My outfit and my dream scissors!

Hey everyone!

I thought I would stop in and do a short post today. My family is gearing up for leaving for our first reenactment where we will be camping out and launching our reenacting group "the Pinkerton and Telegraph service". We are so excited and I will definately post pictures from the weekend as soon as I can next week. It will be our first time having our own camp set up at a public event and being able to share the history of the civil war with the public. Do pray for us that we will also be able to share the Gospel through our group. That is our number one reason for reenacting is sharing The Lord's history.
Today I thought I would share my outfit. Its all thrifted except for my shoes, scarf, and shirt.

My favorite part of this outfit is my linen jacket, which I found at the thrift store last fall for only $7.00 and it is one of my favorite brands!!! H&M!!! I was thrilled. I love the belted look and I can wear it with so many things all spring and summer. Linen is very cool and also warm, depending on temps. So its great!

My skirt I have posted about on here before, it was only $5.00 at a thrift store and I love it! I love the ruffles at the bottom and its so versitale as well! My scarf is made by me and I posted about it earlier in the month. The fabric is from Joann.

I was thrilled to use my new gingher scissors tuesday night to cut out my new light blue circle skirt. I will start putting it together next week after the reenactment. So stay tuned. They cut so nicely I could not believe it! No trouble with the scissors not cutting or having a hard time through layers of fabric. I think every seamstress should have a pair of these! wonderful!

Well I better go! I have lots of packing, school, reading, cooking, and sewing to do before tomorrow when we leave for the reenactment. God bless and have a wonderful weekend everyone!

In Christ,

Rebecca

Latest Projects

Hello everyone!

I thought I would share some of my latest sewing projects. I am not much of a seamstress as most of you know! But I am starting to love it and wanting to be able to sewing clothing for myself and my family now. It is such a practical skill! So I sewed up a night gown for a dear friends birthday last week. I purchased the fabric at walmart a long while ago, but I loved it and its her favorite color! Blue!!

I used my favorite and one and only night gown pattern! But I made up the sleeves! I cut out the long sleeve and shortened it to be 3 quarter sleeves and I love the way that turned out! She loved it when I gave it to her on saturday! I am happy with it as well! My sister Beth did the button holes on the machine for me though, the machine hates me when it comes to button holes! Don't ask me why!!!

There it is before I wrapped it up and all!

My favorite part of making it was the gathers at the top of each sleeve! I love that effect!!

On saturday we celebrated my friend Jennifers birthday and I wore another scarf I had made on friday in about 15 minutes!!! I was able to go to Joanne on thursday after my choir class at PHC and I was so happy to find the end of a bolt of this beautiful flowy fabric!

Here is the scarf below with the rest of my fabric finds! I love the purple and the blue combo of the flowers in the scarf material! It was fun to wear going on nature trails at a lovely park with my sister, father, and friend Jennifer.

I also bought that wonderful cotten heavier weight fabric and the yellow floral for a night gown. Yes another winter night gown for next winter!!! :) It was only 4 dollars a yard and I could not resist. The purple scarf fabric was only about 5 dollars for the whole yard and the blue fabric was 12 dollars for all 2 yards of that 60 inch wide fabric. I plan to use the blue patterned fabric for a gored circle skirt! I love love love it! Light blue is my favorite color!!

I have also been working on my first quilt that I ever cut out and I never finished. My great grandmother helped me get started with sewing when my sister and I were only about 9 and 10 years old. So sewing was not totally foreign to me because of her and my sister. Now I love quilting!! My sister has been teaching me more and I am loving it. I am almost done quilting this quilt top! I will post pictures once I can get around to finishing it while watching John Adams mini series with my family later this week. Its a great little lap quilt perfect for sewing in the car or while watching a movie. :) A close up of the beautiful flannel for a new night gown next year! I also love yellow!!

The vintage pattern my sister has and is willing to let me borrow to make my light blue circle skirt!!! I am so exciting to possibly cut it out later this week once I get more school done and a shirt dress mock up complete!

Now this is a spring project I hope to get around to! But I do not know when. I love this red floral and can't wait to make it into this thrifted pattern my sister found a few years ago. I plan to make the one that is second from the left.

This silk fabric above I have made a great belt out of this striped silk already for civil war accessory with my striped dress, but I want to make that pointed belt I told you all about here. I also have a bow that I wear often with my day dress as well. So I want to make a belt that looks like the one in this picture below in time for the Fourth of July celebration in Gettysburg this summer.

So Lord willing I can get that done sometime soon!

