Hi, all! This is my first blog post ever, hopefully the first of many. A little background on me, and then to the real business!
I have been making historic clothes for a while, it's one of the things I enjoy most. My grandma taught me to sew when I was seven or eight years old and I've been hooked ever since. I made stuffed animals and doll clothes and pillows and basically whatever I could think of to make. Years passed and I grew up (well, I got older. I'm still not sure if I've grown up...) and sewing fell to the bottom of my to-do list. I was a double major in college and working three odds-and-ends jobs. I had hardly enough time to eat and sleep, let alone do any stitching. One of my majors was archaeology, and I ended up as an unofficial intern at Charles Towne Landign State Historic Site cleaning and cataloging artifacts. It was an awesome experience, and what eventually led to my interest in historic clothes. My supervisor got me in touch with the Education Department after hearing that I had enjoyed sewing as a kid and was interested in outreach-style work (which translates to "this person is destined for reenactments and living history!"). The guys in the Education Department gave me some 17th century patterns and told me to go nuts, and that is exactly what I did. Since then, I have made shifts, stays, bodices, breeches, petticoats, shirts, caps, coifs, kerchiefs, and anything else I can think of or find in a painting from whatever century has caught my fancy at that particular time (right now, that means late 17th century mantuas and knitted pockets). I found something that takes two of my favorite things - history and sewing- and smushes them into one fabulous, time-consuming, floor-covering, wonderful thing.
Backstory aside, the primary purpose of this blog-slash-store is to share the things I love with the world. I'm super passionate about what I do, and about making things that are as historically accurate as possible. I look at each thing I make as a bit of experimental archaeology, a learning opportunity. So not only do I want to share *what* I make, but *how* I make it as well. I want to share my trials and my errors and my progress and my most and least favorite ways of doing things. And if you happen to see something you want, you can order it exactly how you want it!
