We Was Dapper!

Oh yes we were! See:


Dapper.
And was it fun? YAH it was!
We congregated as a dapper crew, and paraded our chapeaus to the Baskin Robbins. The short kid up in front there chose his own.

Teddy: strawwwbee. Stick please.
Me: Um, he means a cone of Very Berry?
Awesome Baskin Robbins Guy: Yep. A stick.

Anyway, after ice cream we went had a BOARD GAME SMACK-DOWN! Complete with trash talk,
"I OWN Taboo. Oh YAH? YAH! Hey, is it ON? I think it sounds like it's ON. Bring it!"
And that was fun too.
So what about you guys? Did you Dapper Hat? Do tell!

Millinery Yo!

OK, maybe actual millinery is a bit of a stretch, but you guys! I made a HAT! Want to see?

(yeesh the mirror is grubby. I'm going to blame monkeys. Rampaging monkeys. Who use a lot of hairspray? Yep. those ones.)

So, I've been thinking about making a hat for ages (since last Dapper Hat Day actually). I decided that if I was going to give it a go I should do it NOW, so I could wear the sucker for DHD if it went well (or pitch it and never discuss it again if it went badly).

I used this pattern from Martha


And as I'm not a tiny cherubic child, I blew the pattern up to 275% then hacked it about a bit. I used a few sheets of dirt cheap recycled plastic felt. And I made a muslin first. Want to see it?

Pretty hot huh? It's kind of, fleshy coloured. And my sweetie declared "YOU made a PECKER hat!" uh huh. I kind of did. Then I put ears on it. OK. Moving swiftly on...

Once I was happy with the basic shape of the muslin I took it apart, cut out the "real" felt, then pieced that together. I didn't bother with the zigzag stitch like Ms. S suggests. My hat has an inside and an outside. When that was done I simply tucked the raw edges of the hat under and top-stitched them. The I whacked a few decorative leaves on it and called it a night.

To recap:
One free pattern (I didn't even bother to print it, just traced it off the screen - lazy like)
+
about $2 worth of felt sheets
+
an hour
=
One kind of cute cloche hat*

For any actual milliners out there who are tutting and head shaking, I know that this isn't the real deal, but I learned HEAPS just by doing this. When I remake this hat, (which I totally will, they're kind of like crack) I will be using real wool felt. And I think I'll maybe interface it with woven interfacing to stabilise it. Maybe bang some grosgrain ribbon around the bottom on the inside? Any other hints would be awesome.

*and a creepy picture of me in a pig/penis hat on the internets for all the world to see. Bargain!

So Damn Dapper

You guys! you guys!
It's that time again!
The most suave day of the year! It's DAPPER HAT DAY! Wooo!
For those of you who aren't my ma or my sweetie (pretty much the only people who read my blog this time last year) then let me explain/recap.
Dapper Hat Day is a Holiday I made up last year. And it's super fun times. Here's the skinny from last year...

"This (Friday) 15th of October I declare to be Dapper Hat Day. The day where you wear a dapper hat and maybe go for an ice cream.

So you're probably thinking "riiight?".
but see, Dapper Hat Day makes perfect sense, and here's why:

Winter is coming and winter is lousy BUT it does give you the opportunity to wear hats. Celebrating Dapper Hat Day is, I purport, a nice way to look winter in it's steely-Grey eyes and say
"Yeh, whatever Winter. Check out my HAT"

AND this time of year wearing hats is still kinda novel and awesome and you don't have to concern yourself with earflaps or practicality or nuthing. Just the DAPPERNESS.

And how are we defining dapper?
Well that, my chums, is up to you. Any hat that you might look at and think "Man alive! This hat is dapper - as hell/all day long" Well then BINGO!
for example:

A toque*? Meh.
A toque with a FEATHER on it? GRACIOUS yes!

A 20 year old, sweat stained, Adidas baseball cap that I swear to God, SWEAR TO GOD I am going to "lose" mister? Nope.
A lovely trilby? You betcha!

AND we shall be celebrating Dapper Hat Day with a spot of ice cream. Because nothing says "In your eye Winter!" like seasonally inappropriate ice cream. If you'd like to join us well then you SHOULD! You totally totally SHOULD. We'll be parading our fancy Chapeau to The Baskin Robbins on Church at 7.00 and you could meet us there lovely (possibly imaginary) internet peoples!

Or you could stay where you are, pop a dapper hat on, choke back a little ice cream and take pictures to send me so I have a super happy. If you happen to be in say, Ireland or England, (HI Mama and Sarah!) you make the whole affair international and thus loads, loads better.

*Toque is Canadian for beanie. Also, lookit ma! I speaks Canadian!

