Way Back When: Getting your interpreters on board with more accurate historical dress.

Getting your older, full time interpretive staff to wear new, and possibly more accurate historical costume while at work is the bane of every historical costumer. We all come up against those who are perfectly happy, and *comfortable*, wearing the stuff they have worn since they started in their interpreter's position. It often doesn't matter to them that these clothing items might be wrong, it's what they've always worn.
The problem is, that since I've graduated alone, the progress made in the research of historic dress has made epic leaps and bounds. What is being shared today, was simply a pipe dream of those of us who started our careers back in the late 80s. The internet has helped, because we have access to information that would have required extensive research road trips even ten years ago. And this is a good thing. Social medial has also become a valuable tool for helping us all better our impressions. Sites are sharing how they are tackling the situation of 'Best Practices' standards, photographs of other living historians are being shared so that we can prove that improvement is a good thing, and can be done, no matter what the excuse might be.

So why do we still have hold outs?

We have hold-outs because we allow them to come out. Sites are sometimes relaxed because they don't realize that things can be done better. They aren't seeing that better impression. Other living historians are just too nice, in allowing the inaccuracies to pop up at events, too nice to police their fellow interpreter. And as site costumers, we allow folks to hold on to those old, badly constructed clothing items instead of issuing new kit.

How can we fight this?

Well, it's the end of the season. The winter season often means having make and make-do weekends, where new kit can be made. If we started off the winter season by fixing the old kit, then many of us would start next season off on the right foot with very little cash layout. Start by removing buttons and replacing with proper ones. Altering gear to better fit on the body...most folks are wearing clothing that is miles too large. If gear is too small, pass those items down to young people who might be smaller than you. We all have gear we no longer wear. Fix it and pass it on.
Historic site wardrobes often have a month or so of returns of kit where we launder and return to stores for the winter. This is a perfect time to get rid of the stuff that is just too bad to be repaired or altered. If the kit isn't there, then it can't be issued out in the spring again. Take the stuff apart, use the fabrics for other things. Make it so those old items just aren't around anymore. Back when I was working as a head of wardrobe, my own infectious passion for wearing proper clothing rubbed off on the interpreters. I started off with the young people, who might have been starting out as a summer hire. I taught them how to properly dress and wear their clothes. And I spoke to them about their 'clothes', never referring to the items as costumes, so that they would never compare them to stuff worn for fun at Halloween. Once the young people were dressed properly, the older staff wanted to look just as good, so it was an easier way to coerce them over to my way of thinking. Making the older staff new clothes, that suited their bodies and work lives helped them to better do the jobs they had done for so long. Reminding them that they looked good while properly dressed helped too. It's nice to go and visit site websites and see things that I made still being worn, and properly worn, 20 and 30 years later. These items are cared for, because I took the time to care about the interpreters wearing them. That care and passion is then passed down to the next generation.

Everyone should be using the winter months as opportunity to read those best practices standards and getting on board with the way things are being done at sites across North America. If you need help, ask. There are tonnes of people in just about every community ready to help out their fellow interpreter to get a leg up.

If there is one thing I can take away from the Saratoga project, it is that it doesn't have to cost the interpreter or site an arm and a leg to get geared up. I managed to outfit two people for next to nothing in a very short time frame. Working together really helps. It also builds camaraderie between living historians. That passion can be infectious, spread that stuff everywhere!

That, and those 'best practices' guidelines can also save you money, if you read them and follow along. They help to guide you towards better kit right from the get go, so you don't make costly mistakes, buying the wrong things.

ok, back to the studio I go. Have a great winter season everyone!

The Saratoga Project

First one up, as always, Saratoga Historic Park, 2018. Photo by Jennifer Bolton.

