Source: Flickr the green gal

I tend to do a lot of research when I’m preparing for a book (or report for work or anything like that).  I like to make sure I have the big picture fully under control! Which means that I then often have a lot of left over research, which I thought you might find interesting. So over the next few months I’m taking that research and  I’ll post interesting features up here…… The first one is on sugar, I love sugar even though its not good for you!

Sugar was without a doubt the taste of the Regency – sweet and in large quantities.  This was the first time that sugar became cheaper, before then people relied on honey for a bit of sweetness.

Sugar was now used in almost everything: drinks to pastries, confectionary, jams, sweet breads and cakes. The popularity of tea, coffee and chocolate, with a sugar lump or two, also drove demand for sugar.

Many old British recipes relied on sugar, flour, eggs and cream or butter as the base ingredients, with fresh and dried fruit, walnuts, almonds, wine and spices added to make the sweet buns so typical of the era. The ‘Bath Bun’, a yeast bun sometimes with dried fruit or caraway seeds, was baked in sugar and then sprinkled with sugar.

Moving into the dining room, a Regency guest would not be surprised to find sugar in a chicken dish, vegetables or a pudding (which was usually fat and flower, not necessarily a dessert). Sugar was of course also found in large quantities in the sweet diary desserts, like custards using cream and milk, and jellies also served at the dining table.

But sugar came at a huge cost: sugar was only so widely available due to the Caribbean sugar plantations, like Sir Thomas Bertram’s Antigua properties in Mansfield Park, and their slaves. Sugar needs warmth, lots of land and lots of cheap labour: the West Indies had the warmth and land and cheap labour, well, came from slaves captured by British ships.

During the late Georgian era, the abolition of slavery was a key political debate in certain circles. The anti-slavery campaign achieved some legislative steps to outlaw slavery, from the first step to outlaw slavery in Britain in 1772 then to the prohibition on the import of slaves to its colonies in 1808.

It is questionable though how much this debate was played out in the confectionary and tea shops in town, or at the dining and drawing rooms of a Regency gentleman’s home. Fanny Price in Mansfield Park is willing to learn about Sir Bertram’s West Indies properties.

“But I do talk to him more than I used. I am sure I do. Did not you hear me ask him about the slave trade last night?” [Fanny]

“I did – and was in hopes the questions would be followed up by others. It would have pleased your uncle to be inquired of further.” [Edmund]

“And I longed to do it – but there was such a dead silence! And while my cousins were sitting by without speaking a word, or seeming at all interested in the subject, I did not like – I thought it would appear as if I wanted to set myself off at their expense, by shewing a curiosity and pleasure in his information which he must wish his own daughters to feel’. Mansfield Park

Thankful for: The gorgeous pink roses in my garden. They love the weather and keep blooming all summer: just have to love them. Plus its not just my garden, they are in my neighbours’ gardens as well!

Buying: I bought a Kindle from Amazon which arrived last week and I love it! I read lots of books and have a great fear of being away from home without a book: doom and disaster, what will I do!  Now I have a Kindle that will never be a problem! I love paper books and I was a bit worried about what it would be like to read on, but it  is actually a really easy and pleasant experience.

Planning: I’ve been busying getting ready for the release of my next Jane Austen book Behind Jane Austen’s Door.  This will be my second book on Jane Austen. I have at least another two books coming out in 2012 and one kind of Austen inspired and the other completely new and different!

Loving: This game my daughter is playing: Manga Play Secret Garden. We borrowed it from our local toy library, which is just absolutely fantastic. If you have kids, you should definitely check a toy library out, the fees are low and they have an enormous range of toys. Perfect for when my daughter says “Can I have?” “I want” and I say “Let’s look in the toy library”. Plus the best thing is when she gets bored, we take it back and get something else. Just fantastic! This is one of her latest borrows: its so gorgeous.  Magnetic shapes that come in a little metal tin with a book of designs to copy.

Reading: Two books, one print and one ebook.  I’m reading Kate Grenville’s Searching for the Secret River for fun and Kim Kiyosaki’s It’s Rising Time for fun and education. Both great books!

Surviving: The noise in the library! My wi fi is down due to over enthusiastic diggers and workman outside our house, so I’m in the library! Which is full of children doing scientific experiments and periodically squealing!

Photo Blog: Different Colours and Designs

I’ve been working with a historic collection that dates from the 1890s to 1940s, which means that it has quite a few different elements to it. Contrast the green rayon bedspread above with the magazine cover below. I’ve seen the doiley holders before but here’s a photo of one in the collection below.

