Work Day

I thought I'd write a little about some of the sewing going on here lately. For Sewing Hour Elisabethe and Abigail are learning their stitches beginning with the running stitch. I start the smallest beginners, they are 4 and 6, by stitching on plastic canvas using yarn and blunt tip needles. They are greatly proud of their newly learned skills, I don't have to pressure or force them at all. I think it's so sweet that they want to be like their Mama and Katie! Tabitha is still working on her tea towels, Rebekah is knitting with the loom and Katie is finishing up the trim on her new grey bodice. I have been working on a corded sunbonnet. It will have 4 sets of 6 cords each with quilting between the sets and is mostly handsewn.

A slightly better shot although you still can't make out the quilting. It's a chain design.

Asa's Amber Teething Necklace

I have wanted an Amber Teething necklace for a long while now, but not having a teething baby I couldn't really justify a teething necklace. Actually, *I* could have, Mr. G however...... Anyway, Asa has been teething for quite some time and having a miserable time of it. He is *such* a big baby. :-) So, I finally got to order the necklace! When I first heard about these I thought it was complete bunkum; I mean, give me a break, how can amber beads kill pain? But a gal whose Father is a pharmacist said that there is indeed science behind it, amber was commonly added to medications because it is an analgesic. Far be it from me to dispute science. I guess it's fairly commonplace to use them elsewhere in the world and they are catching on here amongst crunchy folks. I got mine from Tiny Birds Organics, a nifty, thoroughly crunchy, Texas based company who appears to be sold out of the necklaces right now. :-/

I blogged about my Robert Land boots here. They are size 7B in great shape and I'd like to sell them or barter for them. They are $140 new and I'd like $85 for mine. Hopefully I can find a new home for them since we won't reenact anymore.

Syrup season is almost upon us and we're gearing up for a (hopefully) great year!

Prepare yourself to be amazed!

Prepare yourself to be amazed, for I, yes even I, have in fact knitted something. BE IT KNOWN: that the person formerly known as Not-Quite-A-Real-Woman-Because-She-Can't-Knit (snicker, snicker) has decided that though living vicariously through the knitting genius of others did in fact afford some benefit, the loss of self respect and perpetual whining got too tiresome and has, therefore, met its Waterloo.

So, without further ado, introducing my combination dish cloth/wash cloth. :-)

You might (or then again might not) remember that I couldn't purl, so I endeavored to learn this wily stitch through a book that I've had for about a decade. I *do not* learn well through books (that is such an understatement) but I can't watch YouTube videos and none of my knitting friends would consent to fly here and tutor me so I was forced to man up (so to speak) and just learn it already!

However, *this next part is spoken in a small hushed voice*, I'm afraid that I didn't do it right. The opposite side is a mirror image of this side, can that be right? I tried to call a friend this morning to ask her, but naturally people can't be at home when I have momentous and Earth shattering questions about knitted dish cloths. What I thought I was doing was knitting 2 rows and then purling 2 rows, but the rows that look knitted on this side appear to be purled on the opposite side and the purled rows here look knitted back there, so I'm figuring my jubilation is in vain.

Any help or suggestions are appreciated. :-)

Well, darn it!

When I was hanging up laundry yesterday I happened to notice the deplorable state that Mr. G had let his socks slip into. He's only had these socks a month, but they were so foreworn that I mistook them for his old pair. Since they are wool and cost $9 a pair they are prime candidates for darning. Here is a step by step tutorial for anyone who would care to add this forgotten skill to their arsenal of frugal living tips.

Step 1: Find a forlorn pair of socks in need of some TLC and a ladle. I don't have a darning egg and the suggestion of using a lightbulb seems unwise. If you happen to get a little slap happy with the darning needle you might be tempted to say something a bit more robust than "darn it".
Step 2: Place the ladle in the sock to give yourself a good surface to work on, the fabric should not be so tight that it's stretched.
Step 3: I like to begin by taking running stitches around the rent, about a half inch out from the hole, to stabilize the tear. Not everybody does this but it makes it easier for me to keep my stitches even. Leave a 4-5" tail trailing, you will weave this in later.
Step 4: Begin sewing the warp threads using a running stitch. When you come to the rent just take a long stitch over it and continue with the running stitch on the other side.
Step 5: Now you can begin to weave the weft threads over and under the warp that you've just created. Try to make your stitches lie close to the row below. I've purposely woven loosely here to give you a better picture of what you're trying to accomplish.
Step 6: Weave in your ends, tying creates uncomfortable lumps so weaving is preferred. I darned this sock in "Northern Ireland" colors so you can see better.
The completed sock with a new lease on life! :-)

What do you *need* to be content?

