Problem-solving: embroidered early 19th century shift

The University of St Andrews' special collections department has a rather wonderful blog, Echoes from the Vault, on which I was an occasional contributor between 2012 and 2015.

In 2014, their blog had a theme: 52 Weeks of Historical How-To's. Every week, a member of staff (or some enthusiastic volunteer) would choose an item from the collection and use it as an instruction manual to do or make something, and write about the experience. Some people baked, others brewed, some made paper cut-outs, others took baths, some made ink and paper, and still others went on holiday.

For one of my contributions to the blog, I dug up an 1825 tailor's manual and followed the directions to make a lady's shift. That blog post is here.

A few weeks later, I decorated it by following (more or less) an embroidery pattern in an 1825 ladies' magazine. That blog post is here.

Unlike when I write for this blog, however, I have deadlines when I blog for work. And hand-sewing and embroidery are not particularly conducive to meeting deadlines.

Recycling: black lace insertion tunic

I have an awful lot of unfinished projects.

Most of the time, I can trick myself into thinking my backlog isn't all that bad because there are only four or five things that I've actively been working on within recent memory, forming the top layer of clutter in my sewing room. I've been pretty good about following my "finish two projects for every one you start" rule, so the front of my brain thinks that I'm doing okay. Managing my addiction. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that's a lie.

Every once in a great while, I'll go through aaaaaallll of my unfinished projects, one by one, and find things I'd completely forgotten. This is one of those things.

Event-based Motivation: Spiffing Up Garb for Raglan

One of the good things about moving to Wales is that one of the biggest SCA events in the UK is (relatively speaking) right in my backyard. Raglan Fair takes place every September, when hordes of SCAdians descend upon on the grounds of Raglan Castle, set up camp, and proceed to cook, craft, shoot, and bash each other with sticks for ten days straight. For me, the upshot of this is that, for a week and a bit, I get to hang out with a significant number of people I adore but have very few opportunities to see in person. Last year (our first in Wales) I spent just one afternoon at the castle as a member of the general public, not as an attendee, but this year I decided to take a week off work and register for the whole event.

I've had friends in the SCA for most of my life, but I've always been more of a Renaissance Faire kind of girl. This means that most of my garb is a.) not overly concerned with historical accuracy, and b.) designed for 100+ degree weather. In other words, throwing together enough SCA-appropriate garb for a multi-day event was going to require some creativity and a little bit of sewing.

There's nothing quite like a looming deadline fuelled by fear of mockery to motivate me to finish a project. In this case, I used the few days before (and during) Raglan to spiff up a couple of old costume pieces and start one new one.

Really, Actually, Completely Finished. For Now.

*note: more/better photos coming.*

Among costumers, it is known that a sewing project is never actually finished. It is "wearable," or possibly "good enough," but there is always something that gets left off because it's 2am and your fingers are bleeding and the event is tomorrow morning and you have to wake up in 4 hours to drive another 4 hours to the event.

So maybe you get all of the construction seams done, and plan on binding the raw edges later. Nobody but you is ever going to see them, right?

Or you leave off that last bit of trim that would take it from attractive to fabulous, because nobody needs to know that you actually intended for there to be TWO rows of knife pleats and a line of beaded lace around that 6-yard hem, instead of just one.

Or you opt for the quick-and-dirty modern construction method instead of the well-researched and documented historically accurate method, because only the snobbiest of costume snobs will know the difference.

But there's always some little niggling thing that you mean to go back and finish later, once the time pressure is off.

So it was with my wedding dress.

Pickled Chard Stems

What's this? More pickles? Didn't I just post about pickles?!

Photographic evidence that I have, in
fact, been working on something
other than food.

It really isn't my intention for this to become a food blog, but it's midsummer and the garden is doing all sorts of wonderful things. This is the first year we've been able to coax a harvest worthy of the name out of the ground, and I'm positively giddy. We've had plenty of failures this year, of course, but we're actually growing our own food! OMG!

Crafty stuff has been happening, but nothing has reached a milestone that seems blog-worthy yet. Soon though, I promise.

You know what tends to go from start to blog-able pretty quickly though? Food.

(To skip my rambling and go straight to the recipe, click here.)

