I love to sew… My mom taught me how as a teen. Now I especially like to make baby clothes, since they are quickly finished and don’t necessarily require a large material investment. But recently I’ve started trying to make clothes for myself again…

When I was little I used to play pioneer. I would dress up in one of my mom’s old skirts (which dragged on the ground) and run around on our overgrown lot in a sunbonnet my mom had sewn for me for Halloween one year. We had a little red wagon that could be transformed into a covered wagon with a good stretch of the imagination, and I had my baby-sized doll, Lily John, who could be either male or female as the situation required (hence the name). I spent hours (days?) in this fantasy world inspired by the Little House on the Prairie books (I didn’t see the television series until I was an adult, curiously enough, my parents thought it was tacky).

As I grew older I read the Anne of Green Gables books, the Emily books. Little Women and Little Men. Then I discovered to my great delight the Brontës and Jane Austen–Sense and Sensibility first, then Persuasion, then Pride and Prejudice. I also love the films.

Then, recently, I stumbled across www.sensibility.com and was inspired… What girl doesn’t need a Regency gown?

This blog is meant to be a chronicle of my foray into the textile world of the past.