After the Christmas Eve Service, after settling down for the night, after Christmas morning's excitement at the foot of the tree,...

For those of you for whom messing with teeniney, wee bits of beadlike wiggly wire, minute spangles, and small motifs stresses you out, read...

Given how little time and funds I have to sew, I am learning to make what I have stretch in a lot of ways...a method popular "back the...

Portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire , by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons "...Hetty and I took a w...

Our poor little Metropolitan Museum "body" may have been the salvagey product of, let's be honest, not the finest of seamstr...

Plate 10. Luxus und der Moden. April 1796 . 1790s "bodies", those sort of spencer-like, jacket-like sleeveless items I...

I've spent a little while peering nearsightedly at the Met's "spencer jacket", and my peregrinations along the seam- an...

Late 18th century spencer/jacket from the Met. 1970.281.1 Convertible spencer research time! The first step, a look at originals o...

I know from following the blogs of online acquaintances that many of us have at one time or another fallen, plump, in pit-deep infatuatio...

My cloak. Remember that hugely long voile cloak I made for this past summer's Jane Austen Festival? The kind that's pictured o...

 Autumn playsThree Graces with a little girl from The Kentucky History Club "We're inside a story, Mama," Noah remarke...