CROWNED WITH SOFTNESS
Shepherdess and milliner Ellie Langley makes felt bowler-type hats from the fleece of her downy sheep at her smallholding in the North Pennines
AT THE BOTTOM of a muddy track in Upper Weardale, high in the North Pennines, Ellie Langley sits in her workshop separating a soft mass of silver-grey wool into sections, ready to be made into felt. From the windows, Ellie can see across the garden, where ducks and chickens run free, to her 200-year-old stone house. In autumn, the surrounding moorland is bleak and windswept, but, inside the workshop, all is cosy, thanks to a glowing wood burner. The creamy fleece, draped over a chair, and bags of wool add to the warmth, while the two cats asleep on the floor provide a sense of peace and calm.
This small wooden building is overflowing with items accumulated over her years working as a feltmaker and milliner: there is a washing line strung with felt pictures, a group of felt dolls sitting in front of miniature drawers full of wool, and on the shelves are books, boxes, hat blocks and piles of tweed.
Ellie refers to herself as a feltmaker, hatter and shepherdess, but the animals were her first love. She and her partner have kept goats since their student days, when a neighbour offered to lend
the couple some to keep their garden down. “That was the start, and we ended up with goats and chickens, ducks and bees,” says Ellie. “Then I got my first sheep to keep the mother goat company when her son died.” Since those early days, the pair have moved house several times, but, for the last 15 years, they have been living on their smallholding in County Durham and now have a flock of 21 sheep and two goats, as well as five chickens and four ducks.
Home-grown materials
Ellie’s interest in feltmaking was a natural progression from her interest in sheep and wool. She was attracted to the craft, as she liked the idea of making something out of a material which she had produced herself. “I enjoy making felt, but I don’t make it just for the sake of it; I make it because I grow the wool,” she explains. She first started feltmaking after taking a course in Edinburgh 19 years ago and soon began making a range of felt objects, including simple hats, tea cosies, rugs and scarves. “To begin with, everything I made was practical and functional, as I wanted to make useful things. It was all about sustainability and a responsible use of resources.”
Four years ago, Ellie decided she wanted a slight change of direction and began thinking about making ‘proper’ hats. “I wanted to make crowns out of my own wool and brims out of tweed that I ultimately would weave myself,” she says. With this in mind, Ellie completed a short millinery course at Leeds College of Art and then spent a year developing her new hats. Their shape is modelled on a traditional bowler, but with the curling brim more often seen on a top hat. “I like the upturned brim, as I think it’s a more pleasing shape, so I have combined two different elements: a bowler crown and a topper brim to make my own style,” she explains. The crowns are made out of felt, from Ellie’s sheep, and the brims are made from tweed, which provides a nice visual contrast to the smooth felt, both in terms of pattern and texture.
“Softest clothing, woolly, bright”
William Blake, ‘The Lamb’
Making the crown
The making process starts with the felt ‘hoods’, which will form the hat crown. Ellie uses a semi-circular plastic template to make them. She covers the template with fine layers of soft carded wool, gradually building it up until she has eight layers in place. She then scatters a few soap flakes onto the wool. These change its pH, opening up the tiny scales on each fibre so they tightly interlock with each other during the felting process. The soap also lubricates the wool, making it easier for Ellie to work. She then sprinkles the wool with water and gently begins rubbing the damp material with her hands, applying friction to bind the individual fibres together and turn the wet wool into felt. As she works, she folds the wool around the template, sealing in the edges. She then turns over the template, repeating the same process on the other side so it is entirely covered with wool. Once this is finished, she cuts a slit in the base of the felt and removes the template, leaving a dome of felt: the ‘hood’.
Once the hood is finished, it is stretched over a wooden hat block, which effectively acts as a mould. Ellie’s blocks are made to order from Guy Morse-Brown, one of the few British companies still hand-making traditional hat blocks. The blocks are made from sustainable European lime wood, which is soft enough for Ellie to pin, but firm enough to retain its shape when the pins are removed.