As so often happens, a variety of things happen or are said and the result is a blog post so that I can sum up my thoughts on the subject. I've been pondering "Godliness with contentment is great gain" and "having food and raiment let us therefore be content". That last one is pretty sticky, isn't it? :-) If you had food and clothes and shelter and nothing more, would you be content? Some of the things that sparked this line of thought.

1. Somebody wrote a letter to the editor in a magazine I subscribe to basically saying that if you can buy superfluous items then you aren't caring enough about starving, homeless or suffering people in your community. Wow. That's a sobering thought.
2. A neighbor that we've met a few times dropped off 7 blankets here today, that's a nice thought. We have enough blankets for our beds but no extras, everyone has 2 sets of sheets and that's it. No extras. But they had enough extra that they could afford to give away 7 like new blankets.
3. One of the meme questions had to do with our clothes (how much is homemade and how much we have). The girls have 4 dresses each, petticoats, and a pinafore or 2, the boys have 3-4 shirts and 3-4 pairs of pants/overalls. They have a Winter coat/hat/scarf and socks and that's it. We don't have closets full of clothes that we don't wear. There are several reasons for this: since I sew the majority (not overalls, socks or underwear) of what we wear and there are 11 of us, we're never going to have "too many" clothes as I simply can't sew that fast. :-) Secondly, I truly believe that it's unnecessary and an account will have to be given of why I wanted more when I knew that others didn't even have enough. Again, that's a pretty sobering thought. Historically you'd be looking hard for any but the very wealthiest families to have any where near what most people consider necessary today, why do we need so much?
4. And this is the biggie. We've been without a van for over 2 years, that means that we don't go places as a family etc. It's been really hard, I mean really. I had my hopes set on buying a van when we got our taxes back but circumstances conspired to make this impossible. I was so disappointed but I started to ponder whether we needed a van or not. I came to the conclusion that we don't. We aren't going to die without it, so while it's a nice luxury, it's not a need.

I may have mentioned Martha Ballard before, but it ties in so I'll bring her up again. I own and have read her diary several times and I recently learned that the diary in its entirety is searchable online. I searched for "beans" and found out what varieties of beans they planted etc. I searched on "knit" and read about what and when they knitted. If you read her diary you will quickly notice how full her days were and how industrious their family was. They worked hard to provide for their needs and I think they were better for it. I'm not sure that our glut of leisure time really benefits us, I'm afraid it only serves to further the disconnect between us and those around us. Who cares about their neighbor anymore? Do we know (or care) who raises our food or makes our clothes? I'm troubled by these thoughts. I don't expect that you will have the answers, but I just wanted to get this off my chest. :-)


The diary is available here.

2 dresses and a scarf

Happy Tuesday everybody! It's rather cold and cruddy here and I'm definitely longing to be out of doors, but Spring is almost here! The days are lengthening as we notice, especially in the evening, when more chores can be done before lighting the lantern. We have been going about our days as usual with nothing very outstanding happening. This seemed like a good time to post about Rebekah's 1840's dress since I got a good picture of her in it combing out Abigail's hair today.

Abigail is wearing a dress that Katie just made her. In true 1860's fashion Katie tore apart one of her own gowns that was badly faded, turned the goods inside out and made a new, little dress for her sister. It has plenty of growing room and the colors look almost new.

As per Mrs. R's advice, I bought a knitting loom and Tabitha just finished this scarf. It's all wool and would have been longer had she not run out of yarn, but as it is she wears it as a shawl or shoulder cape. She is excessively proud of herself (Mom is too!) and her first completed article!

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time there was a woman named Cheryl Lindsey who was the editor of a magazine called Gentle Spirit. The magazine promoted homesteading/head covering/home birthing/home schooling/back to the land gardening etc and I enjoyed reading about their big family and their lifestyle. Well, to make a long story short, when the "truth" of the matter came out it was discovered that the family was falling apart and they no longer did many of the things that they wrote about. And the readership was outraged. They were incensed because somehow the Lindseys had deceived them, had disappointed them, didn't live up to the ideal that they had promoted.

I have enjoyed writing my blog, I like telling about our lifestyle, but I'm afraid that somewhere along the way the point has been lost that I'm a real person. I didn't wake up from a hundred years sleep, stumble into this life and decide to blog about it. I *do* have an antiquated life that I *have* chosen because I enjoy it, but I don't exist to serve the "lifestyle". Rather, the "lifestyle" exists to serve me. I have no intention of living in a living history museum and the minute that I don't love what I'm doing or another idea seems better, then I will drop this lifestyle and do something else. I'm not a slave to it. I don't have to (or want to) make sure that everything is period correct, I live in the 21st century. I want to take what I perceive as the best of the past and sculpt my own life from then and now.

