This is a post from Christin's blog

 This is a post from Christin's blog

http://sewnarnian.blogspot.com/

 

*GASP* 

Woohoo! I did it. I actually did it. I just sewed a ball gown. A civil war ball gown made out of taffeta. I remember telling myself that I would NEVER sew a ball gown. Much too complicated. And I would never sew with any thing that was slippery. No silk, no taffeta, no satin. Nothing like that. I was quite sure that I would mess it up. And then Sara gave Grace, Linnea, and myself some taffeta for ball gowns. Great! Now I had to use that slippery stuff. I came up with every possible excuse as to why I couldn't do it. "The fabric was too slippery." "So what? Figure out how to work with it. And hurry up."
 "The material was too cheap looking. It might shred and then it would have been a waste of time." "Well you'll never know what it will do if you don't use it. Hurry up and start sewing." As you can see, my sisters were not going to take  "no" for a answer. So I began with Grace's gown. She had bought a simple pattern from Period Impressions. So we washed the fabric and began to iron it. That was were I hit my first "speed bump". This taffeta was 100% polyester. I took the iron and placed it on the fabric and....... it melted. My room stank of melting plastic for two days. Okay, lesson learned. Do not use your grandmothers 15 year old iron that is no longer adjustable. So I bought a new iron that had settings that worked and started over. Got it ironed and I told Grace to start cutting the material while I got the machine ready. Problem was that I had never done this kind of thing before (as I've already said) and I didn't know that you couldn't just cut it out like you would with regular old cotton. First you have to layer the material with tissue paper so the material doesn't slip and come out in funky shapes. So we re-cut the fabric and got ready to sew it. It was a lot easier than I thought that it would be. The hardest part was figuring out how to fit 180" onto a waistband that's made for some one with a 26 1/2" waist. We ended up doing a triple box pleat all the way around. Half way through sewing the bodice together Grace held it up and said "You know what? I think this will actually work and that it will look quite nice." Thank you for the encouragement Grace. All the way through sewing this dress Grace was right behind me, encouraging me. So now, almost 9 months after I first started on this project, it is finally done.
                                                                     
                                                        

The front of the gown.

Back of the gown.

Close up of the front.

Close up of the back. We are eventually going to add lacing to the back. Half of the girls like it as it is now, with hook and eye closures. Grace really likes the look of the lacing.

Gown from the side.

The antique lace that we dyed to match the binding, which we also made.

              
One ball gown done,three more to go. And all before November  17. I better get movin'. :)                                                   

A somewhat normal day

On a somewhat normal day we start by getting up at five o'clock and get dressed, clean our rooms, and sit down for breakfast (Emma usually makes it and Dad has left to drive the school bus), that is also the time we have our meeting for the day, discuss what we got done yesterday and talk about what needs to be done today. Then Christin, Sara, Emma and I go out to milk the goats, depending on who's day off of milking it is that person has to clean up from breakfast and get the little kids dressed and ready for the day. Now that Katarina has gone back up to New York to work at another dairy it is Grace's chore to work in our dairy, so that's what she does when we are milking. By the time we are done milking it is about eight o'clock, Dad is home from driving the bus and we all have street time, run, walk, roller skate, or ride one of the two bikes we have (and actually we haven't been doing street time that much lately due to us not finishing milking to about eight thirty). Then it is nine o'clock and SCHOOL TIME!!!! Yes I love school, we are currently doing year two of our curriculum and learning about late explorers, but this has probably been the most boring week of school we have done so far this year. We do school until twelve then it's dinner time which is our main meal of the day. Starting at one is our free time, where we can do things we want to do such as sew, ride the horses, or blog, free time goes on until four o'clock, if we want to we can switch our free time and school time in case we want to do something for free time that requires us doing it in the morning. Then at four we have to get the milk stuff out and start milking, we finish around six, then we have to clean up from milking.We eat supper and at seven we have family time whether it's playing a card game, playing capture the flag, or watching a movie. We then have bible study, and at eight the little kids go to bed, the older kids and Dad and Mom go to bed at nine (though lately we've been going to bed much later then that). So that's our somewhat normal day, of course there are times when we have to switch it up a bit, like on Friday when we have to get ready for Saturdays market, or when we go to a friends house for the day. So today I worked on cleaning out the burn pit, Christin started working on a 1860s ball gown for me, Dad and Sara went to our Wednesday Houston market, Mom and Grace went to our Austin Wednesday market, And the little kids did the normal. Good bye for now.