The dress at the bottom left corner is the shirt dress mock up I am planning on working in the coming weeks. I have the mock up cut out and ready to be made and messed with to get it to fit me well. So Lord willing I can show you all that soon! I am using the fabric for my fashion fabric below! Its from walmart from a few years ago and I just love the light blue and purple! Of course my favorite color combo! can you tell!?

I can't wait to dig into this project!!! Its been on my list for spring/summer for my modern wardrobe for a while now!

God bless and no I will not have these projects in the works all of them right away! But its fun to dream and figure out what I will be sewing in the future months!

In Christ,

Rebecca

A Singer's main goals by Spicker

"The singer must be guided by his intelligence and his will; the more he is able to master, the more intelligent will his vocal interpretation become, totally eschewing all artifically or unnatural "forcing". A singer ought never to overstrain the natural power of his voice, but must always husband his strength. Only when the strongest emotion or most voilent passion is to be protrayed, or height of dramatic effort is to be reached, should he display the entire natural power of the voice." - by Max Spicker New York, January, 1896

this passage in the Spicker book of exercises really encouraged me in my vocal studies this week. I have also been reading about the diophram as well as the other muscles used for singing and breathing. It is so interesting and enlightening! I pray that the Lord will help me to use my voice for His glory alone and that I will be able to set forth my passion and love for the Lord through my singing no matter the peice I am singing.

God bless,
Rebecca
Photo is the property of Lindsey W. and may not be taken from my blog without permission. thanks.

My new Favorite Accessory and a suprise!

Hey everyone!

On monday night I was inspired by Gabrielle over at Bramblewood Fashion! I loved her serging the edges of rectangles and gettings wonderful spring scarves as a result! So I had some pretty floral light and airy material and I decided to try it! Here is my result.

I also wore this scarf with my favorite 1950's vintage shirt dress that is the same turquoise color as the flowers in the scarf yesterday and it was great! I will post pictures soon!

And for the suprise!! Yesterday I bought new Ginger Dress Makers scissors!!!!! I had money from relatives from my birthday and I was so excited to use them to start making a civil war quilt yesterday as well as a gift for a friend this morning. She reads this blog, so I won't post pictures of her gift till after I give it to her. :)

They are so sharp its not even funny!!! I have never had scissors this sharp before and my sister Beth and I love them! they will be a great investment, considering how much sewing we do around here!

they even have a handy dandy case and covers for the blade since they are so sharp! I can't even contain my excitement and I am disapointed that I can not cut anything out today, as I have other projects that must get done first!!! I have 2 dress lengths of fabric that I need to cut out for 2 1950's style shirt dresses that I am just itching to start on!!! Oh well! this weekend maybe! :)

God bless and have a lovely thursday!

In Christ,
Rebecca

Chair cushions for Mother

Hello everyone!

Here is another finished project that I have been working on since the beginning of april. New cushions for my mother's dining room chairs. They were in desperate need of new covers and my dear sister Beth drafted the pattern for me. Then I did all the sewing. You can see her blog here. They are frilly with the ruffles, but still beautiful and not too much! they were so pain without the ruffle. They match the funny flowers and sunny yellow walls in our dining room well!

Above a cushion on one of the 8 chairs. They do take about 2 hours for me to make one I believe, as I have to tuck tucks on the ruffle and that takes a while.

Well have a lovely day and I will be posting more of my sewing adventures tomorrow!! An acessory has been my favorite for the past two days! Can you guess what kind of an acessory if may be?! You will know tomorrow.

Oh and my mother bought the crocheted table cloth at a yard sale for only 4 dollars!!! Its all done by hand! lovely!

In Christ,

Rebecca

My Bed room make-over

Hello everyone!
(Oh and yes thats my cat Felix on the new afghan I recently finished! You can see pictures of afghan here.)
You may remember that I posted about a month ago that I was making new curtains as well as putting a regular floor bed back into my room. Well I finally finished putting my old bed and my mother's antique desk into my room. I love the way it turned out! You can see how it was before here. I am so happy not to have a loft bed and stainless steel furniture anymore! I have yet to paint the walls my new light blue theme color, but all the new furniture is and in place. Lord willing I will get to paint before June! :)



My desk is my mother's antique writing desk from Germany. We used to live there for 3 years from when I was 2 till I was 6 years old. I don't remember much of living there, but my mother bought some real treasures! She has given me this desk to keep!! I absolutly love the cherry wood!!! Its my favorite stain! Can you tell??? My hope chest and dresser are similar in stain color! :)

My new/old bed. I had this bed when I was a little girl and then when I was 13 we bought modern loft bed, but now I have sold my loft bed and put my old fashion bed back in! I love the look a lot better!
My night stand was from my sister, she got a new night stand and gave it to me! I love how it has a book shelf for my current reading, so I can grab it and read in bed!!