I have posted nothing that isn't the truth, but just because I grind wheat to make bread doesn't mean that I always do. I (or somebody here) cooks the majority of our meals at home, but that doesn't mean that we never eat out. I like Chinese as a matter of fact. I do sew a lot of what we wear, but that doesn't mean that there aren't store bought clothes here. We have and use kerosene lamps, but not always. I have an automatic washer and an electric stove.

I admitted that I sent Mr. G out for a Mountain Dew (and drank it for breakfast no less) but let's keep it in perspective, It's a MOUNTAIN DEW for crying out loud, I didn't become a crack ho for a day.

I'm just a real person, living a real life, with real temptations and struggles. Don't deceive yourself by thinking that, somehow, I have all my ducks in a row more so than you do. Yes, you can probably learn something from me, just as I can and have learned things from you and your life. I love my life and I'm glad that you like to read about it, but I don't want it to turn into a prison sentence. I hope you can read this in the sense that I intend it (which is nicely and humbly) because I'm dismayed that my day yesterday provoked such disillusionment in some readers.

My Daily Labors

My day begins around 5:30 when I dress in quaint, old fashioned garments and slowly walk to the barn to milk the cows. I skim the cream immediately and grind some wheat to mix with the freshly rolled oats to make a homemade, farm fresh breakfast. I gently awaken the children and we sit down and lovingly gaze at each other over our morning's repast.

Ha Ha Ha, not really. :-) What actually happened is this:
Asa is a complete crab, I don't know if he's teething or what but he's up every hour and a half all through the night. I feed him at 5 and fall back asleep. The boys come in from milking at 7 and I wake up then. Mr. G takes crab-o and I must have fallen asleep again because when I next look at the clock it says 8:00. But not to be misleading, I'm *not* a morning person anyway, I never have been.
The children eat baked oatmeal with apples and cinnamon, I, however, eat peanut butter/chocolate cookies and drink a Mountain Dew. Seriously. Your whole image of me is blown now isn't it? :-)
9:00- I start a load of laundry and run a bath for Elisabethe and Abigail. Since we don't have central heat that means that the bathrooms are unheated. I never wash the girls' hair in the evening because it's just too cold in their bedrooms. In Summer though I like to wash their hair right before bed because they stay cooler that way.
10:00-12:00- we start school and I don't do much else during this time but help, explain, check answers, listen to their reading, prod the unmotivated etc
Lunch- Mr. G makes burgers and fries and while he's cooking and Asa is napping I fiddle with the undershirt pattern that I drafted.
1:30- the mail comes and in it is the undershirt that Mrs. B made for Asa! I try it on him but he will *not* act cute so I can take his picture. :-/
The original undershirt from the Wisconsin Historical Society is pictured below. It's knitted wool with straps.

I tried the undershirt on Abigail and it fits her, so this seems to be a garment that he can wear for several Winters! Woo Hoo!

2:00- I cut out an undershirt for Asa. The original (pictured below) has no side seams, just that one seam in the left front from where they used remnants pieced together to make the undershirt. It is finely woven cotton, I'm using handkerchief weight linen and it's bulkier.

I'm happy with the finished product all-in-all, but maybe I'll do some in batiste and see if that lays nicer. Also, I shirred the neckline up too much in the pictures, it looks better when left looser.

4:00- I check e-mail and hold the baby while Katie starts supper. I read several stories to the little girls.

4:30- Mr. G messes with the fire and then leaves for work.

5:00- Supper and then the boys head out to do the chores that require daylight. Locking in the chickens, hauling water to all of the animals, feeding the pigs and bringing in wood. I take Asa in for his bath.

6:00- Asa is out of the tub and I hand him off to the younger girls while I make tomorrow's breakfast, breakfast pizza. The boys finish milking, come in and strain the milk and set it away to cool. BTW, you can't skim the cream immediately, it has to rise first. :-)

7:00- I lay down on the couch with Asa and nurse him to sleep, he wakes up around 7:45 and Katie takes him,but before I can get up Elisabethe and Abigail come and climb in the covers so we snuggle for a while.
8:00- I read several chapters of our current read-aloud, By The Shores Of Silver Lake.
8:30- children head off to bed and I rock Asa to sleep and try to catch up in Les Miserables. Mr. G, Aleks and I were all going to read it together,but Aleks liked it so well that he flew through it and is finished already. I read about 100 pages tonight.
10:00- Mr. G gets home, Asa wakes up and starts crying. He settles down around 11:15. I climb into bed, very, very tired and immediately fall sound asleep.