The Home 1934

I had a delightful chat with Jennifer Ackerman-Hayward of Craft Sanity over Easter. It was quite a free ranging conversation about all sorts of things – including craft, Jane Austen, children and the towns we live in, just to name a few.  I’ve enjoyed her podcasts immensely over the years and was most interested in her latest magazine endeavour.

She has very kindly featured my book Jane Austen’s Sewing Box in this forthcoming issue of her Craft Sanity magazine. Jennifer and her team always do such lovely covers, with interesting & different craft articles and patterns on the inside!  I truly don’t think I will ever forget the random beanie knitter/ gifter from Issue 1.

Source: Flickr Jeri Gloege

I will get to Laura Ingalls Wilder and her New Zealand Connection, but I just have to say that I’m suffering terribly…… from withdrawal symptoms from the Little House on the Prairie books.  Over the past couple of months, I’ve read her entire series including two books not really about the Prairie – one a diary about the Wilder’s journey to Missouri in 1894 and one which is a collection of letters from Laura to her husband about her trip to San Francisco in 1915.

Replica of the Little House on the Prairie at Independence, Kansas

Source: Flickr  Shelia Scarborough

To the junior section

Several decades after watching the Michael Landon series I find myself walking back to the junior section of the library  ….. and the same magic has captured me again. I’m fascinated by their pioneer wagon trips, I worry about Jack the dog being lost, I’m fearful of panthers, wolves and blizzards, I admire Ma’s sense and peace admist the turmoil of travel and difficulties of Prairie life. I sympathise with Laura at the injustice of Miss Wilder as a teacher and the snobbery of Nellie Olesen.  And I so, so , so….. want to live in a town where they get together on cold winter nights to sing, do charades and play competitive spelling bells, not just the kids, every one, adults old and young are right in there singing and spelling their hearts out.

Source: Flickr Lance Mountain

They don’t just seizure…….

This is not to say that their life was easy, frankly you do have to ask just how many times are you going to plant another crop of wheat to watch the grasshoppers eat it or watch the blackbirds take the corn, before you say a farm life just isn’t worth it?   And they get sick, very sick – scarlet fever, malaria, diphtheria and young babies having seizures and dying (now just what is happening there, this is not the first time I’ve read in original sources about babies in the past having a seizure and dying, babies just don’t do seizure and die, not today anyway, what’s going on?)

Not for the like of ordinary folk……

And I adore the references to sewing and fabrics, Laura has so many beautiful references, too many to name but here’s a few interesting little snippets for you:

Pa comes back from town to ask if 14 year old Laura would like to work for a tailor sewing men’s shirts over the spring.  They discuss the tailor’s latest investment:

“You bet! There’s no flies on Clancy” said Pa “He’s got a machine to sew the shirts”

Ma was interested ” A sewing machine. Is it like that picture we saw in the Inter-Ocean? How does it work?”

“About like I figured it would.” Pa answered “You work the pedal with your feed, and that turns the wheel and works the needle up and down. There’s a little contraption underneath the needle that’s wound full of thread, too. Clancy was showing some of us. It goes like greased lightning, and makes as neat a seam as you’d want to see.”

” I wonder how much it costs”, said Ma.

“Way too much for ordinary folks” said Pa.

Ref: Little Town on the Prairie, Puffin Books Penguin Group, 1969, p.31.

And here’s another reference:

Ma is making Mary’s dress to go to college in, a multi-layered, pleated, tucked, frilled hooped skirt number:

“Laura had never before known that Ma hated sewing. Her gentle face did not show it now, and her voice was never exasperated. But her patience was so tight around her mouth that Laura knew she hated sewing as much as Laura did” . p.70

Thankfully for Ma, in a later book she does get her very own sewing machine and you can almost feel her relief and joy at being able to sew so much more quickly.

This is Lucy Hayes’ dress of 1880 she wore to a White House Reception, so its not Mary Ingalls dress she wore to college, but it does give you some idea of the work involved for Ma.

Source: Flickr National Museum of American History

To Laura’s New Zealand connection….

Laura, her husband Almanzo and her daughter Rose leave De Smet, South Dakota in 1894. Prairie life proves too difficult with 7 years of drought. They go to Mansfield Missouri where her house still stands today as a museum. But at some point, I’m not sure exactly when Laura and Almanzo thought of going to New Zealand.