Food Made Slowly: Pickled Ash Keys

I love food. Probably too much.

I also like trying new foods. Living in Los Angeles, I had access to just about every cuisine imaginable available to me within 5-10 miles. One of the most difficult things about moving from West Los Angeles to rural Fife was getting used to the fact that if I wanted halfway decent Mexican or Chinese food (or any other ethnicity that wasn't a part of the British empire), I needed to learn to cook it myself. When I left the Scottish countryside for the outskirts of metropolitan Cardiff, the greatest consolation was the availability of Continental, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, African/Caribbean, Indian, and Halal markets. When looking for housing, one of our biggest problems was finding a house with a kitchen big enough to accommodate our accumulation of herbs, spices, and sauces from different cuisines (not to mention my homemade pickles, preserves, brews, and infusions).

As much as I love eating a variety of world foods though, I recognize that living in the UK and eating a diet heavy in exotic produce isn't particularly sustainable. So, alongside my attempts to up my game in Thai, Mexican, Ethiopian, and Korean cooking, I'm also trying to learn about foraging for local wild foods, herbs and spices, and plant-based medicine.

In Los Angeles, I was never close enough to wild spaces to even think about foraging, but when our nearest neighbor was about a mile away, it was easy to look at all the green (and yellow, and red, and purple) growing things around me and wonder which of them might be useful. I still consider myself a very novice forager, but I'm learning to identify and use new plants all the time, most of them just by keeping my eyes open during my daily 1-mile walk to the train station. It's amazing the variety of useful and/or edible living things I've encountered just within the village: hawthorn, brambles, nettles, plantain, cow parsley, common hogweed, ground ivy, elder, red valerian, garlic mustard, herb Robert, and ivy-leaved toadflax. (To my great disappointment, I haven't yet found any local ground elder, sweet cicely, or wild garlic).

Ash keys in situ

I subscribe to a number of mailing lists and Facebook groups about identifying and using wild plants, and a while ago, I got an email containing a recipe for pickled ash keys. At the time, I didn't even know what an ash key was, let alone whether or not I'd like them pickled, but a couple of weeks ago, I noticed several clusters of the seed pods hanging from a row of ash trees about 50 yards from my front doorstep, so I looked up the recipe again. I still have no idea whether I'll like them, but I've been in a pickling mood recently, and for the cost of two cups of vinegar, a few spices, and an hour of my time, I figured they were worth a try.

Crochet project: Jute Basket

The Viking/Victorian shirt has been hibernating recently, partly due to indecision over a minor construction detail, and partly because all of my limited supply of energy has been devoted to my application for Indefinite Leave to Remain (aka permanent residency) in the UK. I've continued to make some things, but they tend to be either brainless chipping away at slow, tedious projects (like stitching over the anachronistic metal eyelets on my wedding cotehardie, or knocking out a few more embroidery motifs on my early 19th century shift), or quick, instant-gratification type things like baking, making lemon curd, or gathering elderflowers for cordial.

Today's post is about one such instant-gratification project: a basket/bag crocheted from jute garden twine.

Sewing Project: Viking-Victorian Shirt, part 1

I hate shopping for clothes.

I'm 5'11" and 205 pounds, not terribly curvy, and I have an abnormally long abdomen. This means I'm too big for "normal" sizes, but don't really fill out most plus-size clothes. Store-bought clothes are invariably too short in the legs, sleeves, and waist and too tight in the thighs.

Mmmm, stripes.

In the US, after years of trial and error, I found a few shops that carry basic items that don't look horrible on me, but in the UK, I'm at a loss. Up to now, my solution has mostly been to not buy new clothes, but after nearly five years, my work wardrobe is now looking a bit shabby.

In an attempt to remedy the situation, I looked through my fabric stash to see whether I had anything that could be turned into business casual attire. After a bit of rummaging, I turned up five yards of cotton shirting with a subtle woven stripe. I originally bought it thinking I would make a Regency gown, but I've carried it for something like 8 years across two continents, and I don't really have any 19th century costumed events to attend here, so I might as well use it for something a bit more practical.

Spring Thaw

Oh my, it has been a while, hasn't it?

Since I last posted here, rather a lot has happened, while at the same time, not very much has happened at all.