nova scotia Archives - The Hat Junkie

New Hats and New Thoughts

January 16, 2021 by HatJunkie 9 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…

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.)

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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

Lots of Charlotte Hats and a Turquoise Love Affair

October 10, 2020 by HatJunkie

Hello from beautiful Lunenburg. Today I offer you world respite in the form of a turquoise hat. Before I begin my turquoise tale, I will let you know that I have a batch of Charlotte hats ready to meet their heads and if listening to me wax eloquent about turquoise is not your cup of tea, feel free to jump ahead. I won’t take it personally. And if you have decided to stay, I love you very much.

So, a lady walked into my studio (a noteworthy event these days) and we had a lot of fun together. She came on a mission. On her head was a very functional straw hat that served her well. She loved the depth, the size of the brim and the way it turned up and she wanted me to make a winter hat with the same specifications. With great fake confidence I assured her that I could do this. Actually, these kinds of requests always mildly freak me out. My preferred method of hat creation is to first make the hat and then find the head to go with it, but sometimes you gotta be a grown up and step outside your comfort zone. We played hat shop for quite a while and it was so fun to watch her enjoy the experience. When she tried on this beret….

….she knew that her hat needed to be turquoise. She also decided that she would like a hand felted hat. Music to my ears. I hate to play favourites but my felt hats are my favourite. The process of taking wool and turning it into fabric is just too much fun and with wet felting the possibilities are endless. There was a tiny obstacle in her request, namely that I didn’t have turquoise wool, but it didn’t take a whole lot of arm twisting to get me to place an order and also throw in several more colours while I’m at it. And so, a turquoise hat was born. Would you like to see what it looks like at the beginning of the process? Yes? Oh, good.

Is that not the coolest thing in the world? Wool, soap, water and a lot of friction…that’s it. I’m not done yet with turquoise. I was so wanting to make red flowers, but the request was for black flowers. There will simply have to be more turquoise hats in my future.

Thanks for sitting patiently through my turquoise tale. Now we can chat about Charlotte hats. All of the following hats are available in my web shop. Just click on the photo.

My Scrappy Charlotte hats are one of my efforts to work with fabric scraps that would otherwise end up in landfill. This one fits a larger than average head size. It will fit between a 23″-23.5″ head size. There is no stretch, so make sure you have measured your head before ordering. The inside of the hat is lined with the most luxurious silk/cotton blend. You will feel like scrappy royalty with this hat on your head.

Oh, I’m sorry for this tease, but literally as I was pressing send to my email list, a lady in Alaska bought this hat. The good news is, now I will make another one in different colours. This Scrappy Charlotte was made from an old wool coat and scraps of locally handwoven wool. It is lined with a cotton and hemp fleece. Super cozy and soft, not to mention very warm. It will fit a medium to slightly above medium head size. It’s a wonderful hat to wear in the most inclement weather. Wool is naturally water repellent and the thick lining will make it very wind resistant.

And next up we have some cozy polar fleece Charlotte hats. These ones do have stretch to them. I’d say they work best for a 22″-23″ head size. If you have a smaller or larger head size I am happy to make a special one for you. These are just the ones that I had time to make. Have you noticed that everything takes longer these days?

What can I possibly say about this hat other than cozy? I will mention that the band is not black. It is a dark forest green. It looks a bit darker in the photo.

If you have been following my blog for a while you’ll know that I am using up the polar fleece that I have, but not buying more. I have plenty of some colours, but the turquoise is now officially gone. This is the last turquoise fleece hat I have. (but there’s always felt)

I always think brown and black are so beautiful together.

Purple and green is another recurring colour combination in my life. Did you know that they were the official suffragette colours, along with white? Oh, fine, since I mentioned Suffragettes I’ll show you my Margaret Suffragette hat that I just shipped out to Virginia. A voting hat if there ever was one.

I almost forgot…my finished sweater! I’m calling it Pocket Full of Posies. During the Middle Ages people put flowers in their pockets to ward off plagues, so I thought it couldn’t hurt.

…and with that, I wish you peace and love and health. I will chat with you all again, soon.

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

September 13, 2020 by HatJunkie

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Caps and Masks and a Make Believe Craft Show

August 10, 2020 by HatJunkie

Caps with Buttons for Holding Masks.