In West From Home Letter of Laura Ingalls Wilder San Francisco, 1915 (Published by Harper Collins in 1974) she visits the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco (a bit like the Great Exhibitions of the 19th century British Empire).  Countries from around the world have displays. This is what she writes to Almanzo about New Zealand:

“Then we went back and after taking another look at the kangaroos (in the Australia exhibit next door) we went into the New Zealand Building where they show moving pictures of the country and people. Do you remember when we had the notion of going to New Zealand before we went to Florida? It is surely a great country. The pictures showed harvesting grain in the hills, too rough for machinery, cut with a sickle, bound by hand and threshed with a flail. They showed a harvest where the ground is just gentle rolling country….. We saw also the loading on ships at the docks of oysters, hemp, cheese, wool and frozen mutton. There were pictures of the great sheep herds and the sheep dogs and the shepherds and hundreds and hundreds of sheep…… We saw also the hot-water lake and the steaming cliffs… There were the hot springs and geysers of another place too, and then pictures of surf bathing on the ocean beach where the people stood away out with boards in their hands and the waves came in dropped down and rode their boards in.”

I second her comment: New Zealand truly is a great country. And if you keep your ears open, a surprising number of people have a connection with the great country.

Source: Flickr - Maguis & David

I have been greatly looking forward to the Ballarat Heritage Weekend - it looks like a wonderful opportunity to take a sneaky peak into some of the gorgeous Victorian buildings.  High on my list of ‘must- sees’ is the chapel at the Loreto Convent which I have been led to believe is stunning and testament to the vision of the Mother Superior (is that the correct term?) in the late 19th century. Apparently she was told that it would never be built due to a lack of funds…. but she got there in the end with a timely bequest from a roaming German princess who studied there but died on her way back to Europe at a young and tender age.

Ballarat Town Hall

I’m also looking forward to visiting the needlework sampler collection on display at the town hall (itself with stunningly beautiful Victorian 19th century interiors – if only all town halls looked so wonderful!) and seeing inside the Old Colonist’s Club and the fire station.

Old Colonist's Club

In the spirit of loving your heritage, I thought I would also just post about a course I’m running at Daylesford later in May for all those who have inherited a few items or collect their own.  Course Details are below in italics:

Source: Flickr – Lin Pernille

Caring for your Collection

Do you have a private collection, maybe family heirlooms or other collectables? 

Come and join other enthusiasts for a hands-on workshop about how to care and store your treasures, including textiles, wood, paper, plastic and more. 

Other aspects of collection management will also be covered, including cataloguing, researching and sharing.

When: Saturday 28 May 10am – 1pm

Where: Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre

Bookings: Call DNC to book on 5348 3569, fee: $40.

Another course I’m running on the creative theme is called Fantastic Felt – once again course details in italics below:

Fantastic Felt

Come and explore the fun and simple creativity of handmade felt. 

We will create with merino wool tops and pre-felts as well as make nuno felt with fabric and wool. 

The course is ideal for beginners of all ages, or those who have already felted and want to explore more.

When: Saturday May 14, 9.30am – 3.00pm

Where: Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre

Bookings: Call DNC to book on 5348 3569

Fee: 1 session $95 (includes all materials) 

And in  my rather eclectic post here’s a link to an ABC news item on the restoration process behind the original Eureka flag. I haven’t seen the real one yet, but I’ve seen a replica and its a ….big….. flag with a lot of hand stitching in 1854 by the women who made it and once again now by Artlab the conservators.

Photo Source: The two photos of buildings on this post come from this website: Ballarat Heritage Weekend.

1960s Original Floral Fabric in Red, White and Blue

Book Review: Sew Retro by Judi Ketteler

I very much suspect I’m a bit behind the times in reviewing this book as I brought it when I first saw it in Australia in November and have taken this long to write about it!  But then I wanted to have a few photos of projects I’ve made from the book like this pincushion.

Sew Retro: A Stylish History of the Sewing Revolution is a pleasant and enjoyable craft book,  in a format which I treasure: it combines history with crafty projects. The book starts with the Victorian era and provides a little bit of context about the arrival of the sewing machine and women’s sewing work in the home and in politics. The book however is really devoted to the 20th century – hence its sub-title 25 Vintage Inspired Projects for the Modern Girl. It follows the flappers of the 1920s, the thrift of the 1930s and 1940s, the fashionable 1950s, the 1960s and the revival of sewing since the 1980s.

As well as a bit of context, Ms Ketteler also includes two biography-type segments: one on a woman from the era and an interview with a contemporary designer, so for the 1930s and 1940s the historic woman is the American fashion designer Hattie Carnegie and the contemporary woman is quilter and reproduction fabric designer Judie Rothermel. I enjoyed this human element and thought it added greatly to the overall book.

