Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Pretty Pretty Princess

We here out on the prairie have been hit with a blizzard. Last night, on the NOAA website, they announced a blizzard warning - not a winter storm, a BLIZZARD. When you hear that, you know you're going to be hit hard. So far it hasn't looked too bad outside. But the wind is blowing furiously. We've been advised not to go outside, and of course I am one to obey orders, so I've stayed in my pajamas all day, snuggled up on the couch.

It seemed the perfect day to get some sewing done. I fixed the hem facing on the skirt of my ballgown. It was bunching a little funny. I'm afraid I'll have to eventually undo the skirt and redo it - I've lost some weight recently and thankfully I've just been able to take in the waistband at this point, but I'm afraid things will need to be rebalanced.

I have no pictures - all pictures right now would be with the auto-timer on my rinky-dink Kodak Easyshare, and wouldn't do justice to how beautiful the gown really is. So when it is all done, and I'm all dressed up for the ball, I will have someone take some photos.

With Kind Regards,

Betsy

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Welcome!

Welcome to my little corner of the world!

I started reenacting almost 9 years ago. But my obsession with history began far, far earlier. For as long as I could remember, I've been in love with history. When I was little, I learned to read early, and my favorite books were those which were historical in nature - the American Girl series, the Little House Books, Anne of Green Gables. Anything historical, I was interested in it. I learned a lot of handcrafts early on, because it made me feel like a pioneer girl.

When I was in middle school, I started volunteering at a historical site nearby. That gave me some of my history fix - but the customer service aspect was a real downer - people were always getting in the way of my history high.

In 8th grade, I went with my class trip to Washington DC. The last day, we drove down to Williamsburg, VA and I got to spend a day in Colonial Williamsburg. I can pinpoint this as the moment that I was sort of reborn - there were people there, pretending like they were back in time! The buildings were historical! They were working with recreated tools! It was like a historical mecca - everyone there was just as enthusiastic about history as I was! But Williamsburg was located on the East Coast - and I really didn't know about anything near where I was. I figured I would attend college out east, in order to gain access to that kind of environment.

Fast forward a few years, one of the last summers I spent volunteering at the historic site. I saw a program put on by my current club about fashion in the mid 19th century. Things started clicking into place in my mind - it was living history, going on right in my neighborhood. I signed up immediately, though it took me almost a year to get up the nerve to attend a meeting.

That was that. It took a long time for my feet to hit the floor - through high school, through college, and into my first year out of college, I didn't really have the time or money to put into living history. Now that I'm a bit more settled, this past year has featured a rededication of my efforts towards living history.

My goals in living history are several. First, I want to educate myself, through research and constant questioning of what I know, or think I know. My second goal is to educate others, the public and my fellow living historians, by sharing what I know. Thirdly, I want to experience what it was truly like to live back in time, and have a ton of fun doing it.

So, to mark my new era in living history, I've started this blog, to track my research, projects, acquistions, and of course, all the events I attend. I hope you'll join me!

With Kind Regards,

Betsy