They are Here! They are finally here! And before I sail off into my typical long winded tangential tale of how I came to be making caps and masks I will first direct you right to the shop and then if you’d like to listen to me ramble you can meet me here afterwards.

Here are the caps. These caps are already made and ready to ship and have sizes. Please pay attention to the size before ordering. Most women will fit the medium size. If your head is very small then the small size is for you and if your head is quite large then choose large. Slightly smaller or larger than average should choose Medium. If you don’t end up with the cap of your dreams, I promise there will be more.

Click the photo to go to caps.

Upcycled Denim Cap with Buttons for a mask

Click the mask photo to head to masks. (more sizes and fabrics coming soon.)

OK, Now for the rambling part…..I have never thought of myself as a cap girl. I have pretty much been waging a war against baseball caps for the past 27 years that I have been working as a milliner. Convincing women to throw away the baseball cap and don a pretty cloche instead has become something of a mission for me. And I probably would have left that opinion of mine unchallenged had it not been for a certain Pandemic.

Every solution begins with a problem……I would get to the post office, boxes in hand and then clumsily try to put my mask on behind my ears. My ears would project out from my head at a 90 degree angle, and then when my glasses would be completely steamed up they would fall off my face. I really started dreading my trips to the post office.

Then I saw an Instagram post from another milliner who was putting buttons on caps to hold the mask…no ears necessary. Seems this idea had been circulating in the millinery world for some time. I’m afraid I can’t credit the genius behind the buttons, but if anyone knows I will be sure to give credit where credit is due.

I made this straw cap at about the same time, but I really wasn’t thinking of masks. I just wanted to see if I could come up with a cap shape that I love.

Mission accomplished. It’s a cap, but still feminine and kinda flappery. When I realized I could sew buttons onto the side I was doubly in love. I meant to sell this hat, but it ended up in my personal collection. I will happily make more if anyone is interested.

This has been my go to hat all summer. It is so easy to put the mask onto the buttons and I am no longer afraid of the post office.

But the thing with this hat is that it’s a bit of an investment. Such is the nature of sewing a hat from a braid that is 1/4 inch wide. So, the wheels in my head went round and round until I figured out the equivalent design in fabric and because I have been very focused on keeping used textiles out of land fill I decided to use upcycled denim. I’m also making them in hand dyed cotton canvas.

Now, usually I will make one hat and then put it on my website because I get excited by new designs. But I had to do things a bit differently this time. When word of this pandemic first got out, I wondered what the summer would look like in terms of visitors to my studio. In a good year I might have 6 visits a week. This year I have had 4…all summer. Don’t cry for me, Argentina. I have been enjoying my garden and our nearby lake and am way too comfortable with being a hermit, but it has been difficult to keep myself motivated to keep making hats. Summer is usually the time when I get to sell my more artistic one of a kind hats and the best thing about selling hats is that it gives me the excuse to make more. But in the absence of live customers and a studio filled with hats I was in danger of drifting into a slump.

So, I decided to play make believe. I told myself that I had a big craft show coming up and I needed to make as many caps as possible. I must say, I did a fine job of fooling myself. I have been a busy bee. I even managed to stress myself out about being busy. Sometimes Tony would have to remind me that it was OK to go swimming because my upcoming craft show was not real. I managed to make 10 caps. Well, 11 really. My neighbour, Kelly, walked away with one of them.

The other thing I have been resisting is making masks. There have been so many people making masks and for way too little money that I couldn’t really see how it would be feasible. I also hadn’t found a mask that I truly liked. But then I came across this pattern.

3D face mask designed by Japanese Sewing Books.

It’s brilliant. It seals around the face and also provides more breathing room. No more fogging glasses and no more suffocation on every inhale. Because I really believe in the design I am happily sewing them. There are 13 in my web shop right now, but there will be more soon. I will also make a larger size and a children’s size.

I hope you enjoy these last few weeks of summer. These beautiful days have been quite the gift. We will chat again soon.

