I took a millinery class a while back with Laura Del Villaggio and made a fascinator (little cocktail hat/headpiece) incorporating the tiny collection of feathers passed to me by my grandmother and mother. Laura is very knowledgeable about millinery history, materials and construction and made the sinemay hat bases we used in class. Here is a photo of mine in progress, before stitching…
Put it on your calendar, Laura will be teaching this class again October 20th (in time for costume and dress-up holiday parties!), as well as a top hat class the same week (more info here, use ‘search by instructor’ pulldown > Laura.) I’d love to take the class myself, the samples I’ve seen are great.