Back in the Spring, an announcement was made about an event that would happen at Saratoga Historic Park in the Fall. This event, while a new concept for the park, was not new to the progressive living history community, it would be a vetted event. This meant that guidelines were posted, and folks wanting to attend would send in photos of themselves in kit to a committee that would then provide feedback to participants for improving their kit before attending the event. In recent years, the best practices standards have been making the rounds of the community, and most events adhere to these concepts. This event would seek to push that envelop even further by also including a ‘not acceptable’ category. There would be no ‘making do’, all in attendance would be striving for accuracy in everything they did throughout the weekend.

This was a justifiable response to events where participants sneak in modernity everywhere they can, and make quite ridiculous excuses for why they cannot improve. My response has long been, just don’t bring it! Just don’t buy it in the first place. Save yourself some money, and everyone else the headache of trying to police your gear all weekend.

Following these guidelines was fairly straight forward. I have always been trying to improve my own kit, and looked at this as an opportunity for constructive critique from knowledgeable living historians. I’ve been seeking out these opportunities to keep my thoughts on track, much the way a regular academic would seek out the critique and guidance of their professors. My dissertation committee is great for the theory behind what I am doing, but as far as my art practice is concerned, we need this valuable resource to supplement what the committee can help me with. I sent photos of Pierre and I in, and received thumbs up. We were good to go. But I wanted to bring a couple of new people to the event, this would be their very first event. I was told that they would be provisionally accepted, because I would be building their kit and clothing. I was excited at the challenge.

Building new kit and clothing, starting a couple off on the right track from the get go was a fun challenge for me. The project allowed me to think through the theory I have been reading all Spring, why material culture research is important. It also helped me to outline sections of the future dissertation through my instructing of the creation of smaller items by themselves. Because these two new folks were also academics, one of them in a very similar field, they were able to provide me with valuable feedback in how I was teaching them about their new hobby. It was a fantastic mental exercise as well as an art practice.

The second challenge I set for us, was to dress these two people entirely from stash fabrics and left over cabbage so that it wouldn’t cost anyone any money. I was lucky to have friends who donated fabrics, and my mum also left me with a few fabrics that I will never use for myself. I pulled out things from my own closet that I don’t wear anymore and altered then to better fit Alison, she could also wear an older pair of my shoes. Zac could wear some of Pierre’s things, but would only need to buy shoes…a taller man often has longer feet. Mid-way through August, things were shaping up nicely, and I was posting photos for finished garments so that event organizers could see my progress. I finished Zac’s clothes just days past the deadline, and Alison was very close to being finished, and the organizers were happy.

The week before the event things began to fall apart for us. Not because of the stringent kit requirements, but because of modern lives, and the weather. Our friends from Nova Scotia couldn’t make the trip with us because they would be looking at a Fall project of ripping up their front lawn to replace sewer and water lines to the street. We were disappointed to not have a visit from friends, but completely understood. There would be other events!

Then, a giant hurricane formed off the coast of Africa.

Being Maritimers, we started watching the weather. The week prior to, I said I would call it Thursday morning whether we could go or not. Pierre told me to not be disappointed, but hypothermia is not something I ever want to deal with again…and tropical weather is the main reason I have come down with it twice in the past. I called it Sunday night. It was looking like the hurricane was going to nail Hatteras late week, and the weekend in Saratoga would be a washout.

I kept sewing. Alison’s gown was almost finished, and I had some little things cut out that I wanted to finish. Alison and Zac changed their travel plans for their honeymoon, which they’d be leaving for in the days following Saratoga. I tried really hard to not be disappointed.

Then the hurricane veered to the south. And. Slowed. Right. Down. To. A. Standstill.

Friends from Virginia decided to come up for the event after all. I texted Pierre, “blue linen suit ok?” He responded with a thumbs up. We would day trip the event, and it would be just Pierre and I.

We packed the back of the truck with a mattress and bedding so we would have somewhere to sleep, and packed a basket with a couple of food items, the can of coffee, and the coffee pot. I pulled together our clothing, and made sure everything was presentable and wearable. Our last trip home from an event was a bit of a mess, and things were not put away properly. We had just lost our dog to heart disease.

Saturday morning, before Dawn, coffee in hand, we were at the border, heading to an event. We arrived on site after the event started, and not really fully prepared, but we were there, and would make do with what we had.

