Williamsburg Trip Part 2

 Starting our day the 2nd day we decided we would dress vintage inspired. I am wearing a vintage 1950s house dress and Ginny  on the left is wearing some 1940s inspired jeans she made herself. Isn't she a genius!!? They look so vintage and comfy to wear and they still look majorly feminine compared to modern jeans. Don't you think?

Our first stop was the working farm where we saw the farmers using the oxen to till their field.

The beautiful colonial garden was too fun to take photos of! I did not even include hardly any of them, I took so many. :)

My parents above as we walked to the colonial village. They are such godly parents! Yes they are sinners, but I praise God for them and how God provided them for me as godly counsel and friends.

The weaver was very interesting. You can see the shuttle below which they used when they would weave. The paper on the inside is actually either a piece of news paper or a playing card. Which apparently they did often to wind the thread onto.

The weaver/ spinner was very informative and she did such  great job telling us the history of weaving and spinning and the like. The looms in there were huge! Wish we owned one. :)

Carding materials and some fibers in a basket below.

Spinning the flax I believe or is it wool? I can't remember. Ginny?

Another of their many gardens.

 Lovely Ginny, here is full view of her outfit.

At lunch we did not even plan it, but we looked so vintage drinking root beer and cherry soda. :)

The Shoe maker, yes He is not the cobbler. And no he does not make ladies shoes apparently.

The Book bindery was pretty awesome! I never knew until I visited Williamsburg how they made books back then.

The Wig makers shop seen above was very informative and the lady on the right was perfect with her irish accent. I loved her 1st person persona. :)

We all got to play the harpsichord in the Cabinet Makers shop. Yes they also made harpsichords apparently. They even were making one the day we visited in the shop.

The Carpenters shop from the outside above and the stream below that goes underneath the house.

                                         
                                         
           

The inside of the carpenters sop was pretty impressive.

My parents

The Brick yard was interesting. :) They asked us if we wanted to help stomp the clay for making bricks, but I said no as I did not want to ruin my vintage dress. I guess I did not want to get dirty. Sorry guys! 

We found the sign above on the drink fountain quite amusing. :)

Lastly the jail sells of Colonial Williamsburg above and my Dad and I had fun below posing for this picture. :)

I hope you all enjoy! God bless,

Rebecca Ann

My Colonial outfitt

 Now that I finally have access to all my pictures since they have been transfered to my new laptop I thought I would do a proper post about my colonial(1771-1776) outfit. I have worn it many times for french and indian and american revolutionary war reenactments as well as volunteering at a historical 1771 farm. Last time I wore it was in August volunteering at the local farm which has reenactors live like a family would have in 1771. I made this outfit I guess in august and september of 2010, but never got around to doing a proper photo shoot of the garments. So here you go! :)

I used white linen for the gown which I dyed lavendar for the gown using the J. P. Ryan Pattern.  I could not find any linen online that was the color I wanted, so I dyed it myself. They would have done this anyway, so I did. But yes its not a period dye, its rit dye, but hey it works. :)

I sewed the whole dress by hand except for the indside seems, so all those pleats in the skirt are by hand. The neck kerchief is cotton, but I plan to make a linen one soon when I volunteer again or have another event to attend. The grey petticoat is also linen and I did not use a pattern for it, I just pleated the skirt into the waist band. A good book about this can be found here, it has diagrams and drawings of all kinds of garments form the period. When my sister and I and are friends and family went to Williamsburg for our graduation in 2010 we were also able to study many garments. We found the book on that trip as well.

My cap was made by the lovely Sarah Jane over at Romantic History. She was having a sale of many of her own garments she had made for living history and I jumped on the cap because I was running out of time before an even to make one actually. In the future I will probably make a second one to have one hand if I volunteer more at the farm.

The apron is also linen and I just made it up. :) I saw pictures and drawings and just cut out a rectangle and sewed it into a waist band. Its pretty easy. I am not wearing shoes as I do not have period shoes yet. I have been using my civil war boots to tell you the truth. I don't do much colonial reenacting so I was not willing to invest the money in a nice pair yet. I got a thrift store pair for the farm since we do a lot of messy work.

I will be posting photos of my new regency gown as well soon once I can do a photo shoot. I finished it in September in time for us to do the Defenders day reenactment at Fort McHenry. So pictures coming soon! You will see lots of stripes and lots of blue! Blue is my favorite color. :)

In Christ,

Rebecca

Battle of Vienna 150th anniversary

Hi everyone! I have been very very busy as of late enjoying these summer days that seem to be going by so so quickly! We did the reenactment that was really close by our home right before we left to see my family right now in Alaska. So here are some photos from the event of me and my family. It was just my family and I for the weekend event because the rest of our living history group had other commitments such as family passing away and adoption. So it was different just our family setting up both of our flys and tents. But it was a great experience and a blessing!

My sister Bethany above quilting with one of our friends. This is the quilt I made with her this past year and now we are quilting at each reenactment we go to little by little.

Me again in front of our encampment cooking some apple fritters. They are sort of similar to pancakes, except much thicker. They stand alone and taste great for a great snack or lunch or breakfast. We were able to try out our flat cast iron skillets for the first time over the open fire. We use them all the time at home over our modern gas stove, but this was the first time over the open fire out of doors. I love doing cooking demonstrations and many people did not even know much about using cast iron and the curing process or that you need to grease them with butter or coconut oil or lard in order to cook with them. I love teaching about how they lived in the 1860s!