My current reading list for pleasure consists of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War H.W. Crocker the 3rd, which I received for christmas. Biblical Manhood and Womanhood by Piper and Gruben, Shakespeares play As You Like It, Stepping Heavenward by Prentis, almost finished with Persuasion by Jane Austen. I just finished A Heart for God by Ferguson yesterday, as well as finished Castaways of the Flying Dutchman by Jaques last week. I loved both of them and I would read A Heart for God over and over again! So much to glean from it! I am also reading Stepping Heavenward for the second time. I read it 3 years ago and loved it. I still do! I plan to start Womanly Dominion by Mark Chanski tomorrow. I bought it at the thrift store for only 50cents!!! I was so excited, I had been hearing it was a great read!
My dresser is next to my night stand and I posted more details about it here. I got it for free on the side of the road! I could not believe someone would get rid of such a great antique treasure!!!

At the end of my bed is my hopechest and my books shelves are above the hope chest. I love my books and I also keep all my music and stationary and cards on this shelf as well.

My hope chest is also cherry wood and was given to me by my parents for my 16th birthday! It is filled to the brim! I have been storing more items in my closet and Lord willing I get more supplies and items for my future abode Lord willing I will store them under my bed.

So right now I love it, but I really want the walls to math my new curtains and hope chest cushions! I have a theme of blue and white going on with the lamp also having those colors. Soon I will paint!

Tomorrow I have much for to post! I can't believe it had been 2 weeks yesterday that I had not updated! Its been so busy! I also am sorry as I can not figure out how to get my things back on the side of my blog, instead of the bottom. If anyone has any sugguestions for gettings widgets and my profile back to the right side like it should be let me know! It would be most appreciated.

God bless,
Rebecca Ann

The Attire of a lady in the 1860's

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the lack of posts latey! But there are so many tasks, family activites, projects, and school work to get done that it has been hard to post. I am very grateful for a full plate of activities that will allow myself and my family to minister to others as well as each other. I am also thankful for the privledge of being home educated and being able to get in lots of other acitivites and projects I otherwise would not have time for in a public or private school setting. I am loving learning about the civil war and the war of 1812 along with my government studies. I just love reading about our countries history and how people sacrificed and gave their lives to form our nation.

As I have been studying our Nation I have been studying historical clothing with my sister and friends. I love love love historical and modern clothing as you may have noticed! :)I am so sorry for the lack of posting recently, my family just attended a civil war reenactment yesterday and friday and saturday! So we are exhausted and recooperating! I will post photos from the event as soon as time allows and I have some sewing projects and the progress of my room make over to post later this week. So be looking!

So this post will be photos I have found in various places of women and children who lived during the american civil war. I just love seeing their outfits and saying to myself I wonder why she chose that fabric or I wonder what her name was. Oh I know she looks like me or she looks like a friend or relative or her dress is similar to mine or I want to make one similar to hers!!

So enjoy and tomorrow Lord willing I will be posting about some of my current reading, school, cooking, and sewing projects, and probably about more civil war reenacting and history! :)

Bare with me! Each of these photos has a lot of detail and each one has given me inspiration and I have learned a lot along side my sister about the clothing of the 1860's!
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This dress above I would guess is wool because they did not do solid prints in a cotten because they would fade too easily in the sun. I would love to have a wool dress similar to this style! I already have 2 neck bows and I have buttons for another dress. I also would love to make the type of belt she is wearing. My sister has purchased a pattern for it and I plan to make a silk one soon!!

The dress above is my day dress I wear to all my events and I cooking, sewing, laundry, and other activities in. It would be the equivalent of my everyday clothing in todays world. I want to point out that I made a bow that I am wearing with the dress to dress it up as well as a belt and bucklet, which slid on my belt a little. :) But you can dress up your everyday attire just like today we do and they also did so in the 1860's! In the picture I first posted, her bow and buttons are similar and her belt is different, but I plan to make one that is close to it that will work with this dress above.


This next dress is lovely! But I wanted to point out the similarity of my hats in these photos to the ladies hat in the CDV.

I just love the polka dot dresses of this period! But I can not have one, because its so hard to find the right type of period dot these days! If I ever found a dot that was like the period dot pattern I would buy it for a dress in a heart beat! Her hat also is beautiful!It is very similar to the photos I posted above of my hand woven straw hat,which I purchased online from a lady who specializes in period milinary.