The crown block is covered with buckram. This is a stiff cotton, which will support the softer felt when the hat is finished. The buckram is tightly stretched over the block and pinned in place. The felt hood is then placed onto the buckram and steamed over it: the heat binds the two fabrics together. The buckram and felt are then sewn together using a millinery needle, finer and longer than a normal embroidery needle. All the stitching is done using cotton, rather than polyester, thread, as Ellie is keen to make sure that her hats are made from natural materials as far as possible. The layer of joined felt and buckram is then carefully removed from the block. It is now a shaped hat crown and is ready to be sewn to the brim.
LIVING OFF-GRID
Ellie and her partner moved to their house, a former lead miner’s smallholding, 15 years ago. It was not connected to the mains electricity, and so the pair decided to opt for renewable energy, and installed a wind turbine and solar panels. These provide all the electricity needed, although Ellie does have a back-up generator for when there are long periods of grey days and no wind. Lighting and appliances such as laptops require relatively little energy, but Ellie tries to run the washing machine and use her steam iron only on sunny, windy days. She cooks on a wood-burning stove, which also provides the central heating. “We wanted to have renewable energy, as we like producing our own things,” she says. “It’s about sustainability and having a connection with the environment and the planet.” Ellie is a keen gardener and in her previous garden grew lots of the family’s food as well as an extraordinary 180 different varieties of herbs. When she moved to Weardale, she had planned to do the same, but the house is 1,300ft (396m) above sea level, and the high altitude and windy location means that growing vegetables is rather a challenge. “The growing season is incredibly short here,” she says. So, instead of gardening, she now concentrates on her sheep; relishing the fact that she is self-sufficient in wool.
Adding the brim
Ellie’s hats have brims made from tweed. Her initial idea was to weave the tweed herself, using her own wool, but as she is a relatively slow weaver, she is using tweed woven by a weaver in Cumbria for the time being. He uses some of Ellie’s wool combined with other local wools. One of the tweeds he has made for her uses brown and cream wools from her sheep; woven through with a thin stripe of dyed green wool from a Bluefaced Leicester sheep from Cumbria.
The hat brims are made using a ring-shaped brim block. As the brims consist of two layers of tweed, with the buckram in the middle, Ellie first covers the block with a layer of tweed, stretching, steaming and pinning it in place, before repeating the process with a layer of buckram and a second layer of tweed; so creating a tweed and buckram ‘sandwich’. The layers of material are stitched together and then taken off the block to create a circular brim. Ellie sews millinery wire around the outer edge of the brim, which helps the hat keep its shape. A further strip of tweed is stitched over the wire to make a neat edge. Next, she sews a band of Petersham ribbon around the inside edge of the brim. This forms the sweat band and also covers the stitching. The brim is then stitched to the crown and the decorative band of tweed stitched into place on the outside of the hat. The final step is sewing in the organic cotton poplin lining.
“Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat, and a little bonnet like a jockey-cap, and altogether had the appearance of a strong-minded woman”
Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford
Versatile hats
Most of Ellie’s hats are bought by women. She has had requests from men to make a trilby-style hat, so, in the past, experimented using a trilby block, but was unhappy with the results. “You can wear my hats in different ways,” she says. “They can either sit on top of the head or can be pulled right down, so one hat can fit different-sized heads, but the trilby is less versatile.” However, some men do buy her hats, and recently she had an order from a customer who plans to wear his when he judges sheep at a show.
Ellie is happy to make hats to order and particularly enjoys it when a client specifies which of her sheep’s wool they would like their hat made from. Sizing can be difficult, but she can make different sizes using the same blocks, by varying the thickness of the tweed and adjusting the tension when stitching the Petersham ribbon.
Ellie’s hats take her 25-30 hours to complete. It is a long process, but one that clearly gives her a lot of satisfaction. “I enjoy creating things from scratch and using materials I produce to make them,” she says. And she takes particular pleasure in the sewing. “Because I have been a feltmaker for so long, I have started to see its limitations, and I just love stitching. But when I go back to making the felt again, I really enjoy that too, and I remember what I love about feltmaking: using the beautiful wools from my sheep.”