Pandemic Resolutions

June 21, 2020 by HatJunkie

Lupins on Lunenburg’s Back Harbour Trail

When the reality of life in the time of Covid first sunk in, I imagined that I would never sell another hat again. After those initial few days of panic, I made a list of all the things I could do other than earning money that would contribute to our household. I confess, I was really enjoying the fantasy. I would turn my entire yard into a garden…. finally get the house clean…make all our clothes… make curtains… paint the guest room…preserve food…the pioneering list goes on and on. I was ready to time travel back to 1805.

Two things happened that put a damper on this scenario. First, after a week of being the perfect wife, with dinner on the table at 6, granola made, dishes washed, house cleaned…I totally lost my shit. This was entirely on me. I was the only one putting pressure on myself. I also learned that if I take creativity out of my life I become a not very nice person.

The second thing that happened was that I wrote a little post on Facebook asking people to share my page and that little post got shared over 3000 times. I suddenly had a lot of hats to make.

I am nothing but grateful for the orders and to the people who shared that post, but I felt a bit of a loss as I slipped back into busy, busy, busy mode. Those first few pandemic days had given me a bit of clarity into what was truly important in life (not the house cleaning part). And so, I decided to take control. After two demoralizing years of watching the deer eat all my plants, we hired a friend to fix the garden fence. Best money I ever spent.

I now make sure that gardening is a weekend priority.

My hedge of Rugosas that I planted from tiny little shoots are coming along swimmingly.

And every morning Lego and I go for our long walk. I’m finding the world extra beautiful these days. I Love the energy and diversity that tourists bring to Lunenburg, not to mention sales, but I’m also loving the peace of a quiet town.

I know that there’s a lot of hardship associated with this pandemic, but it has brought some unexpected gifts.

A Hat Gift From The Great Beyond

June 19, 2020 by HatJunkie

Beautiful Brian who passed away September 2019

Hello Everyone, I’m sorry to have not written sooner. Times are so strange and my mind is alternatively full and empty of thoughts and the idea of trying to condense the ruckus in my brain into words has felt daunting.

I also have a habit of wanting to talk about everything and then I overwhelm myself to the point where I can’t begin. But today I thought, one story, tell one story. So, that’s what I will do.

Last September my dear friend, Brian Davis, left this world with a bang. He had ALS and fought like the dickens (and won) to be able to donate his organs. Apparently his story reached far away places and I am told has set some new standards for organ donation. Anyways, Brian used to like to roll up in his wheel chair and tell me about how much he loved every last thing he was able to do. Seeing someone face death with such grace was one of the most inspiring experiences of my life.

He really loved this hat that I made for him. He sort of became a champion of my garden hats. His daughter Becky fell in love with the hat, so he bought one for her and he left the one on his head to his son. One day, maybe a couple of weeks before leaving this earth, he wheeled up my driveway. I came out to see him and he handed me a fist full of cash. He said, ” Anna, Susan’s birthday is on May 23rd. I want you to make her a hat like this and give it to Susan on her birthday.” Susan is his wife. I choked back my tears and promised him that I would not forget. I immediately put the date in my iPhone calendar, so that I wouldn’t forget. For months this request sat like a weight on my heart. Seemed like a huge responsibility to deliver a gift from the great beyond.

Time ticked on and the date drew closer. I made Susan’s hat and when May 23rd arrived I walked across the street and knocked on Susan’s door. When Susan came out, I said, Happy Birthday. This is from Brian.

Her reaction was pretty much what you would expect. She loved the hat, held back tears and we talked about Brian and gardens and dogs and bees… After a while she said, Anna, I have a confession. Today is not my birthday…..I said, what do you mean? I wrote it down right away. Did I mess up the date? She said, no, Brian could never remember my birthday. Today is his sister’s birthday. Mine is next week. We both cracked up and praised Brian for being consistent even in death. What a beautiful man, maybe not one for dates, but he had a heart of gold.

February Really Needs a Hat

February 12, 2020 by HatJunkie

February really needs hats and chocolate. I don’t know if I can send you chocolates, but I can definitely send you hats. If, like me, you live in a part of the world where slush falls from the sky then you might just need a bit of a pick me up. If you live in a part of the world where the sun shines all year long…..can I come stay with you?

So, until February 19th you can use the coupon code, FEBRUARY to receive 15 % off any hat in my Etsy shop or Slow Hat Shop. If you live locally then you can show up at my door and say the password (February) and I’ll still discount your hat.

