zero waste fashion Archives

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.

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.

Lots of Charlotte Hats and a Turquoise Love Affair

Caps and Masks and a Make Believe Craft Show