And — my first Cape Cod-inspired hat, too! Bringing the “sea change” at MAGGIE MAE DESIGNS® quite literally, to fruition.

A Personal Story

Cranberries are personal to me. Our family home on Cape Cod was situated next to a deserted cranberry bog. My sister and I rode stick horses through the winding paths, urging our charges to jump water filled ditches they almost never cleared. Escorted by our family cats, it was an endless wonderland of cranberries, pines and vegetation.

Years ago, I brought my Canon SX60 one day to watch the annual cranberry harvest at Jenkins Bog in Harwich. I had never actually been to a harvest. I was hooked, and became a fan of this annual Cape Cod tradition like so many others before me.

And as you might imagine, I was the keeper of the cranberry relish recipe in my family, too! 😉

Honoring the Cranberry’s Rich Cape Cod History

For over 12,000 years, native cranberries were harvested by the Wampanoag tribe for food, medicine and fabric dyes. The kettle holes left in the glacier’s wake offered the perfect acidic peat bog recipe wild cranberries love. Early European settlers are credited with renaming the berry, the “Crane Berry” because the springtime blossoms bore a resemblance to the head and bill of the Sandhill Crane.

In 1816 sea captain Captain Henry accidentally discovered that the layers of sand that covered his field of cranberries from a fierce storm actually made them thrive as never before. And covering fields with sand became part of the cultivation. Toward the mid to late 19^th century, the cranberry became an economic lifeline for many Cape Cod families. With maritime trade, whaling, and shipbuilding on the decline, cranberry farming stepped into the breach and provided economic stability. It also inspired a sense of festive community pride with an annual autumn harvest tradition that to this day attracts people to Cape Cod.

Yet times are changing, and a new chapter has begun here on Cape Cod. Changes in climate, out-of-state competition, labor shortages and rising tariffs have prompted a forward-thinking “green exit strategy” between unlikely partners. Cranberry farmers are selling their land to conservation groups so that historic wetlands can be restored, or “re-wilded”. The benefits of this collaboration to the land are enormous: cleaner water, coastline protection against storms and erosion and new habitats for wildlife.

A Cranberry Hat for MAGGIE MAE DESIGNS

Given my personal story and my interest in Cape Cod history, I suppose it was inevitable that cranberries would inevitably inspire an idea for a “polka-dotted” fascinator design!

Cranberry “Polka Dots”

I was in the middle of an idea for painting my white silk shantung button “polka dots” in shades of autumn when the idea came to me. What could be more seasonal than a chapeau trimmed with Cape Cod cranberries!? I took the white buttons, painted them in several cranberry colors with acrylic paint.

I then took a round fascinator base and covered it with bold green silk dupioni that reminded me of cranberry leaves.

Cranberry Vines

Now I needed swirling cranberry vines. I took some of my cotton embroidery thread and tossed it on top of the green silk-covered fascinator. The curling threads looked like vines already! I carefully stitched them in place using an embroidery technique called “couching” and was totally thrilled with the result.

For a final touch I added a cranberry red silk dupioni silk lining and an elastic for attachment.

And Now for the Finishing Touches…

Our photo shoot down by the sea with the new design went fine. Still, there was something missing. It bugged me for days until I came up with the idea for two small green silk dupioni “leaves” to accent the cabillou…

…and a bit of cranberry hat veiling. My “Berry” design was ready for her Kodak moment!

The Photo Shoot

Because this was my first ever Cape Cod-inspired design, I decided that “Berry” needed a new location for her debut. And what could be a better spot for her than one of our favorite salt marshes?

We got some amazing images of Berry in my hands…

…as well as along the water’s edge at low tide.

On another day, just before a nor’easter was due in I modeled the Berry at the same location. Surrounded by Spartina grass, the wind and the sea beyond, this moment could not have been more special.

Legacies and New Beginnings

It truly is possible to appreciate and value the rich history of the mighty berry, while still realizing that it is now time to restore the land back to its original salt marsh ecosystem. I can enjoy the cranberries that still grow here, wild and commercial, and continue to appreciate their place as a Cape Cod legacy.

I’d like to think that I, too, am now a part of Cape Cod cranberry history. By creating a hat to honor it, MAGGIE MAE DESIGNS® is helping to celebrate that history as well as welcome its new chapter.

And personally, it has been a thrilling experience creating my very first Cape Cod-inspired hat design that celebrates the history of our Cape Cod cranberries. The Berry represents a new beginning here at MAGGIE MAE DESIGNS®. I hope that she will be the first of many, many more Cape Cod-inspired hats to come!

