More on Pleats and Ruching

Pleats are amazing on period garments and add just the right touch.  But...oh, no...they require math!

Not with this lady's technique!  Watch this video on creating pleats the easy -- no math way.

Texas, a heritage too grand to not share

Enjoy this excellent video on Ft. Griffin and Ft. Chadbourne.

A Sack Full of History

This is not an article about the pre-1900s but it is about women's lives on the Texas frontier during the Depression era.  Flour sacks were often used to stretch the family's clothing. This article from
http://www.littlethings.com/flour-sack-dresses-vcom/?utm_source=LTcom&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=misc gives us an insight into the ingenuity and creativity of women during times of hardship. There are some wonderful pictures in the article of families clothed with feed sacks.

The children here are clothed with feed sack fabric but you would never know it. Think of the serious sewing skills involved.

Read the article at 

http://www.littlethings.com/flour-sack-dresses-vcom/?utm_source=LTcom&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=misc 

Do you have a picture of someone wearing feed sack fabric or a quilt of feed sack fabrics.  Please post a picture or a comment.

Knife and Box Pleats

Pleats are probably the most flattering way to gather the massive volume of fabric into a CW era dress waistband.  Cartridge pleats look lovely on teeny-tiny ladies but have a tendency to balloon on we ladies of substance.  ; ).  Box and knife pleats lay nicely at the waist and flair well at the hem.   This video covers an easy way to create pleats using template.  Another tip is to spray the pleats with water and vinegar before pressing.  It will hold the pleats much better.  On period dresses just press the first 5 or 6 inches of the pleat from the waistband.  Don't press all the way to the hem.  Hope you find this video helpful.  Please comment with your tips for the rest of us.

Create a Faux Daguerreotype

Daguerreotypes were the first type of photography; they were images printed onto polished silver so they are very reflective, like a mirror.  http://dollarstorecrafts.com/2013/10/tutorial-make-a-faux-daguerreotype/ This web page has a tutorial for creating a daguerreotype look alike.  It uses a craft film that can be printed on a computer and then adhered to a mirror giving it the impression of old photography.  Wouldn't it be fun to have a period picture of your own soldier or child at your display?  Use your own photo edited to sephia tone or b/w or look at The Graphics Fairy which has a good stock of vintage photos at http://thegraphicsfairy.com/search/

Early Roads Head West

Route 66 is well known but Oklahoma's historic routes of commerce go back much further — from connections to the Spiro Mounds on the Arkansas River centuries ago to the 19th-century Texas Road, the Butterfield Overland mail route, the Chisholm Trail and the Western Trail.
 This article  http://newsok.com/article/5449454  tells of the early roads that helped settle the west and connected communities.  

New Mexico Portal of Information

For those Living Historians who reside in New Mexico, I have just completed assisting the Chama, NM library in developing a web presence.  As part of their site, there are a number of historic sites and specialized databases that will help your research.  To access the New Mexico El Portal you need to have a NM library card from your local library. http://chamalibrary.blogspot.com/p/resourcesyouth.html
However, you can access the first link of the page, NM history and historical photos without a password.

Collections from the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives

• The Palace of the Governors Photo Archives contains an estimated 1,000,000 items including historic photographic prints, cased photographs, glass plate negatives, film negatives, stereographs, photo postcards, panoramas, color transparencies, and lantern slides. This important collection includes material of regional and national significance, dating from approximately 1850 to the present, covering subject matter that focuses on the history and people of New Mexico and the expansion of the West; anthropology, archaeology, and ethnology of Hispanic and Native American cultures; and smaller collections documenting Europe, Latin America, the Far East, Oceana, and the Middle East.

http://econtent.unm.edu/cdm/phoarc

Enjoy your research!