I could not figure out where the hits were coming from, but looky here: Research for Reenactors links to some previous posts here (in the days before Frivolous Friday).
If you are a beginning reenactor, or someone who wants to refresh your presentation, I think this librarian’s guide is a good one. There’s excellent logic in the tabs and good suggestions. Thank you, Laura, for including me, and for such a wonderful resource.
Gentle Readers, would you be writers?
You can join the fun this year by providing mail for the HMS Acasta‘s mail bag at the Jane Austen Festival. Maybe you can’t go, but why shouldn’t your letter?*
Read more here about the suggestions for types of letters, and the characters to whom you may write. It’s on my list of neat things to try to get done.
*Hot tip: Jo Baker, author of Longbourn, will be there. Creative writing, author talks and dressing in high-waisted gowns? Why am I not going? (Because I have too much to do in July!)
Or is it evidence of pockets?
In any case, I thought it time to upgrade my pockets, since I have given so much attention to the rest of Bridget’s clothing. I have also been talking with a colleague about a pocket game activity, similar to the process I’ve used in thinking about Bridget: what is in your pocket? If I’m going to try that out in public, then I’d like not to be embarrassed about my pockets.
The first pocket I made was based completely on one in the RIHS Collection, and it annoyed the daylights out of me as it had exactly the same loop on top and twisted around under my petticoats, making the opening hard to find. I also realized that it was too small to be really correct for a woman’s pocket: those tend to be larger. Sew 18th Century has a really nice article on pockets here.
So I made a larger pocket based on this one at the Met, and made of a grey and cream striped linen with the slit bound in red calico. It’s dated to 1789, and technically that’s too late for my uses.
But the next one is too early.
Well, it has survived this long, and Wm Booth has that lovely shell print cotton, so what’s a sister to do? Pockets don’t take much fabric, so making a matched pair of printed pockets seems the thing to do.
Now the question is, what should be in those pockets?
Photos from the George Washington Birth Night Ball are finally available, and presented here for your entertainment. You can read a more comprehensive overview of the event here, on Sew 18th Century’s blog. Bonus: extra pictures!
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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