All in all – I don’t think I learnt anything from the history of sewing section I didn’t already know, but then I guess its not meant as a definitive historical text but rather a bit of an enjoyable journey through the 20th century with some sewing projects for fun!

Anyway on to the projects: Each era also has four or five projects loosely inspired by the time and include  a range of items like bags, aprons, home wares, skirts and pillows.  The instructions were clear and easy to follow, with the hand drawings showing different steps useful references.  There were a few different projects I hadn’t seen elsewhere like this ‘Sweet Sewing Basket’ under the Victorian Era. I liked it so much I made two.

Reproduction Victorian Fabrics: Sewing Basket

In this first one I used reproduction Victorian fabrics and followed the instructions to the letter, which gave it a softer bag-like feel. I was quite happy with how it turned out, as a nice softer bag for carrying knitting.

Knitting basket with extra stabiliser (interfacing)

In this second one, I actually wanted to make it more of a basket, a firmer upright basket which would sit up by itself a bit more. So I used the stabiliser (interfacing) on the sides as well on the base. The instructions don’t have stabiliser for the sides. I was also happy with how this turned out – a good basket shape and form.

Large pincushion in red spots, trim and floral retro-type fabric

The large pincushion, also under the Victorian Era, was fun and quick to make. So many pincushions are tiny, and I don’t know about you but I tend to use a lot of pins, so I needed a pincushion with some size to it!

Needlecase with pocket and felt insert for needles and pins

I always like needlecases and huswifes, in my opinion you can never have too many of these! Always handy to have one with each project you are working on. Once again my actual project differed a little from the book, in that I couldn’t find any felt the right colour to match my material. So I made a little fabric overlay to hide the felt piece into which you pin your needles and pins.

As time progresses, I intend to make the hostess apron and the farmer’s market bag. Probably in some combination of these 1960 and 1970s original fabrics I picked up at a craft market the other weekend.  The navy blue with white flowers is quite a heavy cotton, great for a bag.  And the blue and red flowers (pictured at the very top) I brought because they simply reminded me of a dress my grandmother had in her wardrobe, that material dates to the 1960s so I assume my grandmother’s dress did too. I don’t remember her wearing it in the 1980s but do definitely remember seeing something like it in her wardrobe at that time!

Original 1970s fabric in blue and white floral

Disclaimer: I don’t know the author at all, and this is not an affiliated link program or a paid book review. I purchased the book and wrote the book review purely because I like history and sewing.

A recent purchase from L'uccello in Melbourne

This blog isn’t meant to be a personal blog, I’m really keeping it for a nice place to collect my thoughts on creating & history (and all those history books I read!)

But I came across a poignant and sad comment the other day and its played upon my mind ever since. In an idle moment, I stumbled upon the blog of an old acquaintance – she’s got a craft blog which she’s written for some years.  Its a really really good interesting blog, but on there she make a passing comment about how: Life wasn’t supposed to be like this but it is what it is and you do your best (to paraphrase).

And it got me thinking about how life can turn out so differently from how the 18 year old self imagined it would be.  I’ve talked to a few people about this and with a mixture of happiness, good grace or regret most agree with me that it does turn out well …… different.   Different good for some people (me included – I am thankful for the choices I’ve had and that I didn’t choice the profession I had my heart set on at school!!) and different bad for others.

Yes, I know the background is supposed to be plain white but I like the shadow lines!

So always believing in action over inaction, here’s a short random list of the things it might have been useful for my 18 year self to have known all those years ago:

• The importance of authenticity – From the ultra serious decisions to as simple as asking is this dress really me?
• The resilience and discipline of everyday life
• The pleasure of ordinariness - like cooking, knitting, scrap booking, sewing, colouring-in Maisy the Mouse, sunshine, safety, roses, walking, an 1850s heritage building, dogs…..
• The fragility of human goodness
• The importance of understanding accounting – and not trigonometry or algebra but real, useful every day mathematics
• The possibility of you – there’s just as much possibility at  58, 48, 38 or 28 as there was at 18.  You believed dreams were possible at 18, what happened to change that now? And I’m sure we can all come up with reasons like responsibilities, children, mortgages, set backs……but then at 18 there were also plenty of reasons why dreams wouldn’t happen like…….youth, lack of work experience, cost of study. And they probably aren’t the same dreams anymore but sometimes they may be…….The possibility of you.

