Giving Thanks With the Pauls

Paul is in the kitchen about to cut into the largest onion I’ve ever seen.  Round two of breadcrumbs in the oven.  With a turkey from Diestral’s sustainable family farm provided by AK Meats on Clement street, we are preparing  feast.  Tonight we gather travelers, musicians, theatre and film fanatics, bikers and hikers to sit down and give thanks to each other, those they love and to this world inwhich we live.  (It’s not all bad and sometimes its hard to remember that).  So here it is.  This year lets make a vow to challenge our habits, sustain a steady pace of growth and to love those we are surrounded by.  I also want to give thanks to those not able to be with us on this day.  You are as important to our spirit and ways as those we often see.

Yes i am sewing the turkey shut

Hat Flash Mob Video!!!!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Sunny!

2 cups of coffee in

We have footage of Paul’s Hat Works’ Flash Mob in Union Square, the first one ever in 2009!!! Put together by Chris Knox and Ali Cotrell, geniuses of filming and editing and make the Pauls seem mad. Thanks to them!!!! Check out more work by them!

Watch mini film here!

 

~ Paul

Top Hat Premier

Folks, Fellas, Ladies, Gentlemen, Lovers of Fine Attire, and Tuxedo Wearers,

The time has come for the 2009 Top Hat Premier at Paul’s Hat Works!

Tuesday, December 1st we will host an open studio during our regular shop hours, 11- 7, and then spice things up with a gala from 7-10.  The gala will have  film projection, holiday drinks and wine.  Please dress your best, and come shmooze with some hat lovers!

New extravagant Christmas themed window displays will be up, and the shop itself will be transformed into a winter wonderhat land!

Another Satisfied Customer

The B Garden!

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Sunny but chilly, prospects of fur

About to put on a pot of coffee…

The B Garden, as it is named for now (B for Brennan our gardener, or in the context of we’re growing a whole bunch of busy bees) has been a project since we first bought the shop in June. In case you weren’t aware, behind the hat shop there is a pretty sizable back yard, and as our yard at our real home isn’t fit for anything to grow, we have happily projected our fantasies from the house to the hat shop. However, as it stands, all of us combined can’t keep a succulent alive, so our chum Brennan is designated life guard of our plants. He started clearing and weeding what was out there when we got it in June, and proceeded to plant things here and there. A great effort, but with all of the renovation projects they kept getting trampled. Poor Gardener B. Then came tearing down the big staple infested green house. Even more of a wreckage in the backyard. That was six weeks ago, and some of the pieces still littered the garden. So, at our last meeting (which we have every Monday mornings at Joe’s Diner), I put my foot down and said “We must gather our energies next Monday and clean up this garden for Mr. B once and for all.” The Pauls completely agreed, and so, this morning, we donned our dirty clothes and got the good deed done. Hurray for that! It looks great now, and is a nice clean slate for Gardener B to start with. So, hopefully this upcoming weekend of the 21st and 22nd, we can work on the layout of the garden.  Here’s all the things our backyard must contain: A table/shed area to harden top hats, a seating area with brick patio for watching movies, a vegetable garden, trees (that are already there), and flower and shrubbery areas. The vegetable garden is something we hope other Richmond Community members can participate and partake in.

As our funding for this portion of the hat shop is limited, we are trying to gather the following resources for building raised beds, a patio, and things we need for growing:

1. Bricks

2. Red wood in any shape for raised beds. Or other wood that will work, preferably not plywood

3. Soil/manure

4. Miscelaneous gardening tools

5. Shade loving plants and flowers

6. Seeds or seedlings for vegetable garden

7. Suggestions!

Anywho, if you want to help or have any of these things shoot us an email at howdy@hatworksbypaul.com

I’m very excited to see it all come together!

This Bee reminds me of Brennan!

~ Paul

 

HAT FLASH MOB PICTURES ON SF WEEKLY ONLINE!

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Sunny

1 cup of coffee

We had a very successful hat flash mob in Union Square yesterday that many fine people in hats attended! Best of all though, lots of our photographer and videographer friends came too! Among the photographers, Hanna Quevedo, a friend and amazing photographer, took photos and put them on SF weekly’s online site! Check them out!!!

THANKS TO HANNA FROM ALL OF THE PAULS!!!

This is Hanna in our Robin Hood Hat!

~ Paul

The hatters get madder

14 November

Many cups of coffee between the two Paul’s.

REMINDER: HAT FLASH MOB. SUNDAY (TOMORROW), NOVEMBER 15TH. UNION SQUARE. NOON. COME. WEAR A HAT FOR TWENTY MINUTES. BE A PART OF “BRINGING THE HAT BACK.” BRING YOUR FRIENDS, THEIR FRIENDS, AND THE STRANGERS YOU PASS ON THE WAY!