You can see a closer up of the way I trimed the hat here with velvet ribbon.

I just found this photo today and I loved her doll, yoked bodice dress, and her adorable countenance! I had never seen a photo of a period child with a doll before. A good friend of mine has a period reproduction of a doll that they would have had back then and its similar. My doll I have made is cloth and her name is Rosette and she still needs a face. But I am working on it! I want to use her to show children at the reenactments what little girls would have played with. :)

This one is just adorable! I can't wait to see some little girls dressed to the nines like this at a reenactment! Its amazing that there are hardly any families it seems that reenact with small children here in VA!

I thought this one was interesting! Very different! Maybe these women are waiting for their men to come home from the war?!

This little girl I thought was precious and her yoked bodice is a rarity!

A great photo of a working woman! From what I can tell a sturdy wool dress and great boots and neck kerchef. Yes I do look like this at reenactments! Oh and I can prove it with these photos! :)

I am on the right in my dress I pictured earlier that is my every day dress. I am wearing only my belt this time as an accesory. But I am also wearing a hood, which I wear to keep warm in the winter. I was hot because I was doing work!!! Believe it or not you can work in period clothing. I was rolling cartridges and showing other girls how they would have done that to make amunition for the cause during the way. My sister and another friend and some mothers also showed the girls at this particular event how to sew bags and how to garden. We ended the day with a high tea after we had lunch and also did a fashion show and saw the boys do a battle and a firing demonstration was done by the older guys. This was the event we attended back in February put on by Bonnets and Bayonets, which is a group we help with. I have them listed under my favorite websites in the side bar.

You can see that my striped dress is very similar to the ladies dress below in the stripes going a similar way and that the sleeves are similar. I also have a velvet belt on as well.

I was excited to see another woven stripe similar to my dress and she is wearing a belt as well. She could be a my ripe age of 19 don't you think?!

My yoked bodice was inspired by the photos that is in the next CDV.

Now the dress below was the inspiration for my dress I am wearing in the above photos. I am also making the belt similar to hers and the other picture I talked about above sometime soon so my ensemble can be dressed up for nicer occasion. During everyday life events I just wear my simple belt and my bow sometimes, but they alwasy wore collars or kerchiefs around their necks because these were washed after each day, while the dress was only washed about every 2 weeks.

In the photo above my sister is also wearing a ladies cravat/bow similar to the one in the CDV above of another young lady! It was so popular it seems for young ladies to wear bows/ladies cravats over brooches, which were usually worn by older women.

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I am also wearing a ladies cravat in this photo.
This CDV above is my dream 1860's outfit right now!! I want to find a wool plaid and make a skirt similar to hers and also some wool for a jacket too! I would also wear a sheer blouse under neath, which I already have fabric for. I also would do some beading similar to on the sleeves and outer part of her jacket. And to top it off I would find some cotten or silk ribbon for a bow on as well. Right now its a dream, as its too fancy for my impression as a middle classing working women. I mostly do cooking, baking, laundry, telegraph, and sewing at events. Therefore I would not be a higher class lady. So right now its a dream! :)

I thought I would post this one as her belt buckle is very similar to mine I am wearing in the photos I have posted of myself. I also love herbow and full sleeves!

Hmmm.... I have been wondering are they sisters, friends, or what?! Its great to see group photos! I love all their trims, hair styles, collars, and bows too!

I thought this little girl was too sweet not to post the picture!

And this last photo I thought had a remarkable resemblance to a friend of mine named Aurora. I met Aurora at the Jane Austen Festival back in September in Bath for the first time after reading her blog a lot! It was great to meet another fellow Jane Austen and historical clothing fan and seamstress. Here is her blog if you want to take a peek. I thought their faces were so similar it was remarkable. Tell me what you think! I also love her printed dress and her sleeves have some very interesting caps that are pointed! very neat I thought!



And just to end I thought I would post this sweet photo my friend Lindsey took last July 4th at Gettysburg! I am with my friend Emma! She is a sweet heart and we had fun being together dressed in pretty dresses from the 1860's! :)

God bless and I hope you all were able to understand and learn more about living history events as well as the period clothing of the 1860's!

In Christ,
Rebecca Ann

All CDV's are not mine and are the property of their ebay stores. Also all photos that are modern are the property and taken by Lindsey W. Bethany Lynn, and Rebecca Ann. They are not be taken from my blog without permission. thanks.