For further reading….

Audubon website – Ecological Restoration of Retired Cranberry Farmland

Robert F. Smith Cold Brook Preserve – from the Harwich Conservation Trust (HCT) website

Marstons Mills – Cranberry Bog Eco-Restoration project

NOAA Fisheries website – Returning a Cranberry Bog to a Thriving Wetland

The New Bedford Light, April 22, 2026 – How a Retired Cranberry Bog Helped Change the Game for Wetland Restoration

WGBH, May 2026 – How Did a Small Bitter Berry Become the Backbone of Massachusetts Agricultural History

Inside Climate News, October 2025 – Cranberry Farmers Consider Turning Bogs Into Wetlands

CBS News November 2025 – Massachusetts Cranberry Farmers Choosing to Restore Their Bogs Into Wetlands Amid Economic Headwinds

The Provincetown Independent, November 22, 2022 – When Cranberry Fever Came to Provincetown

Captain Freeman Inn, July 2019 – The History of Cranberries on Cape Cod

New York Times, July 4, 2017 – The Re-wilding of a Century-Old Cranberry Bog

Cape Cod Life, 2016 Annual publication – A Brief History of the Cranberry, Cape Cod’s Most Important Fruit

I would love to hear from you. To share your thoughts, simply click on the journal title at the top of this page to join our conversation! ~ Sally Faith Steinmann

The post “The Berry” – A Cranberry Fascinator appeared first on MAGGIE MAE DESIGNS®.

Just in time to celebrate the Autumn Equinox!

But there is something very different about these three designs that sets them apart from the rest of the Polka Dot Hat Collection.

These three vanguard styles are far more than just polka dot inspirations.

They are polka dot creations directly inspired by Cape Cod flora and fauna!

In a previous blog, I shared how years ago I discovered the world of wildlife photography while we were caring for my aging mother. Being out with the wild ones in their world became my sanctuary. Suddenly I was in a place apart; rejuvenated by all the beauty surrounding me.

When I returned to hatmaking full time again last year, everything was different. Because I was different.

I could no longer simply create new hats each season for all the special occasions. Or to satisfy the Pantone color charts. If I was going to continue making hats they would have to mean something. Be inspired by something that was personally important to me.

So I started asking myself, As a fiber artist, what feels meaningful to me? What inspires me?

The answer was a simple one – Cape Cod.

My passion for the natural world of Cape Cod that I have always known and that fuels my photography was the same inspiration I now needed to tap into for creating my hats as well.

Talk about a sea change coming for this Cape Cod milliner! 😉

In the meantime, I got the idea for an interim collection of polka dot hats. A stepping stone project that would give me the time I needed to experiment. I needed time to play with some new millinery techniques that I would need for the Cape Cod hats.

Yet as is often the way, the creative path can sometimes take an unexpected turn.

That turn came when I decided to take my new polka dot hats down to the sea to photograph them. Surrounded by the crashing waves, the swaying dune grass, the Willets calling and the white-tailed deer bounding through the dunes, I began to see polka dots everywhere. This time, in the very flora and fauna of Cape Cod!

Grabbing my sketch pad, I roughed out an idea for a cranberry fascinator. I could just picture those round crimson berries in the deserted cranberry bog in back of our Cape Cod home when I was growing up.

Then, a fascinator with seafoam bubble “dots”, like the ones I see as the tide’s coming in along the saltmarsh.

Next came a design for a Spotted Sandpiper with its chocolate speckled belly as it teetered along jetties and the edges of the saltmarsh.

I had known that a big change was coming at MAGGIE MAE DESIGNS, but it had most certainly come sooner than expected. I needed to get going on these first three styles — so I could get started on the tidal wave of new ones coming along right behind them!

In the coming days as I share these three Cape-themed chapeaux, I’ll be highlighting the story of their interconnection as well. Let’s just say that the relationships between these three particular hats… go much deeper than their polka dots!

And to think that the original polka dot hat idea kickstarted it all! This stepping stone collection, quite literally has connected-the-dots for me as an artist. And led me right to where I needed to be, all along…

Happy Autumn Equinox to one and all!

