Teresa Bouchonnet sits at the worktable in her sunny studio folding purple-dyed material called sinamay into a strip. She tucks the sharp edges into an interior fold, trying to avoid getting cut and having her hands look like she’s been, as her milliner friends say, “wrestling a tiger.” Later, she’ll sew the strip onto the wide brim of a hat. As she works, she thinks of her grandmother’s talent for stitching by hand. One day, she wants to be that good with her own needlework.

Teresa Bouchonnet, a fifth-generation textile artist, calls her studio her “happy place.” photograph by Tim Robison

All around Bouchonnet are treasures she has collected or made. Like the looms in the middle of her studio. Her parents used them for decades before they got older and moved on to other crafts. And the spinning wheel in the window. Her great-grandmother used it to spin cotton. And, of course, the hats — some brightly colored and flamboyant, some reserved and casual. Bouchonnet makes hats out of sinamay, straw, and wool felt, often with hat bands she weaves herself. She believes she is the only milliner in the world who weaves her own hat bands.

As a milliner at Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center in Franklin, Bouchonnet is carrying on a family tradition that dates back at least three generations. As a weaver, the tradition started with her great-great-grandmother — maybe even further back. As for Bouchonnet, she got her start as a maker during her childhood while living in various parts of the world. But her journey to becoming a milliner began when she came back to her birthplace, the small town of Franklin.

• • •

During part of her childhood in Virginia, Bouchonnet would sit beside her father and watch him weave as she untangled knotted nylon yarn and wrapped it around a spool so he could use it to make pocketbooks. On visits to her grandmother’s house in Shelby, her grandmother would teach her how to sew clothes. Throughout her childhood, she watched her mother and grandmother make hats for church because they couldn’t afford to buy them.

As she got older, she no longer just observed — she began to make. In high school, her father moved their family to Germany during his stint with the U.S. Army, and her mother showed her how to craft her first hat — a pageboy style that she wore on her senior class trip to Amsterdam.

At her loom, Bouchonnet uses a shuttle to weave fabric into a design. Weavers call it “throwing the shuttle,” a technique Bouchonnet sees as calming as meditation. “If I’ve had a hard day,” she says, “I can come out and weave, and it’s very relaxing.” photograph by Tim Robison

Bouchonnet has lived in so many places it’s hard to follow. She rattles off names of countries and states in no apparent order — Germany. France. England. Washington State. But after living abroad and in other states as a child, she returned to Franklin. She attended Southwestern Community College and, after finding few job opportunities in the ’70s, joined the U.S. Air Force in 1976. She ended up liking the Air Force so much that she decided to become an officer and attended Colorado Women’s College to receive her commission. She began working in government contracting and dealt with manufacturers that supplied the Air Force. She later met her husband while stationed in Spokane, Washington, and when she got pregnant with their son, she left active duty and became a reservist.

After retiring from the military in 1996, Bouchonnet started her own consulting business and met with textile manufacturers in North Carolina helping local mills stay open by becoming suppliers of the military. She saw her work as creative because she had to find unique solutions to many problems. But she also saw herself as a textile artist, and her work didn’t fulfill all her creative needs. The pull to make things, she found, was still in her blood.

Bouchonnet inherited her passion for hatmaking from her maternal grandmother, Frances Allen, (top photo) and mom, Juanita Lee (far right, bottom photo). Both made their own hats to coordinate with their Sunday church clothes. Photography courtesy of Teresa Bouchonnet, Photographed by Tim Robison

Bouchonnet had begun teaching weaving while in the military, and after her husband retired in the 1990s, the pair moved back to Franklin. But something was still missing. She wanted to follow in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother, so in 2015, she signed up for a millinery class at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown.

Now, she says, “I’m addicted to hatmaking.”

• • •

Bouchonnet has had operations on her left and right thumbs to relieve her arthritis, and she uses CBD cream to lessen any lingering ache. Today, she no longer feels much pain in her hands, and at age 70, she can work on hats for four hours before she needs to give her hands a break.

Bouchonnet, a member of Inspiring Creative Milliners Group, has completed a yearlong program with Millinery & Business Academy in England. She also has attended millinery workshops and international millinery classes and plans to one day teach hatmaking. She wants to spark the joy she feels in creating hats with a new generation of milliners.

Miniscule stitches and carefully assembled patterns demonstrate Bouchonnet’s artistry. photograph by Tim Robison

Bouchonnet currently teaches weaving classes at Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center. She also offers free classes for veterans and mentors her son, Christopher, in sewing. He sews his own garments as part of his involvement with the Society for Creative Anachronism, an organization in which members wear period attire from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and participate in activities like archery and fencing competitions. Christopher often seeks his mother’s wisdom when sewing, asking her questions about seam allowances and fabrics. “I think that if you don’t share your skills,” Bouchonnet says, “then that could be lost for future generations.”

When weavers come into her studio for classes, the first thing they see are her hats: A blue-and-white racing hat with a spiral extending upward and a green silk flower. A cream-colored royal wedding hat with an upturned brim and Bouchonnet’s handmade satin flowers. A turquoise, wide-brimmed Audrey Hepburn-style hat with a black sequined band and bow.

Each one of Bouchonnet’s uniquely personal creations takes about two weeks to make. Often, her ideas come in dreams. Once she finds that spark of creativity, her fingers get to work. She makes each hat completely by hand, often weaving the material herself, then stretching it over a block to create the shape.

Bouchonnet makes hats for all occasions using an array of fabrics she makes herself, from sinamay to wool felt. Sinamay is made from the processed stalks of abacá, a type of banana plant native to the Philippines, and it’s three times stronger than cotton and silk. photograph by Tim Robison

In the back of Bouchonnet’s studio, she keeps a white cotton coverlet that her great-great-grandmother wove as a wedding gift for her daughter. Near it lies a blue coverlet that Bouchonnet’s mother wove. “When you look around and you see things that they made, then it’s part of you,” she says. “And so, by having these things in my room, I’m sharing a part of them.”

Sunlight streams in through the windows onto the heirlooms Bouchonnet cherishes. At her table, she sews a band to the inside of a hat with stitches so small they’re nearly invisible. The work is meticulous. She loses track of time. She listens to books on CD to help her concentrate. She sews on.

In her hands, a work of art materializes.

For more information, visit coweetextiles.com.