My new year's resolution for the past year was hats. Learn how to make them, wear them, encourage other people to wear them, anything to do with hats.
I did pretty well!
I bought a felt rain hat at a local cherry festival and it greatly improved my rainy walks:
I also remade 3 modern hats into nice ones for our 17th century castle picnic:
And best of all, I found a milliner who teaches how to make traditional hats. She didn't blink when I showed her my 1880s riding hat reference and over the course of two days I made the riding hat of my dreams:
I really really loved learning how to steam and block hats. I signed up for the workshop again next year to learn wireframe hats and I'm really looking forward to it. Hats!
Sponsored by Folkwear Patterns! Visit to explore our collection and join a community that's been stitching history for half a century. What
Sponsored by Folkwear Patterns! Visit Folkwear.com to explore our collection and join a community that's been stitching history for half a century.
What do a 27,000-year-old figurine, a Bronze Age coil of horsehair, and King Henry VIII’s "minions" have in common? They are all part of the wild, tangled, and surprisingly complex world of millinery.
This week, we’re diving into the history of how we cover our heads. While we think of "millinery" today as the art of the women’s hat, it was once the "department store of the past," selling everything from jewelry and gloves to clocks and "certain stuff."
We’ll trace the evolution of the craft from ancient woven fragments found in the Czech Republic to the high-fashion millinery shops of Revolutionary Williamsburg. Along the way, we explore the incredible 40-hour reconstruction of a 3,000-year-old Scottish hat, the cultural significance of the Native American warbonnet, and the business savvy of Victorian women who dominated the trade long before they had the right to vote.
In this episode, you’ll learn about:
The "Venus" Mystery: Why archaeologists now believe those ancient braided hairstyles might actually be the world's oldest hats.
The 40-Hour Hat: A deep dive into the "wrapped twining" technique used to recreate a Bronze Age horsehair masterpiece.
The King’s Shopping List: How much Henry VIII paid for his "bonnetts" (and who his minions were).
The Shopping Experience: What it was like to shop in an 18th-century millinery shop (spoiler alert: there were pastries!)
The Millinery Class Boom: Why classes in millinery exploded in the late 1800s and early 1900s–and why they fell short in creating a career pathway for most women
Whether you’re a fiber artist curious about the special technique used to make a Bronze-age hat or a history buff interested in the economics of fashion, this episode is for you.
Show notes and sources here: https://tinyurl.com/2wrb74bb
We shared the story of our family's immigration to the US and our views on ICE at the top of the episode. If you feel moved to call your representatives, you can find who to contact at this website: house.gov
Know your rights if ICE agents confront you or your neighbors: https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/services/immigration-know-your-rights
Support people who are in danger of detention and who have been detained in Minnesota: https://www.standwithminnesota.com/
Have a question, comment, or idea for a future episode? Email us at [email protected].
Find links, images, and more on the free blog post for this episode; visit our Patreon page at patreon.com/handmadehistorypodcast.
Or visit our website at handmadehistorypodcast.com for more information.
Here's where you can find me elsewhere on the internet that isn't Tumblr for both my accounts:
Where to donate/request art : https://ko-fi.com/kieraoona
Note, Ko-Fi is sort of like Patreon, and goes to me via my Paypal, and Ko-Fi hosts all my free patterns and e-Zine
Tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/@kieraoona
Philip Treacy worked on the 2005 film 'Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire', making 28 identical hats for schoolgirls from the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic.
The Beauxbatons hat was designed as a pointed 'wizarding' version of a trilby.
Clémence Poésy, who played Fleur Delacour, wearing one of the prototype hats, showing the buckram framework, which felt fabric would be stretched over.
Knitted Red Hat The First (by the Wizard's own hand)
Hello and welcome!
I am The Red Wizard, and I'm here to talk about a hat I made.
Once upon a time, I acquired a hat (not pictured). This was a very nice hat, thick felt, tall point, very wizardy. I am very fond of it. But I didn't know how to reliably replace it, what if it became damaged, or got lost? I would be very sad, AND I wouldn't have a wizard hat of excellent quality!
So I began pondering my orb trying to figure out how best to learn how to felt hats, and I consulted those around me better experienced in fibre arts.
This has resulted in me slowly learning how to make hats, all in the hopes of creating a worthy successor to the hat I got many years ago.
But it turns out that in order to be good at doing a thing, you have to do that thing, over and over again?? Who came up with that idea.
On the other hand I do love making things!!!!
The Hat I acquired many years ago was not knitted, but I reasoned that knitting combined with felting could be one way in which I achieve satisfying wizardiness, and it would allow for a seamless object, as if made by magic! After observing my very dear friend @moon-shooter knit a hat so I could try felting one, I puzzled my way through this one without really knowing what I was doing, and it worked out okay! I knitted until I thought the brim would be big enough, and then used some leftover yarn to do a rough embroidery detail so the hat would have a front and back.
I did not anticipate the wiggly brim, but that has since become the feature of it that everyone seems to especially be enthusiastic about! I also did not felt it enough for it to look like it wasn't knitted, which you shall see I fixed in later hats! Overall I was pretty pleased with how nice it looked, and for a first knitted hat it was certainly both striking and comfortable!!
Thank you for reading, and I hope you stick around for more hats!!