The event!

We arrived, got the car unpacked, and got dressed. It would be a mile walk through the woods to get to the encampment site, but we had expected that. Anything big that we had could have been dropped off at the site before we parked, but there wasn’t anything really that we could pack in. We would be more like refugees than we had ever been at an event before. We had a snap sack, a blanket, a linen sail for shelter if we needed it, a basket with our food, cups, a spoon, a knife, and our coffee pot. Because priorities, man. Coffee.

Remember when I said we weren’t completely prepared? Well, I had the directions printed for the American camp, not the British camp. We got turned around in the woods, took the wrong path and wound up back out on the road. Oh well, it’s only a couple of miles, we can do this…

It was hot. Like beyond hot. Heat that usually make Kellys turn into three year olds. I sucked it up and kept walking. We managed to get to the site without snapping at each other. Pierre immediately got me a big glass of water with some switchel in it (I had made the syrup earlier in the summer and remembered to bring it with me) and I plunked down in the shade. Then he made coffee. It was still morning.

Boots on the ground was sparse compared to what the event organizers had originally planned, what with the hurricane, and then on the Thursday night before the event, parts of outlying Boston being blown up by over pressurized gas lines. Events have to have starting points though, and those who could make it to the event all brought their A-game. Once I acclimated to the heat, I enjoyed myself. I talked to the visitors about how what was going on today in places like Syria, and even upstate New York into Quebec was starkly similar to what happened to people in the Revolutionary period. That Loyalists were not often really the enemy that is made out to be in American history programs. They were regular people, forced to make tough decisions, often life-saving, certainly life-changing, with no time to fully think things through. It was perfectly wonderful that we all brought various weird and uncommon items with us from our homes for the event. Pierre and I had coffee and a pot, but not much else, other people had camp kettles and could cook food. We all shared, and got through. Some of us were a little hungry, but that was ok. It was only for two days.

I did not eat enough, and so covertly taking photos was just not happening. My hands shook so badly, the one photo I did manage to take looks like a bad impressionist painting left out in the rain. Those who know Pierre can see that it’s a quintessential shot of a south facing, north bound Pierre. But it’s not postable.

At the end of the day, Pierre asked organizers if he could bring the car up closer, to visitor parking so I wouldn’t have to walk so far. I was pretty spent, but still wanting to stay and be sociable. Given permission, he brought the car closer, and we stayed overnight. If not, we would have likely started for home again at the end of the day, stopping to sleep somewhere in the mountains. As it was, I didn’t sleep that night until Pierre got up the next morning. He got up whispering, “I’m off to make friends”, before daybreak, and I rolled over and got a couple of hours sleep. The truck is comfortable. But not enough food, no Cpap, and having no idea where I packed my meds were the triple threat to me sleeping. I was just grateful it wasn’t out on the ground, under the stars, as I would have also shivered all night, even with the heat. My body sucks like that. Instant, unpleasant three year old.

When I did get up, it was still long before the park opened at I was able to ease into my day slowly. Pierre brought me down a cup of coffee as I got dressed. We walked back up to camp together and prepared for the day.

Sunday proved to be a bit quieter, visitor wise, which was nice, since everyone was spent from the heat the day before. Slowly, throughout the day, folks made quiet goodbyes and walked away, starting their trip homeward. It was just as if they were starting their personal treks northward to safety, some ready to leave before others. It was excellent interpretation, even if very few people noticed. We left about noon. Wanting to get home in time to finish up weekend chores before Pierre headed back to work that next morning…and I really needed sleep. From what I can glean from friend’s Facebook posts, the end of day brought an almost empty camp, and event organizers could go home themselves at a decent hour. Everyone has been talking about what a wonderful experience it was.

