Rewind to the Mad Hatters' Craft Party!

I'm working from our new Made In The Shade satellite office today. My living room. While spending some quiet time with the trusty computer, I came across a whole series of hidden photos of The Mad Hatters' Craft Party on our Flickr profile. "How can this be?" I thought. "We hosted the hat party nearly three weeks ago..." Turns out, we hosted, we made, we had a whole heap of fun - and then I forgot to tell y'all about it! Not like me, I know...

So. Let's rewind.

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One of our favourite aspects of having a permanent space to work from is the proper real-life contact we have with real-life people. We have great fun chatting to visitors and we love to get to know 'our regulars'. The Maisonette's like that. It's not so much a shop as a little tiny hub of activity. Even when the space is empty, we're still busy - making links, laying plans and coming up with ideas.

Anyway - one afternoon, we were visited by the charming Sabine Mitsch. As the conversation unfolded we learnd that Sabine made hats in her spare time. We arranged that she'd swing by some time to show us some examples of her work - and swing by she did. Having ooh-ed and aah-ed over her delicate and pretty designs, we began to hatch a plan. A Mad Hatters' Craft Party. We'd host a Mad Hatters' Craft Party.

Last month we gathered together a little group of enthusiastic crafty guests who huddled around our gateleg table to learn some basic hat making skills - taught by Sabine. Cocktail hats, fascinators, embelished headbands - Sabine encouraged the worshop attendees to experiment with luxurious silks, voilles, glamorous netting and a whole box full of pretty adornments to create their own item of handmade headwear :)