendyl’s painting hat

Speaking of beauty, I am so lucky to have customers like Kendyl who let me run wild with my creativity. Kendyl is a plein air painter and this is her winter painting hat. I lined the inside with fleece and pre painted the outside, so that any paint splatters would just add to the hat.

Cheryl in her new Charlotte hat

And don’t forget to check out my most favourite part of my website, Hatjunkies. There’s nothing that makes me happier than visits to my studio. I also love to meet people via the internet, but nothing beats face to face communication. Every hat has a head and every head has a story. I love to hear your stories.

And finally, in the spirit of slow, come join me on this beautiful walk from a couple of weeks ago. I truly live in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Thanks for spending some time with me. Anna

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Anna shoub, Atlantic Canada fashion, canadian hats, eco fashion, fashion history, felt hats, grey cloche hat, handmade hats, hat shop, lunenburg, nova scotia, Nova Scotia hat maker, pink felt hat, slow fashion, sustainable fashion, the hat junkie, up cycled hats, visit nova scotia

Hats for sunny days.

July 9, 2019 by HatJunkie

My girl/boy next door hat can be purchased HERE.

I told myself I would write a new blog post when the Lupins were in bloom. Well, the Lupins are just on their way out, but better late than never. (Not to worry. I did get a pretty photo.)

Before we get to pretty flowers we need to talk about this hat. Currently, this is my favourite hat. You can be sure there will be another favourite in a couple of weeks, but this is it right now. I think of it as the girl/boy next door hat. It doesn’t flaunt its beauty. It’s easy to not notice it and instead turn your attention to the colourful bomb shell on the next hat rack over. But if you pay attention you might notice that it’s just a damn good hat. It has tons of sun protection. The ties keep it on your head in a breeze and wheat straw is so subtly beautiful that it really doesn’t need to be upstaged by flowers.

I actually made this hat for my brother-in-law, Chuck, who was visiting from Maine with my amazing sister-in-law, Amy.

He requested a hat for working outdoors that would really give him proper sun protection. Et Voilà! I was delighted to send him home with a hat, but also sad to not have the hat anymore. So, I made another one and then as soon as it was done I walked across the street to show my 84 year old neighbour, Margaret, and she bought it. I was delighted that she bought the hat, but also sad to not have it in my studio again. So, I made another one…and that’s where this story stays, for now.

Oh wait, I forgot I promised you Lupins.

Lupins on the Back Harbour Trail of Lunenburg, NS

Worth waiting for, don’t you think? We had a cold and wet spring/ early summer. I don’t generally do well in wet weather. It gets in my bones. But I developed Meteorological Stockholm syndrome. ( I made that up). It’s a phenomenon where you start to sympathise or even love your weather captor. The colours of rainy days are so complex and moody that I found myself mostly enjoying what everyone around me called miserable. I didn’t voice my feelings out loud because, is there anything more repulsive than a positive, cheery person when you are committed to gloom. But now that the sun has come out in spades I fee like it’s safe to confess that I really enjoyed that wet weather. Knitting helps, too.

Did someone say knitting?

I knit myself a dress. I kind of made it up as I went along. Here’s the back.

It took forever and a day, but I really enjoyed the process. As soon as it was done I headed down to The Mariner’s Daughter to show them. Faye kindly offered to take my photo, so that I can show you. The yarn is a Shetland yarn from Hawthorne Valley Farm in the Annapolis Valley. Tony took me to Gaspereau Valley Fibres on my birthday and that’s where I found it. The yarn is hard to come by because it’s from their flock of five Shetland sheep. These are the natural sheep shades. I also knit the sweater I’m holding in my hand, but I better get back to hats.

I finally got around to making this hat for Tiffany.

Tiffany’s wheat straw hat.

Isn’t she beautiful? Tiffany did some modelling for me a while back and I owed her a hat.

I have to tell you about the ribbon on this hat. I got an email from a lady who said that she had a whole pile of antique ribbon and she would be happy to give it to me if I could use it. I actually considered declining. ( I know, I know..) she had told me that it was over 100 years old and in my experience old textiles usually crumble. Luckily, Tony convinced me to take a look and it’s a good thing I’m married to that guy. There were spools and spools of the most beautiful ribbon that was perfectly preserved in acid free paper. All from France and Italy. It’s hard to actually use it, but I think it’s better to get it out there in the world than to spend the rest of its days on a shelf in my studio. My only criteria for using this ribbon is that the hat needs to be worthy of the ribbon. I make these straw braid hats on a straw braid sewing machine from the same era, so I consider them to be worthy.

My straw braid sewing machine is truly my prized possession. I see from scrolling back through my blog that I bought it 2 years ago. I am just now beginning to feel confident that I can form a hat without a complete melt down. This hat was the first two coloured straw hat that I made. Oh the possibilities! And did I mention that the pile of antique ribbon also came with vintage millinery flowers? That’s what you are looking at in the middle of the straw bows.

My Nellie Jane Hat is available HERE.

But as much as I love making my straw braid hats, I also love my hand blocked hats. In the case of the straw braid hats, I sew thin braided straw around and around and form the hat while I go. In the case of the straw above I start with a woven sack (It’s called a hood) and using steam and wooden hat blocks I shape the hat. It’s a simpler process and it allows me to have hats in different price ranges.

I was working on this one in my studio when a lovely lady came in, fell in love with it and commissioned me to make her this one…

Did I mention that I hand dye this fabric? It’s all organic cotton and hemp jersey. Although I am currently smitten with the simple hat at the top of this post, I concede that sometimes bling is the thing. Actually, on most days I walk around looking like a Christmas tree. I just love colour.

It’s been so long since I last wrote that I’m not done yet. Bear with me for one more photo.

Amanda’s hat

It was really rewarding to make this hat for Amanda. She has a very small head size. That’s not unusual, but people with small or large head sizes can rarely find hats to fit them. Amanda came by my studio and picked out the straw and the fabric. It’s extra special for me to make a hat for someone who has never had a properly fitting hat.

Well, that’s all for hat news right now. A quick word before I go about my absence from Facebook and Instagram. Although I miss many of the lovely interactions I had there, I feel I did the right thing. I needed to make my world a bit smaller. I am so happy to go back to slow communication. I spent much of my life writing letters to friends and when I began blogging it had that same slow communication feeling, just transferred to a key board. But when Facebook came along it slowly took away my need to write in full paragraphs. Updating my blog occasionally is better for me than small, frequent social media posts. But I do miss you guys and I really appreciate the comments. I don’t always make the comments public if they seem like they were meant to be private, but I read them all and they lift me up.

I also really appreciate people sharing my blog with friends. It helps me enormously.

I wish you all warm breezes, plenty of gardening time, lots of knitting and swimming in lakes. That’s my idea of perfection anyways.

Hope to see you soon.

Anna

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Anna shoub, Canadian fashion, canadian hats, Gardening Hat, Gaspereau Valley Fibres, handmade hats, knitting, lunenburg, Made in Nova Scotia, Mens Hat, millinery, nova scotia, Shetland Wool, straw hats, Sun Hat, Sun Protection, the hat junkie, vintage style hats

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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