And it was. It was quiet and low key. A far more sociable experience for me than any other event I have ever attended, as I am usually run off my feet talking to visitors. Events like this are the wave of the future though, Quality over Quantity. They have to start someplace, and small is sometimes good for a brand new experience. While it would have been lovely to see a sea of canvas tents, like Burgoyne’s camp would have been, there just isn’t the numbers yet to be able to put on a progressive event of that size. More people have to get on board with best practice standards, the days of carting all the material culture you’ve ever bought or made to an event is over. The visitor is looking for better from us. The historians and Parks staff are looking for better from us. It behooves us to try and get things right, we do a disservice to our forefathers not to. And yes, the visitor really does know better…even those who frustrate us with their history’splaining and attitude.

This whole project may seem like it failed, because Zac and Alison didn’t get to take part, because I wasn’t fully prepared, but you can learn from things that don’t go according to plan far better than things you try that work out perfectly. I know now that there are things that my body can do, and things that I really should ask it to even try. I have to figure out how to better feed myself at events where there is no place, and nothing or no time to cook with. We have to figure out a better solution to sleeping arrangements. It worked ok this time for everyone involved, but there’s room for improvement to the truck scenario, and I also thought about what-if it had started to rain in the middle of the night…what those who slept rough would have done. The rain venue for sleeping was miles away, with cars miles away in the other direction.

I have a better understanding of why smallpox ripped through the Loyalist population in the later years of the war, decimating whole communities. If one weekend was this hard on my body, I can only imagine what weeks or months of living this way would have done to it. I can do just about anything for a day or two. But it’s going to take most of the week for me to recover.

And then I will get back to the studio…I have suits to make, and new clothes to finish for other living history people. Because there will be other events.

Critical Making: Using Material Culture to Create a Visual Narrative

In her opening chapter, Joanne Entwistle informs us that “human bodies are dressed bodies, no culture leaves the body unadorned,” she reminds us that the “very personal act of getting dressed is an act of preparing the body for the social world, and that dress is both an intimate experience of the body and a public presentation of it” (Entwistle 6-7).

OK, so what’s the point?

Recently there was a meme going around the progressive living history community with before and after images. Your first event, and your most recent, with the title, ‘we all start somewhere!’ They were images of folks in cobbled together loaner gear, mis-mashed with modern clothing items, and big grins on their faces because they were finally at a living history event, dressed. It didn’t matter really, what they looked like, it was their first event, and they were having fun. The thought was, getting out is a major hurdle, but what you do with your experiences afterwards is up to you, how far you want to push the accuracy envelope.

Next weekend will see three living history events, if the weather holds. Two major mainstream events in the south east, and a progressive event in New York. The progressive event aims to push the envelope of accuracy in kit, impression, and interpretation. We had strict guidelines to follow, and anyone who wished to participate had to undergo a vetting process. We would send in photos of our gear, and receive back critique from the committee. It was a good challenge for us old-timers who may have let some of our standards slip, to fine tune our game play.

I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to bring a couple of brand new people to the event.

We had guidelines to follow, and a few months to prepare. I could work on interpretation development, and hone teaching points as I guided my small group through the process of garment construction. It would be fun for everyone involved. My original plan was to put Zac in ‘hand-me-downs from Pierre, and focus mostly on Alison, as she would require items that she couldn’t simply borrow from me…mainly stays and a gown that fit her properly. I also chose to try and build as many items from stash fabrics as possible, so that it wouldn’t cost anyone anything. I found a piece of natural toned striped fabric for her gown, and her stays literally came into being from the cabbage bucket. I cut them so closely, I was worried I’d have to piece the fashion layer. Alison did the bulk of the gown construction on her own, through a two day intensive workshop where I fine-tuned my construction notes. I pulled two old petticoats from my wardrobe that I no longer wore, and be-built the waistbands to fit her better…she is a bit smaller than I am.

We finished everyone’s clothes last week. Zac also got new clothing items from stash fabrics, breeches in green linen and a drab coloured workman’s coatee from cabbage from our other friend Trudyann’s stash.  Clothing items that suit his personality and age. I then set to organizing accessories.

