Category: Thanks

Good Help is Hard to Find

On By kittycalashIn Events, Living History, Museums, Thanks8 Comments
Esther helps Mrs Smith with her bonnet
Esther helps Mrs Smith with her bonnet

Esther Hudson here has a terrible fascination for knittin, and an abundant fascination with sheep.I fear sometimes for her sanity, as she spends much of the evening sketchin cats on her slate and showing em to me. Cats, sheep, and knittin are much of her conversation and I wonder if she will ever be settled in a home of her own. I durst not send her away, as her father is at sea, and knowing what might befall her, given her simple ways, I think it best to keep her close. She is fond, as you can see, of dressin, but refuses utterly to quarter a fowle. She will beat a fine pound cake, but the coarser tasks of the kitchen she finds distasteful, preferrin to dress the ladies’ hair. Of her future, I do sometimes despair.

Mrs Smith and Miss Smith
Mrs Smith and Miss Smith

My cousin, Miss Eliza Smith, has donned her new dress to come up to town from her beloved Newport to see about a position. The family with whom she has found employment these many years has suffert in that city’s decline since the late war, and she seeks a new future in Providence. She writes a fine letter, and with excellent references, Miss Smith would be well suited to manage a household for Mrs Brown’s youngest daughter, the recently married Mrs Mason. Miss Smith seems also to steady Esther, whose conversation grows more sensible when she is not with me. Perhaps after speaking with Mrs Mason, Esther, Eliza and I can slip away to enjoy some of the newly pickt apples she has brought up from Rhode Island.

Mrs Smith, ready for some ale
Mrs Smith at day’s end

At the end of a long day filled with visitors– every stage has stopt at our house, some mistaking it, I think, for that questionable establishment operated by ‘Mrs’ Mary Bowen on South Main Street–I was ready to remove my soild apron (thankfully Esther has a spare) and venture down the hill to seek refreshment with my frinds. I may chanst to hear some news of the Ann & Hope, bound for Canton, and on which my son is a sailor. Or perhaps, before the light fails, I may read a bit of Mr Defoe’s most moral tale, Moll Flanders, and think in gratitude that my late husband’s family has seen fit to give me employ. I cant read at home, for if Mrs Brown catchs me readin that book agin, I will surely be trouble.

(Top photo thanks to the Providence Journal; bottom two thanks to Sharon Ann Burnston, our Mrs Brown)

Getting Better, and Giving Back

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Living History, Thanks2 Comments
Mr Cooke, Mr S and the Young Mr.
10th Mass fittings: Mr Cooke, Mr S and the Young Mr.

There is good, if slightly terrifying, news about how to get better at sewing. It took me two years to get to a decent place, but this sped up considerably in the past year because of the weeks when I sewed for 30 or 40 hours a week. This business is about practice, looking, and patience … and also asking for help. Some of the help you can get online, some of the help you can get from whatever human is handy, and some you need a master for.

The Rhode Island pair, pattern by me based on Mill Farm breeches.

Online tutorials have saved my bacon: I make gowns with Koshka’s tutorial handy because after intensive menswear, I forget how this gown business works. The random human help I get comes from Mr S, who patiently takes photos as I try to fit backs or see what’s wrong. Trust me: you cannot see your own back in a mirror, so take a photo, or get someone else to. The masters who have helped me are Sharon Burnston and Henry Cooke. From both of them I’ve learned how to look and how to think about historic costumes. Sharon’s workshop really helped my sewing, and watching Henry has taught me a lot about fit. Also from both: patience.

When it came to Mr S’s overalls, I needed a professional bail out. Mr Cooke offered to help after watching me basting the things at MMNHP, and here’s what I wrote in reply:

[the] overalls have reached a rather bad place, and are now only half-basted on the legs after a third fitting attempt. He appears to have lost more weight. The fit in the seat confounds me, and when I get one leg right, the other twists. Your help would be deeply appreciated…

In the end, my basting was ripped out and Mr Cooke sat on the floor and basted the overalls on to Mr S. The process took a bit more than an hour, during which time Mr S became very familiar with the curtain material in Mr Cooke’s workroom, and realized that it was identical to the curtains he’s had as a child. This memory transported him back to a childhood trip to Williamsburg, when he yearned to be one of the costumed interpreters at CW. It was a transformative afternoon for Mr S and his overalls.