A slice of our history

One hundred and fifty years ago today was the battle of Sharpsburg. I was nine years old when we went to Virginia, I remember going to sharpsburg, seeing the church with blood stains on the floor, walking through the corn field, and walking down bloody lane, and I remember it very well! I love history, mainly on the war for southern independence and I hope one day the southern soldiers who went to fight  to try to preserve their freedom will not be seen as traitors but heroes!

http://www.npr.org/2012/09/17/161248814/antietam-a-savage-day-in-american-history

BLT and my garden

About a year ago, Sara told me that the next time I went to Braums I needed to get a chicken club, only I hadn't heard her right, so when I finally was able to go to Braums I ordered chicken strips. As I was eating I looked over at what Dad had gotten and thought it looked really good, It was a BLT with chicken in it, when we got home I told Sara how I had gotten the chicken strips like she said to, she then corrected me saying it was a BLT with chicken in it that she thought I should of gotten. So when Mom went food shopping yesterday I called her and asked her to pick up stuff for us to make chicken clubs for supper, hoping I would finally get one with out having to go all the way to Braums, she said she would, but we didn't have the time to cook  the chicken so we decided to use sandwich turkey slices, so I cook all the bacon and and toast all the bread only to find out we don't have tomatoes! It's this time when I wish I hadn't let my  garden go up in weeds! In the end the sandwich tasted pretty good but I wouldn't consider it a real chicken club! I don't know why I'm putting these up here, maybe it's so I can see how nice the garden looked back then and try making it that nice now. These pictures were of my first year of gardening in 2010, hopefully next year it will look nice again!


                                  There is actually a fence around it now.

                                        Oh look tomatoes!

                                                 More  tomatoes.

 

                                        And lettuce!

               
                                         More lettuce.

                                                        Onions!

                                           Little cucumbers!

                                         A anaheim pepper flower!

                                          Would ya look at that!

                                         

                             
                                                strawberries!

                                          

                                           More onions.

 

                                             Thyme

                                             

                                              Oh look Due berries behind the garden.

                                              
          Well good bye for now, hopefully next summer I can put up pictures of it then.

Reenacting

I know this might be kinda random since we haven't reenacted in over a year, but maybe its because I miss it so much that's why I want to write about it.  Last year due to historic drought, our main reenactment (Liendo plantation) was cancelled, but we still reenacted a bit at Washington-on-the-brazos. Now this year, we are no longer in a historic drought and we are really looking forward to Liendo plantation. Which will be the weekend before Thanksgiving, perfect weather!



                             Here are some pictures from Washington-on-the-brazos.

 

Walking up to the house.

                                            This was when Dixie was little.

                                                                               
                                                             
                                  Noah trying his hand at wood work.                                                            

                                                                                  
                                                            
                                                                                
                                                                 Sara

                                                                                     

                                                 Judah lookin' at the pigs.

                                                                          


                                                     Me cross stitching.

                                                                           
                      
                                        Not sure what's going on in this picture.

                                                                                                                                                        
                       Looks comfortable and actually it didn't feel that bad at all.

                                                                                 
                         
                                                               Demonstrations

                                                                              
                 
                                        A view of the kitchen.

                                                                            

                                      It's really fun to cook in here.

                                                                          

              That's my Dad, as you can see, he didn't dress up for the event. 

                                                                           
                                                       Funny picture.

                                                                              

                                                  Another pic of me.

                                                                               
                                                                           
                                    Seth trying his hand at washing clothes.

                                                                     

                                                      The dog-run.

                                                                            

                                                         Christin

                                                                                 

                                           Emma watching a demonstration.

    

                                                                                
                                    Liberty trying on one of their hats.  

                                                                                

                            This is one of the headdresses Sara and I made.

                               We have some available if you would like one.  
 https://www.etsy.com/your/shops/HeritageHopes/preview

                                                                      

I'd like y'all to meet my family

Good evening, I just wanted to take a moment to introduce all my family members to you, Hope you enjoy it!

My wonderful Dad

He is so amazing, he's always there to encourage me to work hard and do what's right.


My beautiful Mom

She's always there to answer my questions and comfort me when I'm feeling low.


My sister, Katarina (The girl at the top of the picture)

She's the baseball fan of the family.

My second sister, Christin

She's the seamstress of the family.

My third sister, Grace (not the little boy)

She's the Horse trainer of the family.

My fourth sister, Sara

She's the photographer of the family

And then comes me, I'm the fifth girl

Then there's my first little sister, Emma

She's the chicken herder, and she's very,very goofy

Then there was the first boy!!!

(the boy of course)

Timothy loves to play baseball

My other little sister, the seventh child, Liberty

She's the frog catcher and she loves broccoli

Then another boy, Noah

He also is a very good baseball player, he is also a good leader

And yet another great boy, Judah

He is very lovable

And one more boy, Seth Logan

He follows Grace everywhere

And adorable lil' Dixie

In fact she's so cute I decided to put two pictures on of her.