Isn’t that green one up there pretty? Spring in Nova Scotia is a purely woman made season. I try to do my bit. Colourful hats with large flowers not only help the hat wearer’s emotional well being, but they also help every person the hat wearer passes.

Here’s another beauty that I just finished. This is one that I will be repeating. I made this one on my antique straw braid sewing machine. If you look closely you will see that the pull on the ties is a vintage spool of thread complete with some of the original thread. Sun protection never looked so good.

Well, hope I get to send you some hat cheer, but looking at pretty pictures of hats is also a pretty cheerful experience. Spring is just around the corner.

Following My Heart, My Latest Business Strategy

January 29, 2020 by HatJunkie

I had a bit of an epiphany the other day. Well, my friend, Aimee, actually hit me over the head with my epiphany, but that’s what friends are for, right?

She surprised me with a visit, so I put down my work and we went for a walk. I must have really needed to talk to her because it all came blurting out. I was not really happy because I was making the hats that I felt people wanted to buy and squeezing in the hats I really wanted to make when I had the time.

In about a two minute time frame, she set me completely straight. Aimee is a straight talker. ” Why the hell would you be self-employed if you are not doing what you love? You may as well get a job and at least have some security. Do what you love and the money will follow!”

I have always known that . Those words have guided me for so many years, but sometimes fear of not being able to pay the bills can make you forget. So, I found myself making the same hats that I have been making for so many years and feeling like my creative wings had been clipped. It got to the point where I avoided going in my beautiful studio and instead would sit at the kitchen table and knit. I have really never been very good at doing what I didn’t feel like doing. Instead of putting my nose to the grind stone and cranking out my best sellers, I became the master of procrastination. Just one more row of knitting, I kept saying, and then I’ll get back to work.

Somehow, Aimee’s sledgehammer over my head made me realize that it was time to be brave and have faith that if I let myself follow my creativity and inspiration that my customers would come along with me. I needed someone else to give me permission to do what I needed to do. Shut one door and open another one. And that’s what I’m doing. I have talked about phasing out my fleece hats, but I have decided to speed up the process. There will still be fleece hats available in my Etsy shop, but I will slowly be replacing them with the hats I truly love to make. I know that I won’t be making everyone happy, but I need to first make myself happy. That means working with natural textiles, working slowly and enjoying all the fine details of slow fashion.

The amazing thing is that when I brought my new knitted and felted hats to the Lunenburg Farmers’ Market, the ladies went right to them. I think people can feel how much I love them. This beautiful mother and daughter duo bought these two berets. And incase any of you out there tell yourselves that you are too old to wear a hat…Joyce is turning 90. She was wearing gold sparkly shoes and wouldn’t let me take her photo until she put her lipstick on.

Joyce and Fawn in their new knitted and felted berets

All these hats take a really long time to make, so my plan is to just list them in my shop as I make them and write a blog post when there are enough to talk about. Here are the knit hats that are currently available in my shop. You can click on the caption to purchase if you feel like you can’t live without one.

Hand knit and Felted Beret from Canadian wool

The sweetest blue, Hand knit and Felted From Canadian wool

Colours to melt the snow. Hand knit and felted Canadian Wool.

I have also been having a blast diving into the scrap pile. Here are two Scrappy Charlottes.

Thanks so much for spending some time with me. See you all soon.

Local Handwoven Beauty

January 21, 2020 by HatJunkie

I just finished making this Maisie hat and I need to wax eloquent for a moment…I love this fabric!!! O.K. that wasn’t exactly eloquent, but I don’t know how else to put it. I love that in choosing to have this fabric made for me by Marrie, of Double Whale Handwoven Designs, that money is kept circulating in my community, but it’s more than that. The fabric is truly more beautiful than any machine made fabric. I did actually consider trying to find another source of fabric to keep the cost down, but once you see such beautiful quality there is no going backwards.

Marrie had thought she could not weave me any more of this fabric, but I whined and begged and she has agreed to try again. My next batch of two colours will be coming at some point soon. Can’t wait to share it with you.

Scrappy Happy Hats and a Zero Waste New Year

December 31, 2019 by HatJunkie

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 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.

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.