Deanna Gibbons Millinery Workshops

This post is a bit belated, but I want to make a plug for DeAnna Gibbons Millinery here in San Francisco. Here are some photos of her work.


And, here are photos of hats she made for the stage play Strega Nona, produced at Active Arts Theatre. The costume designer was Ulises Alcala, a costume professor at Hayward State. No, the bread isn't real! It's a hat!




Deanna is an expert milliner and talented designer who generously offers hat-making workshops four times a year. A few weeks ago, I attended her felt draping workshop, and learned how to sculpt a felt hat by hand without the use of a block to create the shape. It was fascinating! DeAnna is a wonderful teacher, and I learned a lot during the two-day class. Here are some photos of me and my two classmates with our finished hats.

ADS Trunk Show Preview

I've just taken a huge batch of new hats to ADS Hats for my trunk show coming up on December 19th, here they are. Want to see more photos? Check my flickr page. In the meantime, I'll be doing R&D on a new style of smaller cocktail hat, I should have a few of those ready for the show as well.

The Hat Shop NYC

I just started selling at The Hat Shop in New York, it's a fabulous place! I sent a whole big batch of things, here are photos of the HON styles they have on sale now.

oops, forgot one

Not sure how I missed posting a photo of my favorite new hat style, now on sale at Dark Garden, here it is. It's a brand new block, I call it the 'Tyrolean'. See more pics on my flickr page.

Now on sale at Dark Garden!

I just took a load of hats over to sell at Dark Garden Corsetry and Couture Clothing in San Francisco, here's what the newest ones look like.

See more photos on my Flickr page.

HON Trunk Show - December 19

Want to see what I've been up to? Come to my upcoming trunk show on Saturday, December 19th, from 2-5pm.

My show is part of a series of "Meet the Milliner" trunk shows being hosted by Alternative Design Studio - ADS Hats at 418 Valencia Street in San Francisco. The shows are every Saturday from November 28 through December 19th from 2-5pm, here's the full schedule:

November 28th: Elina Tachkova, owner of ADS hats, and designer of Alterknitive Cashmere hats.

December 5th: Jasmin Zorlu, exquisite fur felt and fish skin hats.

December 12th: Behida Dolic, incredible 1920’s Cloche hats.

December 19th: Me

My hats at the show will be a mix of holiday frippery, vintage-inspired, and the outright ridiculous: Little cocktail hats to wear with little black dresses, my take on 19th and 20th century chapeau, and some over-the-top hats that defy description. It'll be a party, I hope you can make it!

A little more steampunk

Another new Steampunk-inspired mini top hat style is now listed on Etsy. Combining the different brown tones and different materials was really fun.

A Few One-of-a-Kind Hats

Here are photos of a few one-off hats I recently completed. They are all for sale at ADS Hats.

The top hat with black and white striped ribbon is one-of-a-kind, I found just enough of that ribbon to make this hat. I will be making similar hats with other striped ribbon, but this one is pretty special.

The gray hat was harder to photograph, looks like I'm going to need to get a different colored backdrop for gray hats. The veiling is chin length. I can make this hat again, but the feathers on it are a rare antique piece that I may not be able to find again.

The red fedora was made on blocks I borrowed from Wayne Wichern. I wasn't planning to make another one, but might be able to borrow them again if there is a demand.

A Little Steampunk

Ok, I was going to save this for tomorrow, but I just can't wait. Another recently completed hat- this one is made using my mini Regency Top Hat block, in sage green felt with light and dark sage ribbonwork, natural-colored emu feathers, and clock parts and a metal button to finish the cockade.

I discovered emu feathers a few weeks ago, they're amazing! I'm a sucker for feathers that move around, and these nod all over the place, a real attention-getter. I'm having fun playing with these steampunk styles, it's really opening up my color palette.

This style for sale now on Etsy, and this exact hat will for sale be at Dark Garden Corsetry soon.

A Hat a Day

I've just completed and photographed a batch of hats, and will be posting them to the blog and to etsy in between working on the next batch. I'll be posting one or a couple per day, here's the first!

This burgundy red fur felt Whoville cocktail hat has matching vintage veiling and feathers. I recently bought a large amount of veiling from a defunct millinery factory in Oakland, and am having a great time thinking of ways to use it up- this is my first experiment with draping it turban-style. The feathers have a lot of movement, but the hat is surprisingly light and easy to wear- I think I'll have to make one like this for myself!

I'm a little bit worried that the Dr. Seuss estate might come down on me for using Whoville as a name (I hear they're pretty protective of their intellectual property), so I'm hunting for a new name for this hat, but I'm rather stumped as to what else to call this funny little block. Any suggestions? I'd love to hear them.