- My name is Rose Monzyk, and I'm a milliner, and I make ladies millinery, which is a fancy name for ladies hats.

I think I enjoy making hats because I've always loved fabric.

I started sewing when I was about seven, making doll clothes.

And when I was about nine or 10, Mom started letting me use the sewing machine.

The very first one was a doll hat, and I had a piece of felt that Mom gave me from something, and I shaped it over a little fruit bowl, and it fit my doll just perfectly.

I find the time of the cloche in the 1920s and '30s very interesting.

And then the hats that were made during the '40s.

I mean, I love all of those.

And you can see my work kind of lends itself in that direction.

The felt hats are probably the most of what I do.

That's probably where my biggest following is.

And I love the feel of the felt and working with it.

And I work a lot with sinamay, which is a natural straw fiber made from the abaca plant.

I also do what are known to be fascinators, which are basically either on a headband or on a little tiny cap that just kind of sits at the side of the head and is more freeform.

And I use a lot of fabric.

The different parts of a hat would basically be a crown, which is the part that fits on the top of the head, and then a brim, which could be anything from a little tiny brim that just kind of goes at an angle to, I have some this big, so it can be anything in between.

So, when I use fabric, I'm using what we call Buckram in between the layers of fabric, because the fabric would be real soft.

And so the Buckram gives it the body.

And so I'm making a sandwich.

That just needs to be wet.

The water will activate the sizing in the Buckram, and adhere them together as they dry.

And I always use two or three layers and stretch each one, one at a time, over the block, and pin it down so that as it dries that it doesn't pull up and start to wrinkle.

And I also have what we call blocking cord that goes around it and also helps hold everything together until it's dry.

In the case of the wool felt, I first would dampen it a little bit, and then I would put the sizing in it and put it back in a plastic bag till I'm ready to actually use it.

And then I'd hang it over the top of my steamer.

So the steam goes up inside of it, and when it gets real soft and pliable, then it's ready for me to stretch over the block.

So when I'm blocking it, there's excess fabric hanging over.

And then when it's dry, then I trim the excess off, and then it starts to look like a hat.

The next step would be I need to make a crown for each of them.

So if it's wool felt, sometimes I block crown and brim all in one.

Sometimes if I want a different color brim from crown, then I'll block them individually.

The sinamay is, I always block crown and brim separately.

Then I have two pieces, a crown and a brim.

And at this point the brim is flat on top, so you can't fit your head in there.

So I cut a hole in it, which I have guides to go by for what head size I want to use.

And I don't cut it all the way out.

I leave a little edge inside.

I put little clips into that to go up to that head size, and those clips, that gets folded up like a tab.

And then those little brim tabs get stitched into the crown.

So when it comes to decorating the hat, sometimes I see the hat finished in my head before I start and I know exactly what's going on that hat.

Sometimes when I get the brim and crown together, then I start getting a feel for what it should be embellished with.

I tend to make quite a few of my embellishments, like I would make felt leaves or flowers.

I make little petals cut out of the felt and join them together.

When I'm using sinamay, then generally I tend to think of those as being more like Kentucky Derby hats.

So I use little more embellishments on that and would tend to use something that has more poof to it, that's bigger, makes more of a statement.

Hats are really making a comeback, and it's just a joy to see.

And I have good clients that send pictures of themselves, you know, dressed up for church with one of my hats on.

And I love that, because since I feel like the ideas have come from God, I'm happy that they go to church.

(laughs) I always say, God puts 'em in there and I pull 'em out.

It's just like something comes out of my brain.

I don't know where it came from.

You know, it's just there.