Last Saturday, I had planned a field trip to SF for some super vintage trim and ribbon shopping.  As it turned out, time was short for everyone, and none of us could make it in the end.  The silver lining turned out to be a trip to the Alameda Antique Faire on Sunday.  Our main shopping stop on the field trip was to visit the showroom of Jennifer Osner who is a collector and dealer of antique textiles and ribbons.  Guess what?  She had a booth at the Antique Faire.  This was so fantastic, because IT'S TIME to knuckle down on my hats for the 2018 Miss Fisher Convention.

I was also looking for some lower priced vintage hats that I could transform into the cloche styles inspired by the hats Essie Davis wears, as her character, Phryne Fisher, on the Show, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries.  Funny enough, I ran into Maria Chenut (Who is an instructor in my shop The Sewing Room and a friend of mine as well).  Maria has a booth at the Faire with vintage clothing AND, amazingly, HATS.  I had no idea!!!!  I found this Blue Felt hat (probably from the 1970's.  It's plain and will be easy to manipulate into the style that I want.  It only has a skinny pleather band that will be removed in a jiffy.

Still in Maria's booth, I found this burgundy velvet hat. The red hat pictured is a straw-like  beach hat, previously purchased for $2 from the local Salvation Army.   Both will work and will coordinate with different pieces I have in my plan. Thank you Maria! 

From Jennifer Osner's booth, I picked up some real treasures.  So excited to turn these two belt buckles into velvet ribbon belts. On the same note, I got several reams of velvet ribbon as well as some metal (tiny) heart-trimmed net and lots of velvet leaves.  To top off my haul at Jennifer's booth, I got a stack of amazing felt squares in beautiful colors, two turquoise ostrich feathers and a black velvet flower.

I'm still in the planning process for these four hats, so stay tuned for more.  In the meantime, you can watch this video to see the red hat in more detail.

Until Next time, Happy Sewing!

xo

Jennifer