This concludes my very exciting day, now what did you do?

Homegrown Underwear Ad

I'm a wool lover, I think there's nothing better than a body clothed in wool for warmth. We have wool socks, wool petticoats, wool caps, wool gloves and mittens, and everybody has a wool coat. I wanted to buy the boys wool longjohns for Christmas, but the best price I could find was $25 per top or bottom. The thought of spending $150 to outfit 3 boys in wool was sobering and in the end I didn't buy them. My parents had the wonderful idea to check their Army Surplus store and they found wool longjohns for $3 a piece! They bought 6 sets because the price was so good, mailed them out to us and today they came!!!

They also found nice, thick wool socks and sent them as well. Also included were tons of socks for the girls and some hometown newspaper clippings, it's good to have Grandparents to love you! Thanks Mom and Dad!

A New Gown and a Quilted Bib

I had to revise Asa's gown pattern again to allow more room, especially through the tummy. His blue homespun that I recently made is too snug, plus the sleeves are getting tight and short and the shoulders were too narrow. So a new pattern was necessary! This gown is a red/brown Delft print, not period correct but I like it. :-) It is cut *really* roomy, so maybe this will be the last pattern alteration needed before Spring. I had him weighed at 12 weeks and he was almost 17 pounds then, so he is pushing 18-20 lbs by now. He is also getting very drooly and needs something absorbent to catch the run-off. I have admired this bib from the Wisconsin Historical Society and used it as inspiration for my own quilted bib, they date this one to 1830-1869, it's quilted white cotton with tassels.

I hand quilted the one I made for Asa and though I really like how it turned out, it was rather labor intensive.

It was also my first attempt at making tassels. They came out OK, not award winning or anything but acceptable for a first try, I think. I wish he had a whole slew of these but I'm going to need a quicker option, the quilting alone took 4 hours so the whole thing was a 6-7 hour project. Now, if I could machine quilt, that would be a different story........ :-)

Rebekah's 1840's Dress

This was another "get it done for Christmas" project. I don't particularly like 1840's fashion but the fabric is an 1840's repro so....... Rebekah had picked the fabric herself and though it's a bit bold, I think it turned out cute! It was supposed to have tucks in the skirt, but she wants it to be long so I left them out. We talked about bretelles but then decided not to, so it's staying untrimmed as-is.

Levi & Micah's hats

I'm trying to catch up on my backlog of things to post that I've been sewing. I made these caps for Levi and Micah for Christmas, they are corduroy on the outside and lush, ultra thick checked flannel on the inside. Inside they have a quilted (100% cotton of course) layer for extra warmth. They have quilted earflaps too that can be tied over the top. They aren't actually pointing guns at each other, by the way. :-)

Abigail's 1820's gown

Abigail was first on the list for getting a new gown as she has the fewest, although Elisabethe did nicely offer to give Abby all of her old gowns and then she could have a new one instead. :-) I wanted to make the gown as a companion to mine but with somewhat smaller sleeves. It has the wide neckline typical of the period with some cotton lace basted in, I wanted to make a lace frill but the lace was too clunky to frill well so it's just basted in flat.

For this era the armscyes aren't dropped very much compared to the 1860's and the sleeves are set in without rotation, matching the sleeve seam to the side bodice seam. The waistline is still fairly high and the skirts are long, lower than mid-calf. The outer waistband is cut on the bias, whereas the inner waistband is cut on the straight grain to minimize stretching. The sleeves are gigot, although very tamed down and they too are cut on the bias. This is an exceptionally simple style to sew and I'm very pleased with how graceful and feminine it looks.

It's always a great event when someone gets a new gown, everyone admires the lucky recipient and then the discussions start on who will be the next one to receive a dress. They like to watch while I sew and note the progress, a sure incentive to make haste! I'm amused (I *am* easily amused I should note) that it never occurs to them that dresses can be purchased. Here it's a great flurry to choose fabric and trim, they are conversant on armscyes, the merits of silk or cotton ribbon, soutache braid, bias trim and the differences in sleeve styles. I think it's great but then I did confess, I'm easily amused. :-)

Elmer Fudd in the buff

Fashion is a funny thing.

I'm sorry, I can't resist. I've been envisioning this picture for a while, but our camera has been under the weather, today it mysteriously resurrected itself and I jumped at the chance to capture Asa in his "work coat and cap". :-) Katie made them for him for Christmas, the cap matches Levi & Micah's that I made. The coat and cap are flannel lined and the coat fronts are cut on the bias. The flaps tie on top of his head for the true "Elmer Fudd" look.