If I Had My Own Blue Box:

Volunteers Please

You know how you procrastinate something, then have a brilliant idea at just the wrong time of year?

Well, I just had one of those moments.

I offered to talk with our Women’s History class about women’s work, both domestic and outside of the home. I do not want to do the same old boring presentation.

I want to give them a strong visual with a story.

This means I need photos of women working in the 19th century. Do you have a photo of yourself you would like to share?

I would love to include:

washing dishes
cooking
laundry
sewing
farm work – with animals, with crops, etc
seamstress
shop clerk
and more

I want to develop a little story to go with each image. For out of the house work, I will consult Virginia Penny’s Employments of Women for wage information and any other sources I can get my hands on for additional information. If you happen to know interesting facts I should share during your story, please let me know.

Thank you in advance!

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Monday’s Reading List

There are a few post out in Web-land I recommend reading. (Hmmm, maybe I’ll do posts like this more often.)

A local friend shared Challenging Visitor and Challenging Visitor Expectations, over the weekend. The post is a very worthwhile read for anyone who interprets history to the public. Even if you don’t do first person presentation, the author’s points are useful. The same author wrote an article on First Person Verses Third Person.

Caroline’s Pocket – A fiction author shares her thoughts on pockets as one of her new characters forgets her’s. She has a nice photo of a patchwork pocket from the Green Collection.

With the horrible local sadness this weekend, I find this post,Take Notice of Moments of Love, particularly well timed and touching.

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Dress Reform

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The Red Swap

I originally thought red was a good swap for February because of Valentines Day. As it turned out, with our cross country freeze, receiving the warmth of red in the mailbox was much needed.
Our red swap certainly shows the variety of reds we have to choose from.

We received a fun assortment of motifs from tiny to Lincoln. What perfect timing for Lincoln. There are a couple stripe motifs that just scream “I want to be a sewing case!” There are a couple I would like a dress length of, for me or for Mae.
I had wanted to share a couple Turkey Reds since I love the depth of their color so much. It seems they have fallen out of favor locally.
Next, we have our blue swap. Hopefully, by then we will all have the promise of blue spring skies overhead.

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The Green/Greene Swap

After much delay, I bring you the Green/Greene Swap fabrics. Life got more than a bit crazy in January. The February came with the deep freeze, insane snow and multiple record breakings. I fell way behind on, well everything. Once we got close to the red swap, I figured I should just post these back to back. I fear in the delay, I have lost track of which fabrics were which in terms of Green or Greene. Luckily, I had stuck some of the fabrics inside the book.
Here we are, our Green fabrics:

And, our Greene Fabrics:

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Dress Reform

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Dress Reform

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Dress Reform

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Dress Reform

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From Field to Fashion: The Straw Bonnet – Now Available Electronically!!!

From Field to Fashion is now available Electronically!

After several years of being out of print, I have decided to make From Field to Fashion: The Straw Bonnet available in an electronic format.

With the rising cost of printing, production reached a price that I do not feel comfortable passing along to my readers. In the new format, I have been able to price From Field to Fashion at a fraction of the printed price. My hope is this will make From Field to Fashion easily accessible as well as informative.

From Field to Fashion looks at the history of the straw industry from field to cottage industry, from factory to milliner, covering harvesting, drying, dyeing, plaiting, sewing, blocking and embellishing.

Please visit my Etsy store to order your From Field to Fashion.

New to Electronic Publications? Don’t worry, you are not the only one. Luckily, Etsy makes this easy. You purchase From Field to Fashion as you would any other ready made item on Etsy – Click the green “Add to Cart” bar. This will take you to the check out where you can easily pay with Paypal. Once your payment has been confirmed by Etsy, Etsy will guide you through downloading the From Field to Fashion PDF. You can then open the PDF on your computer to read there or print. I have even had a handful of volunteers test the PDF on their Nooks, Kindles and Ipads.

From Field to Fashion is a 46 page booklet with the following sections:
– Straw Bonnets and the Straw Bonnet Industry
– Straw, Harvest and Preparation
– Straw Plait
– Straw Cloth
– The Straw Bonnet Base
– Industry and Labor
– Finishing the Straw Bonnet
– Who Wore a Straw Bonnet When?
and an Appendix:
1 – Original Bonnets Online
2 – Bonnet Production in Massachusetts, 1855
3 – Millinery Establishments by State, 1860
4 – Straw Bonnet Shapes
5 – Fashion Quotes from Harper’s Monthly & Weekly
6 – Fashion Quotes from Godey’s Ladies Book
7 – Straw bonnet quotes from fiction
8 – Wheat and Rye produced, 1850 & 1860
9 – Straw Industry Statistics
10 – Straw and Bonnet Related US Patents