Some little boys that came to the event with their parents and grandparents bought some of our signal flag sets at the event. They seemed to enjoy getting their photo done by yours truly. :) It was fun seeing them learn to signal with my dad!

You can see in the front of our encampment our table where we sold many homemade goods we made from scratch. Such as soaps, linens, aprons, and bonnets, and the signal flag sets. You can buy all of these items off of our website called Vienna Woods Historical Reproductions. Its in my favorite websites list here on my blog.

You can see my dad in action above teaching some children and their mom about the telegraph and how it was the main way of communication between the lines of battle during the civil war. Besides letters it was the main way to get messages between the different troops. You can go to our website called The Magnetic Telegraph Co. to see more photos, its also in my favorite websites list on the side bar. I will be posting photos of our alaska adventures as soon as I can! The internet is pretty slow here so its slow going getting them all uploaded to blogger. Soon, I will get them up!

Hope you all are being encouraged and the Lord is giving you many times of seeing His promises kept.

In Christ,
Rebecca

1940s Swing dress done!

Hey everyone! I was inspired to finish the swing dress this morning and now its finished!  I adore it and wanted to wear it all day today, but thought I should save it for my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary celebration that my family is going to on Tuesday. We will be gone to see them and the rest of my mom's side of the family for 2 weeks! I can't believe it. Its going to go by so fast too.

I never thought when I was a little girl I would learn how to sew. To tell you the truth I guess I thought naturally all clothing came from the store already made.  Then my sister had an interest in sewing clothing herself and I was interested, but after many attempts to sew a garment, it usually ended in frustration. Then about 3 years ago this October, I decided to try my hand at it again when we dove into civil war reenacting. That was my introduction to sewing again and after sewing the underpinnings and a civil war dress, I can sew modern garments pretty easily with a little fiddling. :)

No this dress is not perfect and you would see that with up close photos, but its a great church/everyday dress style for me. I am going to sew some more of these in the future. I would highly recommend Jennie's pattern to intermediate seamstresses. It was a little difficult on those shoulder seams and getting the bodice to fit right. But I did this dress all by myself! The first modern dress I have ever done! Its exciting! 

I decided not to put in a zipper as Jennie says in her pattern. I used the Sense and Sensibility swing dress pattern. You can see her website here.

I also omitted the ties in the back. I was really wanting to get this done and could not find the tie pattern piece and did not feel as though I wanted to figure it out myself. :) I used a polyester semi sheer fabric I scored at Joann fabrics in March for about $8.00 for all three yards. It was on the red tag clearance table and I was so excited to sew up a dress out of it. I started seeing what patterns we had available in our stash and always wanting a 1940's swing dress, the journey of sewing this dress began in May.

You can see my pictures of starting it here.

I also changed the bodice somewhat. I wanted the waist band to not be over my tummy and to be at my natural waist, so I made the bodice shorter and put the waist band higher. I am very satisfied with that! Its much more flattering. :) I did have to change the bodice as it was too big in the bust for me. I did not change the skirt a bit, except I did find it was a little too big when I was putting it to the bodice, so I added a pleat in the front. This was probably because of the seam allowance in the skirt for the side zipper that I omitted. I am not going to lie, its a little hard to get the dress over my head, but with a little wiggle and being pretty careful it can be done. :)

Oh and the belt I added last minute when Bethany, my sister, did the photos and I love it! It was one dollar at the thrift store and the shoes were $3.00 as well, from the thrift store. I love the overall finished outfit!

Have a lovely day and one more post coming Saturday before we leave for my grandparents home!

In Christ,
Rebecca

May Secession Vote Reenactment

 Hello everyone! I have been so so busy, life is so full, but I wanted to share with you all a reenactment my family did in May in our hometown. It was a secession vote reenactment of when the confederate states seceded from the Union. My family went and set of camp and participated as civilians as usual, except this time we actually acted as citizens of the town. We were not allowed to have a camp fire, so we brought sandwhiches and other period food that did not need to be cooked. My sister and I above are quilting the quilt I posted about earlier this year. We are finally getting it finished. :)
My sister and I have also put pictures on our website here of things we are selling-www.viennawoodsrepros.com
So please do go and see what we are up to! There are aprons, bonnets, soap, and many more items we have made with care on there! They are all based off of what you would have used in the civil war period. So what fun to have something that was similar to what would have been used in time for the 150th anniversary of the war! :)

My dad telling about the telegraph and how it was used instead of cell phones or computers to communicate intelligence information to the different armies. It was also used to send the results of the secession votes to Richmond, which was the capital then.

We also had a lot of children and teens to tell about quilting. Here is one photo we got me showing a gal how to thread a needle and quilt the quilt. We try to be very hands on with our demonstrations of period life. So why not have the spectators in on sewing the quilt?!

My mother above manning our table where we were selling period items we made such as slat bonnets, aprons, signal flags, and soap.

Overall it was a lovely day! Wonderful weather and lots of people that were very interested in the history of the american civil war. I just came home sunday with my family from the HEAV homeschool convention of VA. It was wonderful! We are gearing up for another reenactment friday and saturday and then we leave to go and see my grandparents. Hence the reason for sparatic blog posts. I am so glad to be able to finally share with you all the Secession vote pictures. All of these were not done by me, a nice gentleman also did some of these and I don't have his name to give him credit, but they are amazing aren't they! For once I was in the photos, since I usually do pictures when there are no other people to do it.