Fabric in the draper's store at Sovereign Hill

In the days before email, SMS, phone or facebook how did you get a quick message to arrange a time to meet a friend? You did this:

Handwritten notices at Sovereign Hill

You hand wrote a little notice inviting your friends to meet you at the hotel tonight at 5pm, then pinned it to the board outside the post office, and trust / hope that your friends will visit the post office today! Or maybe that someone else will pass on the message.

A few weeks ago I visited Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. It is a recreated town of 1850s Ballarat – a time when it was the centre of the gold rush in Victoria. There’s the main street with the draper, baker, grocer, photographer, cabinet maker, printers, school rooms, hotels and more. There’s also a mine, gold diggings, miner’s tents and a series of houses.

Grocer's Store at Sovereign Hill

Now, as a heritage professional, I know there is some debate about outdoor museums like Sovereign Hill and Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia USA (original and recreated 18th century buildings). Are they real heritage? How good an experience is it going to be if its not original buildings / objects / etc?  Sovereign Hill don’t present themselves as real heritage – they aren’t billing themselves as a historic house for example.

And if you go with all this in mind, I think you’ll find it a fascinating historical experience, they’ve done their research and they give you the sight, sound and smell of the past as best they can. They have to be commended for their attention to research and detail to rival any ‘standard museum’.  For example, the draper’s store is a replica of the David Jones (not the chain store we know today) store in Main Road, Ballarat from the late 1850s.

Draper's Department within the Draper's Store

The printed posters are replicas of posters from the time. I asked because we were somewhat amused by the language on the posters – quite hilarious sometimes!

From the 1850s....

A recreated outdoor museum also does something you don’t always find at an original heritage site: sound and smell. Due to conservation needs, original sites need to protect the fabric of their sites and this often means that fires aren’t lit in the fireplaces as often as they would have been or the farm animals have long since left. This all means that the sounds and smells of the past have disappeared from many original sites, no bleating calfs or smoking fires that you’ll find in an outdoor museum like Sovereign Hill.

With an interest in sewing and other creative skills, I also found their hand stitched dresses fascinating. These dresses are modern replications of 1850s and 1860s dresses in pattern, colour, fabric and hand stitching.

And in the draper's store you find.....

Bonnet in the draper's store

Francis Cleveland's 1893 Inauguration Dress

Source: Flickr - National Museum of American History

I went to a talk on Early Australian Fashion at the National Gallery of Victoria on the weekend.  It was a three part talk including an introduction by Curator Laura Jocic, an address by Professor Margaret Maynard, and a discussion with the conservator Annette Soumilas.

Sleeveless but not in the way we mean…..

The stand out for me was the discussion with Annette Soumilas, where she explained what they do to get a 19th century dress on display. Often they will have been given the dress, but without all the additional items it would have been worn with:

• no corsets
• no petticoats
• no crinolines, and
• no under sleeves or collars.

It is then Annette’s (wonderful, amazing!) challenge to measure, investigate and create the appropriate items for the dress.

No Imagined Inventions

Just two examples of her work:

(i) One 1850s day dress had the under sleeves made for it – but in a plain fabric rather than with an embroidered pattern as they would have worn in the 19th century, following the view that “neutral” adjunct pieces are better than “imagined” inventions of the past. (Sounds entirely sensible to me!) A crinoline & petticoat were also made for it based on the shape of the outer decorative dress.

(ii) The most amazing example was creation of a sash piece for the 1865-1870 Blue and Yellow Silk Day Dress by Bright & Hitchcock, Geelong.   The dress was tied with a large sash with two rectangle panels sitting either side on the back of the dress. One rectangle panel had been lost prior to donation. So using the wonders of digital camera – photoshop – digital printing on silk, they replicated the missing panel fabric to make it into a new sash.

Mary Lincoln's 1861 Inauguration Dress

Source: Flickr – National Museum of American History

Building a mannequin

Another complication in presenting a dress is that it doesn’t come with a custom made mannequin. The conservation team need to build up a mannequin with padding & calico for a larger dress or create a whole new mannequin or other display form. I did discover that there are such amazing things as mannequins that are designed for the 18th and 19th century body. (As you can well imagine modern mannequins have body proportions completely unsuited to dresses designed for the 19th century woman.)  KCI in Japan provide these wonderful inventions.

P.S: Now I should note that the dresses pictured here are not the ones on display at the NGV (Hmmmm – not even Australian but chosen for the clarity of photo which gives you an idea of how the conservators have to look underneath the top layer). There are a few photos on the NGV website and their database but nothing that stands out as magic or special for me (such as the two mentioned above).

Mosaic piece from The Block, Melbourne - home of the late 19th century promenade

Source: Flickr – Melork