This is where my brain started going into high gear. It’s all well and good for people to turn out to their first event in mis-mashed, borrowed gear. But Zac and Alison would be in their own clothes, save for a shirt and shift…and shoes for Zac. Their accessories needed to reflect their own selves. Another of my main objectives was to make them both feel comfortable in their clothes, so they would fit in as much as possible. Zac was easier, a new neckcloth, another borrowed item - a hat, but one that would be re-blocked to his head and have a new liner in it.

Alison was a bit more complex. I pulled a fluffy linen cap, and a pink floral neckerchief. Then, I cut some white linen mitts, and lined them with a cotton print that I will eventually use to make myself a gown. I used pink silk floss to do all the fancy work in sewing them together. Alison’s accessories were decidedly pink. This would go nicely with the natural tones in her gown and petticoats. Alison is younger than I am, and very blonde. She is also very feminine. Her visual narrative was coming together. The last item she would need is a hat.

Remember, she is younger than I am, and blonde. Borrowing one of my hats would have been ok, but not quite right, as I am much darker in complexion, and can pull off different colours than she can. She would need a new hat. I don’t have a straw that I could press into service, and so thought about making a new sun bonnet for her. Back to Trudyann’s stash of leftover bit of fabric gifted to me, and I pulled out some pink silk taffeta.

Bonnet colours in the period have a pronounced leaning towards black. If you look though, there are a few instances where lighter colours turn up. After an afternoon of looking at art, I decided to make the anomaly, a pink bonnet.

There are still a few items that we need to make, like cooler weather gear, shirts, shifts, stockings, and such. But we now have two new living history people, excited to turn out to their first event. Completely in their own clothes. And no farby-ness in sight. We all start somewhere, and I am happy to have been able to help get them started on the right foot.

Bibliography

Entwistle, Joanne. The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress, and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge UK and Maiden MA, USA: Polity Press, 2000.

setting a sleeve

First thing you need to do when setting a sleeve is to run easing stitches over the top curve of the sleeve head.

This is two rows of machine stitching at the longest stitch length. The first row is just to the seam allowance side of your final stitching line when you set the sleeve, the second is 1/4" inwards from the first, towards the seam allowance.

The second step, 

Is to pin the bottom curves of the armscye to the sleeve's bottom curve. It should be fairly straight forward to match up the bottom curve of the armscye to the bottom curve of the sleeve. They should appear to be remarkably similar in contour. You might want to even stitch this curve in, between the start and finish of the ease stitching. Only stitch the bottom curve, and be careful not to catch your easing stitches when you sew.

Next, The easing stitches are pulled up just until you get a rounding to the top of the sleeve head. There shouldn't be any real gathers or pleats, only a little bubbling and a nice rounding to the sleeve head. Like this...

see the nice rounding to the top of the sleeve head? You want this rounding in your finished sleeve.

Then I pin this into place, making sure there are no puckers in either the armscye on the body, or on the sleeve itself.

Stitch this remaining section into place. When sewing by machine, I follow the first row of ease stitching for my final seam. I also make a little pulling motion to either side of the seam with my fingers to help calm the bubbles. This pulling is not fore and aft of the pressure foot, but perpendicular to the seam itself, in front of the pressure foot. Be careful not to sew your fingers.

Depending on where your shoulder bone sits on your body, you can often move this fullness forward or towards the back of the sleeve head to accommodate the fullness of that shoulder bone. If you do not account for any ease in the shoulder, especially in historically cut coats, the sleeve will actually pull the body of the coat off your body, as you haven't given your arm enough room in the sleeve head. A horizontal crease in the top half of the sleeve itself can also often be fixed by narrowing the shoulder line of the coat body itself, but still allowing for ease in the sleeve head.

If you have a lining, bring that up now. Be careful to not make it too short for the sleeve. You can even tack the seam allowances of the sleeve and it's lining together at the top back arm. Fold under the armscye seam allowance of the sleeve lining and cover the raw seam allowances of the coat body and sleeve. Whip stitch around the armscye to encase the raw edges. This to me is the sexiest stitching in tailoring, next to a fabulous hand worked buttonhole.