So that's the deal and we're doing it all over again.
HATS! ICE CREAM! DAPPERNESS! Got the general idea? You are OF COURSE completely welcome to join us in spirit of in real life at 7.00pm right here (we'll be the folks in the hats, looking dapper.)

A Piggie Wheeze Birthday

Everyone in my house got the bacon lung. First me then my sweetie then the bear. It was not the most fun ever but it wasn't the GERM APOCALYPSE (run! run! save yourselves!) that our media has been promising.

I felt a lousy and went to bed early for a few days, and took some meds to keep my fever down and some honey for the cough that eventually turned up. Not fun. But not the end of the world either, and no time off "work" for me. (Why yes, I am bragging about my immune system a bit.)

My sweetie got sick the day before my birthday, (the Friday) we had some chums around for a few drinkies and had a nice time, and also accidentally infected them. OOPS. Andy groaned quietly into his beer.

By Saturday, he was in full swine swing, laying around on the couch and groaning like a consumptive Victorian. On my birthday.
Now, bearing in mind that we didn't really know it was the piggie wheeze and that I am kind of a monster, I was pretty horrible to my sweetie.
I was all, "Oh hey look, you have exactly what I did but with roughly four times as much whining. Poor you."
He was all "Hack. Groan. Whimper"

So I took my bear out for sushi and felt a bit sorry for myself. Le sigh.
BUT
I did get the to open and coo over my hat (again) want to see it?

And then my Bear got sick. Which is a whole 'nuther post.

Oh HAI!

Turns out when I said "tomorrow", in that last whiny post thur I actually meant "In exactly one months time".
Yep.

(oh hey an awkward silence!)

So, how the devil are you? Been doing anything fun? Like turning 3-stinking-1 and having the bacon lung?
I only ask 'cause that's mostly what we've been doing.

Firstly though, Dapper Hat Day! It was fun, there was ice-cream and enough sugar to induce slight nausea and the shakes.
That morning my chum Kate and I went shopping for chapeaus at Wildhagen, a hand-crafted hat joint on Queen st. It's lovely and it just happens to be above a ribbon shop, making it pretty much a perfect storm of establishments-that-I-am-into awesomeness. You should go. Right now.

Dapper hats were found and purchased. and lookit here they are in ACTION. The action of being hats...
Doesn't everyone look fine! and can we take a quick moment to observe how cute Kate is in that hat? See, ador-ibble!
there are a few more pictures here.
Notice that there's no picture of MY dapper hat? Well, here's why... my hat was my bird day present. So after I'd worn it that night I made my sweetie HIDE it. For reals.
I know it sounds a bit stupid but this way I totally got to SUPER enjoy it three times. Firstly with the shopping for it. Secondly at the D.H.D ice cream slurping and thirdly with the whole anticipation/present opening thing.
So dapper hats... fun times.

After dapper hat day came... THE TORONTO ZOMBIE WALK! Which gets a whole post all to itself. Because hey, it's my damn blog and I have a hour to kill while the bear is napping and I am avoiding cleaning the bathroom.

Dapper Hat Day!

He's ready! Are you?

This Thursday the 15th of October I declare to be Dapper Hat Day. The day where you wear a dapper hat and maybe go for an ice cream.

So you're probably thinking "riiight?".
but see, Dapper Hat Day makes perfect sense, and here's why:

Winter is coming and winter is lousy BUT it does give you the opportunity to wear hats. Celebrating Dapper Hat Day is, I purport, a nice way to look winter in it's steely-Grey eyes and say
"Yeh, whatever Winter. Check out my HAT"

AND this time of year wearing hats is still kinda novel and awesome and you don't have to concern yourself with earflaps or practicality or nuthing. Just the DAPPERNESS.

And how are we defining dapper?
Well that, my chums, is up to you. Any hat that you might look at and think "Man alive! This hat is dapper - as hell/all day long/like a red snapper" Well then BINGO!
for example:

A toque*? Meh.
A toque with a FEATHER on it? GRACIOUS yes!

A 20 year old, sweat stained, Adidas baseball cap that I swear to God, SWEAR TO GOD I am going to "lose" mister? Nope.
A lovely trilby? You betcha!

AND we shall be celebrating Dapper Hat Day with a spot of ice cream. Because nothing says "In your eye Winter!" like seasonally inappropriate ice cream. If you'd like to join us well then you SHOULD! You totally totally SHOULD. We'll be parading our fancy Chapeau to The Baskin Robbins on Church at 7.30 and you could meet us there imaginary internet peoples!

Or you could stay where you are, pop a dapper hat on, choke back a little ice cream and take pictures to send me so I have a super happy. If you happen to be in say, Ireland or England, (HI Mama and Sarah!) you make the whole affair international and thus loads, loads better.

*Toque is Canadian for beanie. Also, lookit ma! I speaks Canadian!