Warmer clothing needed for colder weather

Tags

18th century clothing, hand sewing, historic clothing, living history, Ox Bow Tavern, sewing projects

Do you ever find that you want to make one garment and you start making that one garment and you rather enjoy your time with needle and thread? Your mind imagines the finished item and how it will look at this oh so wonderful event in the future. Then everything comes to a screeching halt because one the event you wanted to wear it to is in just a week and two this item is no where near finished and three obviously wearing linen in 40/50 F degree weather is the silliest thing ever.

I am slight of frame, which makes it difficult to regulate my body temperature. While working in period clothing several days a week in the summer when it is 90 – I sweat a ton. Once the sun goes down and the temperature drops to below 75 – I freeze. If there is a slight wind – I’m cold. I wear knee socks the majority of the year both for living history events and in every day life because they keep my feet warm.

Though I’ve only been participating in living history events since 2009, I have been very lucky to experience most in lovely weather; a few have been rainy or cooler, and one was in subzero temps, but we were in a building and I stood in front of the hearth for the three days. Specifically, the second weekend in Sept dawned rainy and cool. I have lots of wool items: long mitts, stockings, a petticoat, a cloak and a hat. However I do not have a short gown/jacket. I have a fitted lined linen jacket which, when it’s 80F, makes me too hot, so I made an unlined bedgown for a looser, more freeing feeling. I was wearing this jacket and a *million* petticoats and I was cold. I couldn’t get warm for almost a week afterward. While I was at this event, I bought wool for a new petticoat and a new short gown/jacket.

The petticoat will be grey with a navy blue worsted wool bottom hem. The jacket is a grey/black stripe interlined with wool and lined with worsted wool. I’m proud of myself because my interlining and lining are from items in my stash so I did not have to buy anything new/extra!!!! I’m using the JP Ryan jacket pattern, view A. With my three layers, I have 18 pieces. GAH!! They were all cut out this morning (about 3 hrs time) and I started to flat line the outer fabric to the interlining.

Oh and I need this new jacket and petticoat for Oct 18 because I’m anticipating subzero temperatures.

Thank god for crock pot cooking on Sundays.

There are lots of tutorials on both short gowns/jackets and flat lining etc, so I will only post finished product photos.

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Cantigny NWTA Grand Encampment 2014

Tags

18th century, living history, Ox Bow Tavern, reenacting

We recently had the Northwest Territory Alliance 40th Anniversary Grand Encampment at Cantigny Park in Wheaton IL. It is a lovely wooded 500 acre park and the tree lined path where we camp is delightful. A friend and I arrived late Fri night and it was cool and misty/rainy and muddy. Not ideal, but we didn’t care because we knew the next two days would eventually bring the sun. Despite the cool (read: 40F) temps at night, we managed to survive. One of my soldier friends set up his extra tent for us, which was so kind. My friend and I worked at the tavern and a good time was had by all!! We served 150 meals total this weekend – our largest ever. Here are some photos from the event…

 

I was a meat monger!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had two tents this time for the Ox Bow; one was for the patrons and had four walls which was nice protection against the wind and cold for both days. This tent doubled as our prep kitchen and extra seating.

 

 

Patron tent

 

 

Inside full of patrons for day time meals

 

 

And at night time for libations!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A smattering of photos of tavern staff life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cantigny Ladies of the Ox Bow!

 

 

 

220 items – 30 Day Declutter Challenge and a new bag

Tags

30 Day Declutter Challenge, Cleaning house, The simple life

I kind of got behind in the declutter challenge. I may have written this before, but when school starts, everything else gets put on hold. *sigh* Finding items to toss/donate was not a top priority. Sleeping was. As a result, I had to go all the way back to Day 16 and all the way to 25 equaling 220. The husband said I cheated because I counted pieces of paper inside my school bag. I beg to differ. They were all in there. So yeah. Here is what the final collection looked like in the entry way of the house.

 

I stood on the stairs to take this picture.

 

And now I decided that it was finally time for a new school bag. My mom purchased a messenger bag for me when I was 13 from the Army Surplus Store when we still lived in Michigan. I never used it through high school because, well, sorry mom, it wasn’t cool. I pulled it out when I started to student teach and I’ve used it since 2004.

 

 

It’s really rugged, holds tons of papers (see picture above), and has taken a good beating.

 

 

Because I’m sure I carry way too much stuff, the clip thing got kind of janky and started to dig into the fabric. It ripped all the way through and looks ghetto.

 

New bag! I’d found the Timbuk2 bag on a review for a Patagonia bag actually. I really wanted to order online and choose custom colors to express my personality and stuff. But it was just too expensive. There is an REI not too far from me, and red was the best they had.

 

Notice the lack of papers because they all got trashed.

Old and new together.