And the finished sleeve...

body of mannikin is not the body of a Pierre, and so the underarm is collapsing just a bit.

A close reading of Don Hagist's 'Wives, Slaves, and Servant Girls: A study in sock colours on a blustery day

I decided to sit and do a quick afternoon research project the other day. It was a blustery day, and I didn't really feel like sitting in the studio as I was nursing a headache.

This is what I found: the number one colour after white (or un-described colour), is blue, 29 times. Dark, Black, Brown stockings were mentioned 6 times. Clocked with a different colour, 5 times, and the clock contrast ranged from white with blue clock, blue with white clock, blue with red clock. Clouded stockings appeared twice. Grey, once. Re-knit, or different coloured feet to stocking appeared five times. Ribbed stockings, five times.

Interesting cross section of lower ranks society, but leaning towards the female side of things. I did note both the sex of the person in the ad, as well as ethnicity if it was stated. There was a good smattering of men alongside the women mentioned, despite the female leaning of the title of the book. I doubt though, we would see much of a difference in an equal m/f ratio. I'm cool with sticking to this colour palette. The current pair of stockings on my needles is natural sheep white. I have more of this yarn, and an even whiter yarn. I also have some light blue on the way. Deep in the ready use yarn stash bucket I have some mustard coloured, that I fell in love with, but I can dye that to a more brown colour if need be.


And that's not even touching the wool dye sample bin I have far too much of. Though the sample bin may become a bed rug this Fall if I can get time on a loom at school.

Again, with service...

sitting and stitching, watching Pierre in the lists

In a former life, I was known as the fabulously dressed coat tree, the perpetual dameoiselle, Lady in Waiting to several, including at least one Queen. Yes, I played in the SCA.

Learning to be served is as often difficult as learning how to serve. In today's world, we are expected to be able to do everything ourselves, to ask for help is seen as weakness. In reality, none of us would get by if we didn't rely on the people around us. I am naturally a helper, I love to help other people, I love to cook for them, to make things for them. I show my love through my actions more than by words. Close friends smile at how I seemingly wait on other people, especially my husband. This is especially true when he is gaming. Food and coffee magically appear at his desk when he is in the game, his buddies in the Twitch stream laugh and say 'good morning Mrs. Onix!' Little do they realize that Pierre waits on me too, in other ways. We are a team.

But back to service, from an SCA standpoint...

When I was in service, I would take it upon myself to learn what my Lady/Laurel/Queen liked to eat and drink, and how it was prepared. I carried a basket with things like a notebook and pen to take notes on everything from who to later write thank you notes to, to finding out where to make dinner reservations and for how many. I helped them dress at the beginning of an event, change during the event, and undress afterwards. I made sure their table was set properly, washed dishes afterwards, and helped repack the vehicle at the end of the evening.
Then I became an Honourable Lady, then a Baroness myself, and I had to learn how to be served. I found it far easier to have people around me who knew me very well. There were growing pains, for sure, as I was so used to handling everything on my own. But I had to give up that control to another. I still don't do it very well. But I try.

What does this have to do with living history events? Well, to start, we have been going about attending events in a way that may not do service to either the site, or to each other. We have been going about eventing from an individual's standpoint instead of a community standpoint. And this often happens to both the re-enactor and the site coordinator. From a site coordinator's perspective, they want visitors through the door, money in the bank account. They may not know how to deal with the influx of temporary staff though, either in sheer numbers, or with volunteers who travel a distance to get there. The best events I have attended have provided a good bit of background information on why the event is being held. There is often enough time in advance for me to tweak our kit, if necessary, but also to allow me to develop our own personal interpretation for that event. Each event is different, and a good living historian understands that. It's not simply a matter of showing up with all our material culture, setting up, and camping for the public. We have some kit that we bring that we can carry on our backs, like when we are portraying refugees, and other times we can bring the whole tavern set-up. I also need to know what clothes we need to be wearing, even as civilians. Fashions change by the year, even in wartime, but also in social scenario. It's not simply about providing firewood, straw, water, and a clean blue rocket. I need information. A site coordinator should also provide an event scenario, and this is where dramaturgy comes into play. What is the event? What were the events, in history, that lead up to this event happening? Who were the key players? Who were the common men and women? What are the guidelines that we should be following? This is all service that event staff need to be doing for the living historian.

