27th November

Mmmm….Brioche for breakfast 🙂 I love it!

I had a lovely chat with Cath and then a relatively brief FaceTime with Julia because she was supposed to be working and not gossiping with me!

Hat making again! I’m starting to make a felt hat today- a 2 stage process, so I’ll be going back again to complete it before I leave France for Christmas.

On the way to Chantal’s I saw a billboard advertisement for “Les Rabeats”. It’s their 20 year anniversary tour and they’ll be in Tours next April. The Rabeats are a Beatles tribute band. I’ve had a look at them online and they’re good. I love the Beatles. In my teens I was totally obsessed with them- John Lennon and George Harrison being my favourites. I remember being devastated when John Lennon was killed. All their music is wonderful but, if I had to choose one album as a favourite, and that’s a really difficult thing to do, I think it would be “Beatles for Sale”- closely followed by “With the Beatles”. It reminds me of being a teenager and listening to it over and over on the record player on my Dad’s original vinyl 🙂

What a fabulous afternoon. We started, as always with coffee. Then we headed to Chantal’s workshop and got started. First of all today, Chantal showed me how the base is made for a hat like I have already made- like a pillbox style (photos at the bottom of the page!) It’s hard work but very satisfying. I haven’t any photos, unfortunately but, basically, you have to stretch and pin hessian, that’s been soaked in a gluey kind of substance, over a wooden hat mould. Big work aprons are a must. The hessian is obviously quite tough and not very malleable, and the hat mould is completely round. So to get the two to marry up with no creases at all takes a long time, skill and patience. To keep the hessian taught and correctly positioned lots of pins are hammered into place all around the hat mould and, of course, Chantal made the whole thing look really easy! I should have cut my nails before I went too because afterwards they were wrecked!

Once fully pinned the hessian is left to dry thoroughly so that when it is removed from the mould it retains the required hat shape. When I made my first hat Chantal had already done this bit for me, as drying takes more time than we had. But she wanted me to have a go at doing it so that I knew the whole process. Loved it!

Then we started to make my felt hat. I’m using a lovely dark purple and then we’re going to decorate it with bright colours- oranges and greens I think. It’s really physical work. The felt comes in a kind of basic, floppy, unstructured hat shape and it’s really quite thick. You then have to heat it up with steam and pull and stretch it to fit whatever shape of hat mould you are using. Once that is done you have to secure it to the mould and cut off the bottom bit which will then be used to make whatever shape brim you want- again using a hat mould. The two pieces will then be fastened back together, to form the basic hat, and decorated. Unfortunately, Chantal had had problems with her suppliers so the new purple felt that she had ordered hadn’t come and the one she had in stock turned out to be just a little too small to form the brim for my hat- however much we steamed and coaxed it. So, a bit of a shame, but it should arrive in the next few days and Chantal will mould the brim of my hat ready for when I go back on the 9th December. We can still use the top bit that I stretched though so that’s good.

Our work today was interspersed by looking at Amazon, and Chantal’s vast array of shoes! She’s introduced me to some very individual, and very colourful, designers of shoes and fabrics. I left the piece of paper that she wrote their names on in the workshop and I can’t for the life of me remember them off the top of my head. Watch this space…..

So, the big reveal of my first attempt at millinery………

What do you think? I’m really pleased with it. But I couldn’t have made it look anywhere near as good as it does without Chantal. I just want to make lots more now!

Chantal has invited me to go with her and Philippe to a local Christmas market on Sunday. I’m going to theirs for coffee at 2.30pm and then we’ll go to the market. Lovely 🙂

I had a very brief FaceTime chat with a very busy Jane this evening and then a longer, and very informative, one with Alison and James. I’m looking at doing the TEFL course and chatting with James was really helpful because up until very recently that was his line of work. Thank you very much 🙂

Bonne nuit 🙂