Answer

From girliegirl32786 Ok, I will ask you a question! What made you first get into historical costuming? (This is a favorite thing of mine to know.)

Well, when I was in Grade 2, I was REALLY into Little House on the Prairie. And there are some fab dress descriptions in those books, namely Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years. (The descriptions are so good that if you know the terms you could actually know almost exactly how the dresses should look.) Then I got started reading L.M. Montgomery. And I got hooked on that. So that's kind of where the whole historical part really kicked in. I was a pioneer fanatic.

Sewing comes in like this: My mom sews, her mom sewed. I think it would be impossible to escape. So my mom would make my Hallowe'en costumes every year. And I believe one year I got to be a pioneer girl. It was a really cute, not accurate at all, kind of costume, but I was only like 10, so I think that's okay. ;p And I used to like to dress up in it on non-Hallowe'en days. And so the obsession began.

My mom taught me some sewing basics, and I got to be able to make simple, modern clothes. Fast forward a few years. But I had a nice sized rag doll (because Laura Ingalls had Charlotte, so I wanted a rag doll too), in Edwardian-esqe style clothes. And I wanted to make her new clothes. I was reading the new Little House books, about her ancestors and made a Regency-esque type dress for her. (Okay, this was actually my second attempt at making clothes from scratch with no pattern. Let's just say that seam allowances and ease were not my strong points.) Fast forward a few more years to high school, and I'm getting really into historical clothes. (Probably a result of reading even more historical fiction, and getting to watch a costume flick or two. But I always wanted to know what that book characters would really be wearing. And we had the Internet by this time, so voila! information at my fingertips.) I made my doll some 18th century-esque stays. And had plans for other 18th century clothes, but somehow her fabric became my green stays. Strange how fabric likes to change its mind like that.

What with the Internet and all, I came across a few sites that really changed my historical costume life. Namely, koshka_the_cat and demode_kvc's websites. I mean, Come On! There were free patterns! And tons of pics of real clothing from long ago! So I scaled up koshka_the_cat's 1820-1840 corset pattern and got started. I did a few mock-ups, but unfortunately I didn't know much about fitting. So it doesn't fit very well, and it's not finished. I don't think it'll ever be finished. The library also really pulled through for me. And I became acquainted with Janet Arnold, Norah Waugh, and Jean Hunnisett. And now I have multiple tracings of little patterns in my room just waiting to be scaled up and made into stuff. But don't we all?

Hmm, this is rather long, but it's definitely something that has always interested me about other people as well. I was actually hoping to get asked this. So thanks girliegirl32786!