The hatters get madder, and madder.  Last night the Paul’s attended a charming party where the theme was “wear a hat.”  It was right up our alley of expertise!  Other partygoers were surprised and intrigued to meet “real hat makers.”  The #1 question asked seems to be “are you really mad?” or some variation of the mad hatter reference.

All of the Paul’s answer yes emphatically.  It’s as though we are proud, even excited to share our growing eccentricities and quirks.

Here are a few:  one Paul is quoted as saying “I think we should go into hiding for an entire year.”  When asked how this would be possible, it seemed that painting the hat shop windows black and staying inside the shop was the obvious answer.

Another Paul is getting really into talking to herself out loud while scrambling around to look for all of the things she has magically lost.  She lost four pencils in less than twenty minutes just today.

The ONLY thing we eat is tacos.  Three of the Paul’s had tacos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner yesterday!

We wear surgical masks while holding 20 pound irons in our hands, giggling to the music of man man floating down from upstairs, wondering when we’ll see the outside again, and seeing how many deadlines we can set and finish this week.

~See you at the hat flash mob,

Yours truly,

Paul

 

Making Hats & Learning Skills

Friday, November 13, 2009

Sunny but chilly

First cup of coffee in days!

It’s Friday the 13, and I just completed our hat inventory. We have made somewhere between 70-80 hats since we purchased Paul’s Hat Works. That’s something to feel accomplished about I believe. We have lots to go, many top hats to make and finish before December, another felt run this week, but thus far, I’m pretty excited about what we have been able to accomplish, and about the new skills we have learned and will learn.

Skills We’ve Learned:

1. Making straw and felt hats

2. Making top hats (still learning)

3. Renovating, sizing, cleaning, straw and felt hats

4. Deciphering lawyer jargon in contracts

5. Learning to organize systems and managing many deadlines and calendars

6. Inventorying, budgeting, calculating

7. Building, painting, scraping, staining, electrical wiring

New Skills We Want to Learn to Benefit the Shop

Wendy:

Spanish

More Accounting & Quick books

Sewing

Abbie:

More electrical

Metal working

The complexities of hardening hats

Olivia:

Spanish

Photoshop

Boaters (eventually)

Accounting

Kirsten:

Theatrical hat brims

Spanish

Top Hat mastering

Women’s millinery

 

It’s amazing how much one can learn in 6 months. Good thing we have a lot of time left!

~ Paul

 

Hat Flash Mob! And Thirsty for Hat Movies!

Sunday, November 9th, 2009

Dark at 5:00 pm!

Want some coffee

So two things this week, first: Thirsty for Hat Movies Thursdays, featuring The Sting! Great film. Secondly, a Hat Flash Mob on Sunday in Union Square! We want to fill the square with people wearing hats, looking nice, and doing normal things, so we can take photos and prove that it’s possible to go back and embrace some old traditions! We are trying to bring the hat back and make life what it used to be prior to 1960: Nobody left the house without wearing a hat. We are only asking for fifteen minutes of your time from 12:00 until 12:15 in the afternoon, come to Union Square, have a cuppa coffee, read the paper, chat with someone, wear any old hat you like! We will be bringing a cart of hats for people to throw on if you don’t have one and all you have is a baseball cap. *cough*

Let’s Bring the Hat Back! Please come!

P.S. If it’s raining it’s automatically canceled!

~ Paul

To the Undertakers with love, Paul

I’d like to recap October.  It started with our Felt hat premier, meeting the Taylor Stitch Gentlemen, going to new places like the Presidents Cup, theatre shows, floods, pop up parties,  Disneyland, pumpkin carving, costume sales, documentaries.  Amidst all the activities the Pauls had been attending community art meetings to plan and build the best Haunted House on this side of the Golden Gates.  Sandwiched between all these events we found ourselves building 7 feet tall cardboard trees, painting 100 continuous feet of white bed sheets, and transforming spaces.  This year was the most difficult for this Paul who found the Haunted House to be another full-time job.  Next year I will not take on as much responsibility.  Despite the mad rush and working into the wee hours of morn right up till the last hour, the House doors were open, children of all ages old and young, first timers and veterans waited in line.  The Really Really Big Bad wolf on 7-feet  tall stilts gave them a good fright. The front of the line listened to Alice tell tall tales before the descended down the slide and into the belly of the book where the hauntees faced angry fairy tale Authors and characters.  I won’t give it all away but really there are too many tales to tell.  The group that puts on this event collaborates throughout the year planning.  There are many different people working on this events that come from all over the bay area with different backgrounds and areas of expertise.  Why do we do this?  Because this is a right of passage giving people a chance to face their own fears, get scared and come out of it laughing– well most of them and it’s fun to scare people.  I want to take a moment to thank every individual who has been a part of this group.  Thank you for showing me community, thank you for teaching me about responsibility, thank you for being dependable.  Thank you for sharing in the joy of creating and destroying spaces, inviting the community to share in our fun and fears, and putting Halloween and the Richmond district on the forefront of our priorities each year.