passion A
for straw
Plaited straw, raffia, and a bit of woven Panama for good measure
by Leanne Fredrick
This article fulfilled a long- standing desire by the author to further explore straw plait. Nearly a decade ago a strip straw stitching course with Jane Smith at Morley College in London introduced how fun it was to work with wheat straw, making several lovely hats including a 1880s-style bonnet. It planted a seed
of wanting to make a straw hat from scratch.
After the strip straw stitching class with Jane, who has made thousands of strip straw hats, a group of classmates attended a two-day workshop with straw expert Veronica Main at the Wardown House Museum in Luton. Veronica has a different straw expertise in Swiss straw work and the steps for making straw plait. We had a brief lesson on how to do a seven- end plait (aka seven-straw flat plait or Dunstable plait). The idea of plaiting straw for a hat sat dormant for years, until the interviews and research for this article. While entire books have been written about the history and the ‘how to’ of straw hats, this article will share some knowledge and stories from a few international experts and helpful suppliers.
Straw experts In Ecuador, we speak with Mr Gabriel Finkelsztein of K. Dorfzaun, which crafts woven hat bodies for Panama hats and other styles. In Japan, we meet with Mr Katsushi Ishida and Ms Mayuko Aizawa of Ishidaseibou, known for their finely sewn hats made with thin plaits of straw. We next meet with two hat makers who design with a variety of fibres including wheat straw plait and raffia, and who for
56 | the hat magazine #93
decades have been moving hat design forward: Ms Lucy Barlow of Lucy Barlow Hats in the UK, and Ms Lola Ehrlich of Lola Hats in the US.
In addition to the above straw hat
experts, Jan Huss of The Straw Shop in California – who has a fascinating antique straw splitter collection which you can see on her website
www.thestrawshop. com – was a wealth of knowledge. Jan introduced Dianne Gardner at A Touch of Kansas, who sells the straw for plaiting, weaving and other straw work. The informative conversation with Dianne, and the following internet search, led to a membership with the National Association of Wheat Weavers (
www.nawwstraw.org). The national convention of NAWW was at the end of April 2022 in Folsom, California. Although not targeted for hat makers, they offered sessions on wheat weaving and plaiting. The NAWW also hosted a straw flower competition, in regard of which Raisa Ramanenya says: “Each of us adheres to the tradition. But do not forget that any tradition develops. We bring our ideas and the spirit of our time into it. We are the inhabitants of the tradition and its successors here and now.” Struggling to encapsulate the many ideas related to straw and hats in the interviews for this
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