And the living historian needs to do the service of preparing for that event in order to provide the best experience for the visitor. What year are we portraying? What social class are we? Would we even be there as military? or civilian people? We have a lot of 'stuff' but it's not all appropriate for every event. In fact, the full tavern has only been out once in the three years we have been here. There are other opportunities for different interpretive experiences. We have played Loyalist refugees, British army support staff, American army support staff, common folk just evacuated from their homes in a time of crisis.
In all these situations, I have relied on my community to help me to prepare for the event. I learn from other community members as much as from books. The public sees this as well. They notice the differences between event types, and there is a noticeable shift in how that public goes to and consumes living history events. There is still a market for the 'really big show' types of events, just as much as there is for the small, immersive experiences. The difference is in the quality of the show. The public is learning what looks 'right', versus what seems to be 'historical fantasy'. They understand the difference between history and Hollywood. There is a place for each, but they should not be at the same event.

It behooves us to put our best foot forward, both as event organizers, and as living historians. We should be spending more time as a community to help provide the best experience possible for the visitor. These notions of service can help us understand our roles when we are interacting with each other in eighteenth-century living history too though. The more we get to interact with each other, the better we get to know one another, the better a team we become. And we really need to understand that we are a team, both site coordinator and living historian. I would love to be able to interact with everyone more personally than on facebook. I would love to be helping to coordinate living history events so that everyone can have the very best experience. I would love to see more opportunities for us to get together in the off-season to help each other grow and develop broader programming, more interesting experiences for each other, as well as the public. I guess I am missing that camaraderie that develops among friends and colleagues. That working together as a team. And I am still better at the serving side of things than I am at being served...

Feeling a bit lonely these days.

Elizabeth Hickman, d.1784, Cook

For want of shelter

We have been gearing up for an event at Saratoga in September. This will be an opportunity for us to live as Loyalist refugees for the weekend, surrounded by other living history people enacting the beginning of the downfall of General Burgoyne in the Fall of 1777. I have been considering what we will need to wear, but also what we will be bringing with us. And how all of this will pack, as we are not allowed to bring our pack basket. This event is an invitational, vetted event. To register, I had to send in photographs of us in our clothes, and received feedback on how to tweak it to achieve the look event staff are going for. It helps that we have a footing now with Fort Ticonderoga, and that we are a known quantity now, after working a couple of events there. People are getting to know us, this is a good thing.
Clothing has been easy. I've been working at upgrading that for over a year now. Currently, I'm working on other peoples clothes, making new gear for friends, and teaching them how to make their own clothes. We will be taking two completely new people to this event, I want them to fit right in. Alison is a close friend in my PhD program, she is a dramaturg, and we have talked extensively about how our careers have overlaps, we even read the same authors and texts when we've been writing our comprehensive exams. It will be interesting to see the event through her eyes.

At the same time I have been looking at the Revolutionary war, I have been watching our current refugee crisis unfold. It was interesting to see how people were leaving their homes in Syria for extended stays in camps in Turkey and Europe, but then the crisis got very close to home...like 50kms close. That's only a half hour drive. These refugees are coming up through New York state, following a similar path that Loyalist refugees took when escaping the Revolutionary war. They are being dropped off by taxi-cab at a path through the woods near LaColle Quebec, following the Richelieu River into Canada. Once here, they can claim refugee status. The RCMP and Canadian Border Control have set up a camp at this border to process people, as many were getting lost in the woods, and it gets cold here in the winter. They've been carrying a suitcase with all their worldly possessions. During the Revolutionary period, refugees were marched all the way up to Sorel, where the Richelieu meets the Saint Lawrence. They were then loaded on to ships and sent east and west. The British didn't want any Loyalists to stay anywhere near the border, in case they too started something...
I'm comparing these two crisis' and thinking, "we have hotels, and cars now, the Loyalists wouldn't have had those things to ease their journey". If I am portraying a Loyalist, what would I have, really, by the time I got to Saratoga? How long would I have been walking?