Now that they’ve been worn, I know that I need to:

  1. Adjust the waistband and seat
  2. Add a leather strap under the foot
  3. Finish the in-and out-seams (with fit proven, felling can begin)
  4. Switch ankle buttons from plain and RI mix to all plain or 10MA
  5. Take a pattern from the legs!

There is hardly any seam allowance over Mr S’s single-speed bike-riding-up-hills calves, so a pattern from the legs would make the next pair that much easier. He has two pairs, so why should I bother? Because he will undoubtedly wear these out doing as many belly crawls, stream fordings, nettle bush tangoes and other light infantry activities as he possibly can. At some point, mending will cease to be an option.

So how would I pass on the lessons I’ve learned? In some ways, by writing honestly about the struggles and successes in getting these things right, and to let you know that practice really does make a difference. It’s also become clear that maintaining an open, curious mind willing to accept criticism and new ideas will make you a better sewer, and maybe even a better living historian/reenactor…dare I say person?

Happy Anniversary

On By kittycalashIn Events, making things, Thanks10 Comments
The studious fair, Lewis Walpole Digital Library. 767.00.00.12+
The studious fair, Lewis Walpole Digital Library. 767.00.00.12+

WordPress was kind enough to point out that I’ve been blogging here for a year. Thanks, WordPress. Almost 200 posts later, what do I think? More to the point, what do you think? You can tell me in the comments.

Here’s what I think:

Pretty dresses are showing up on costume blogs as people get ready for Dress U, and I feel so very not shiny.  I feel the way I felt when my mother made a pretty blue and white and pink roller print robe à la Française for a classmate to wear as Mrs. Washington or Mrs. Jefferson in the 5th grade play in which I played Sam Adams.

And I look back at what I’ve written, and I realize that I’m never going to have that pretty dress until I figure out who is wearing that dress, and why. It’s about the research, about the narrative, about the documentation. It’s a curse, but it keeps me writing.

That, and some desire to be as busy as I can manage to be. Even with classes to prep for Dress U in four weeks, two men to outfit for Monmouth in six weeks, I still signed up for a weekly Wednesday night writing workshop this month.

What can I say? Life is good. Thanks for reading. Here’s to staying interesting for another year.

B-u-c-k-e-t. It’s Boo-KAY.

On By kittycalashIn Thanks
Fire bucket (American), late 18th-early 19th centuryLibrary Company of Philadelphia. Photo by Peter Harholdt.
Fire bucket (American), late 18th-early 19th century
Library Company of Philadelphia. Photo by Peter Harholdt.

Ah, Hyacinth. She’d know what to do, but instead you have me, so no hand-written thank you note or letter-press card. Instead, buckets of thank you-s.

First off, thank you to Caitlin of Cursewords and Crinolines for nominating me for A Very Inspiring Blogger Award. And, um, newsflash, thanks to The Choll at Thread-Headed Snippet as well for a second nomination. Motion carried in a bucket. And wait, I’ve really been slow, so thanks are also due to Laura at An American Seamstress for a nomination.

This means a lot to me. I am not one for mush, though oatmeal is a fine default meal substance, and one of my favorite historical quotes is from a long-forgotten pioneer narrative, said by an elderly mother when her daughter got married [I think to a Mormon]: Now we’ll get our gruel reg’lar. My mother and I have said this to each other for decades, and she may have said it to me when I told her I was engaged. We may have laughed like maniacs.

More bucket love. The kettles are nice, too.

But I really enjoy writing this blog, reading your comments, and learning. It makes my day when a reader gets an answer, a new idea, or sees that they’re not alone. And let’s just say y’all help me get through some less-than-silken fantastic days, and I learn a lot along the way. You make me a better blogger, so thanks to You, Gentle Readers, too!

This is all so late now that what I’m going to do is say Thank You Very Much Indeed instead of carrying on the round robin of blog nominations.

Here are five blogs I enjoy checking in on. Perhaps you will enjoy them, too.

Blogs I Like That You May Like, Too.

  1. Silk Damask
  2. History Myths Debunked
  3. It’s About Time
  4. Spitalfields Life
  5. Tracy Loves History