I would love to hear from you. To share your thoughts, simply click on the journal title at the top of this page to join our conversation! ~ Sally Faith Steinmann

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Polka dots are timeless. Like Audrey Hepburn. And on a more personal level, they remind me of the beautiful round stones I used to pick up as a child along the edge of the sea…

As an artist, polka dots invite experimentation. They invite, play! And play, I believe, is one of the essentials for creativity. We need to learn how to be children again; to rediscover the art of playing with abandon. With no thought of rules, or timelines, or expectations.

THAT is what polka dots have taught me. To let go of “the way I always do things”.

To reach out, instead, for a new way.

So when the idea came to me to head down to the shoreline with my finished polka dot hats I asked myself, Is this crazy?

Yet as a nature photographer, being by the sea, in the woods, along the saltmarsh… these are the places where I am the most content. Where I find the most powerful inspiration for my creative life as an artist.

So, I thought… Why not go down to the seam with the polka dot hats. To see what might come of it?

And so, I did……

I would love to hear from you. To share your thoughts, simply click on the journal title at the top of this page to join our conversation! ~ Sally Faith Steinmann

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A conscious leap into the unknown…

A leap that pushes me to explore fresh, challenging approaches to design, craftsmanship and presentation.

I just had no idea that POLKA DOTS would be leading the way! 😉

I would love to hear from you. To share your thoughts, simply click on the journal title at the top of this page to join our conversation! ~ Sally Faith Steinmann

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And yet — all part of this new artist path that is slowly bringing my professional and personal worlds ~~~ together.

I would love to hear from you. To share your thoughts, simply click on the journal title at the top of this page to join our conversation! ~ Sally Faith Steinmann

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A delicious stillness filled the morning saltmarsh this Labor Day.

A lone Snowy Egret sharing a tidal pool with a Great Blue, was foraging madly; building up fat stores to fuel its journey south…

While further along the trail young turkeys gobbled to one another under pine boughs.

And Common Reeds danced to the music of a gentle sea breeze.

The stillness broken only by the whistling of a Greater Yellowlegs in the distance, calling “kew-kew-kew”.

As if telling me, “Get busy, get busy, it’s time to immerse ~ and CREATE!!!“

I would love to hear from you. To share your thoughts, simply click on the journal title at the top of this page to join our conversation! ~ Sally Faith Steinmann

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Each new chapter in my journey as a fabric artist has required a departure from what is familiar. This conscious leap into the unknown has pushed me to explore fresh, challenging approaches to design, craftsmanship and presentation…

Years ago I picked up a camera to take with me on my nature walks here on Cape Cod. Through the camera’s lens I saw my native home with fresh eyes. It awakened my spirit and reconnected me to my childhood days by the sea where I played in the deserted cranberry bog behind our home and in the salt marshes next to the sea. Those experiences changed me forever.

Last year I realized I had a new mission as a fabric artist: My future millinery creations had to embody and celebrate my connection to the natural world and connect my parallel worlds of millinery and nature.

This spring I got an idea for a hat collection with a polka dot theme. It was serendipity! I love polka dots! I had featured this pattern in my hats since I started my custom millinery in 1998. Polka dots are timeless. They invite experimentation, and play. And they reminded me of the beautiful round stones I picked up as a child at the edge of the sea.

Yet the seminal moment came when I had my finished three of my new polka dot hats in my studio. I felt compelled to bring them all down to the sea with me, along with our cameras. There, for the first time, my hats were exposed to the same natural wonders that I see through my camera lens. Released from the studio, they were suddenly surrounded by the land, the sea and the sky.

Just as we began shooting, several deer appeared from out of the dunes. Stepping out onto the shoreline, they stood by the sea, sniffing the air; then turned around and ran back into the dunes where they chased one another through the grass.

For me it was an astounding, poetic affirmation that I was on the right path. That by stepping away from the methods and routines of the past, a whole new adventure lay before me to explore.

As a result of this encounter I experienced my own hats in a different way during subsequent photo shoots. I fell in love with how the sunlight fell on the materials. How the shadows from different angles brought out the drama that only polka dots set against a sea of blue can achieve. Back at work, in my studio, I saw my trims for the next hats became simpler. More stylized. And much more playful!

Creating this new polka dot-themed collection has challenged me as a milliner. I am now searching for ways to translate what I see in nature through my lens into textile form and connect the dots between them. This process is ushering in a veritable “sea change” for MAGGIE MAE DESIGNS. I hope that you will join me on my journey as I honor this Cape Cod world that I love through my connected passions of custom millinery and nature photography.

I would love to hear from you. To share your thoughts, simply click on the journal title at the top of this page to join our conversation! ~ Sally Faith Steinmann

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