Now, just note that modern day Kelly doesn't sleep well under the best of conditions, camping is not 'fun' for me. I sleep with an apnea machine, and don't like to be cold. We will not have those things that make for happy Kellys at Saratoga.

And so, I have been also thinking about shelter...

Encampment of the Loyalists in Johnstown, a new settlement on the banks of the River St. Lawrence, in Canada West; James Peachey June 6th, 1784. Copied by J.R. Simpson August 12, 1925 Archives of Ontario, Ref Code: RG 2-344-0-0-89

Almost everyone who does Loyalist living history in Canada has come across this image. This lovely sketch shows people with tents, encamped, waiting for land grants and houses to be built nearby. They are not in the process of running for their lives. Their running is done. They are starting over.

I realized that having a full tent on such a trip would be a heavy prospect, not one I wanted to inflict on Pierre. That, and our tents are all sunforger canvas, following Parks Canada regulations on tentage. This event at Saratoga is a progressive event, so linen canvas or none at all. I didn't want to also have to hand stitch a full tent at this time, I still have clothes to make for Zac, Alison's husband...and now less than a month to make that happen.

Pierre and I talked about sleeping rough, after weighing modern options. We both wanted the full experience of the event, so a hotel was just not going to fly. That, and finances are too tight to be thinking about hotels for a living history event, especially with conferences coming up. I don't think I could do completely rough, with just a blanket and the stars to shelter me. Further options were considered. And then we figured a small lean-to might be a good thing to build.

Not knowing what sort of conditions we would be walking into, at a National Park, I wanted to plan for the contingency that we would not have any supplies in order to build a lean-to. What could I bring with me that I might have had in the period. A linen tarp was just the answer.

but not just any tarp...

In a past life, I apprenticed to a historical sailmaker by the name of Derek Harrison at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. I could build a rough sail easily enough. And with the gift of some linen canvas from another friend, Lynn Griffiths last week, I set to start.
Remember, we are considering our trek to be up the Hudson river, to the Champlain, then into the Richelieu river valleys, all along bodies of water where boats could be found.

I made up a trapezoidal shaped sail of a central rectangle and two side triangles. The central rectangle is as long as we are tall, and wide enough for us to spoon. The side triangles will make the front elevation of the lean-to and provide side shelter. I roped all the edges, as a sail of the period would have been, adding rope eyelets at each corner. The corners were also reinforces with a secondary layer of canvas at a different grain direction to support those eyelets even more. Finally, on the long edge, where we will be placing the uprights of wood, I added two grommets to help in lashing the thing together. This weekend, we will head over to the woodlot next door and cut some appropriate saplings to make those uprights. These will need to be sealed with shellac in order to cross the border. Yes officer, they are 'finished' wood, and we will bring them home with us.

A corner flipped back, you can see the eyelet on the corner, the roped edges and the reinforcing. you can also see my flat seam, otherwise known as a flat-felled seam.

the corner eyelet

my hitched grommet

Pierre inspecting my work

I completely hand stitched this piece, using the flat seam to join the pieces, the round seam to attach the reinforcement pieces. I then whipped the rope along the hemmed edges, splicing the ends together and whipping over the rough ends of the rope. I then made the little thread grommets and worked the hitched eyelets over. This is work I hadn't done in almost a decade. I think Elder Harrison would be proud of my stitching. But my hands, arms, and shoulders ache now. I think I'll take the weekend off before returning to my sewing studio.

Bibliography

Smith, Hervey Garrett. The Arts of the Sailor: Knotting, Splicing, and Ropework with 101 Illustrations. New York: Dover Publications, 1990. paper.