• Home
  • Shop
  • Completed Costumes/Impressions
  • Emma and Her Dresses
  • Patterns & Kits
  • Free Patterns and Instructions

Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Tag Archives: things to do indoors

Got to Get By: Resources for a Quarantine

14 Tuesday Apr 2020

Posted by kittycalash in Living History

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

covid-19, reading, resources, things to do indoors

How are you going to Get By these days? For some of us, Self-Isolation or Quarantine or Artist-in-Residence or whatever you are calling the past four to six weeks has been not much different from everyday life. We work from home, and while our income may have decreased because people have less disposable income, we still have plenty to do. There are patterns to write, things to make, food to cook, gardens to weed and plant, files to organize. Other folks lack inclination or access: not everyone likes the same thing, some people are always tidy. For most of us, though, reading is a tolerable past time, and one you can indulge in safely

Organizing research files gave me a sense of control and made my workspace nicer.

But what about now, when you’ve read all your library books and the library is closed? If you have a library card, chances are you have access to free ebooks through OverDrive or Libby. You can synch OverDrive to your library account and check out ebooks for free. I don’t love reading on a screen, but needs must. 

The University of Chicago Press offers a free ebook every month, and thanks to that offer, I have been exposed to books I would not have encountered otherwise. (They have also lowered the epub and PDF prices of some of their books this month.) Other publishers (Random House/Penguin, for example) have done the same. 

If you, like me and many others, are missing the luxury and solace of art, the Met can help you. For years they’ve had their publications online, many downloadable as PDFs. There are a *lot* of publications. On the other coast of this continent, the Getty offers their publications online, to, and you can find LACMA catalogs online, too.

Need other distractions? Want to remind those around you to social distance? Frog & Toad of Providence has the shirt for you, based on the RI Governor’s now-famous (ok, in small circles) order to Knock it Off. (I think it’s the perfect Mother’s Day present, but we run to odd.) 

Books from Symposium in PVD.
Books from Symposium in PVD.
The cookbook was for Monty.
The cookbook was for Monty.

Want to hold a print book in your hand? Your local indie bookstore may well be shipping. I ended up ordering from both Symposium Books and Books on the Square in Providence because they had what I wanted at the price I could afford. 

There are free sewing patterns online, too, at a range of places from Mood Fabrics to Fabric-Store.com if you want a new garment. You can also still get patterns, fabrics, and (some) notions from your local independent fabric stores. In addition to the favorites I use for historical costuming (in the sidebar under “Sutlers”), I buy from Harts in San Jose (really like their pattern and cotton print fabric selection). It’s far away but shipping, service, and selection are all excellent. Fabric.com is still shipping (more slowly) but they have a wide selection, as does Fabric Mart, who helpfully notes shipping delays and news on their website.

Burnley & Trowbridge linen, Assembly Line apron dress.

Notions, like interfacing and thread, are harder to come by than you might think, but I was able to get interfacing and needles from my local shop in Alexandria. Bored with the usual selections? I find new places from the “Stockists” or “Retailers” section of pattern companies I like. This is helpful when the patterns I like are made by Scandinavian companies (I am currently obsessed with The Assembly Line.)

 

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Email
  • Twitter

Like this:

Like Loading...

An Evening In with Emma

27 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Frivolous Friday, Living History, Making Things

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

activities, dresses, Early Republic, Emma, Federal style, paper doll, paper dolls, Regency, things to do indoors

Journal des dames et des modes, (1812)

Just three weeks ago Drunk Tailor and I went to see the new Emma. We made an evening of it, aware that it would likely be our last excursion for some time.

Dressed in our early 19th-century attire, we had dinner out before we went to the theatre. I don’t know if this is my favorite Emma— the BBC adaptation with Romola Garai is one of my comfort movie go-tos– but it is by far the funniest, meanest, most satirical version of Emma I’ve encountered.We laughed a lot– more than most viewers, though I know the Regency Society of Virginia folks did too, behind us– and that was an interesting way to take in Austen.

There are some interesting pieces on the visual and material culture of Autumn de Wilde’s version, including one on color and class, and I’ve enjoyed seeing these pieces become part of the popular discourse around the movie and the novel. (I find I have to ignore the comments by Anya Taylor-Joy on corsets, which make zero sense to me as a wearer of 18th and early 19th century stays.)

I don’t know if we’ll stream the new Emma— the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice is a favorite of mine so that might be this weekend’s chocie– but today I started coloring in some paper doll dresses. A year or more ago, I made my own Emma doll, and, over time, drew several sheets of dresses. They’re here for you to download and fill in as you please. While for now these are a way for me to have all the clothes in La Belle Assemblee and Ackermann’s Repository, I also see these as potential croquis, a way to map out what I want to make. I do, after all, have a Strategic Fabric Reserve. I’ve uploaded my drawings in case you might enjoy them too (it’s an idiosyncratic style, I admit) as we all find ways to occupy ourselves indoors.

Emma and her dresses for download

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Email
  • Twitter

Like this:

Like Loading...

Kitty Calash FB

Kitty Calash FB

The Etsy Shop!

Kitty Calash Swag on Teespring

Archives

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,928 other subscribers

Blogroll

  • A Most Beguiling Accomplishment
  • Afroculinaria: Michael Twitty
  • British Tars
  • Clothing the Carolinas
  • Drunk Tailor
  • History Research Shenanigans
  • Kleidung um 1800
  • New Vintage Lady
  • Not Your Momma's History
  • Our Girl History
  • Picking for Pleasure
  • Places in Time
  • Ran Away From the Subscriber
  • Slave Rebellion Reenactment
  • The Hidden Wardrobe
  • The Quintessential Clothes Pen
  • Worn Through

Etsy Shop

  • Kitty Calash on Etsy

Resources

  • Casey Fashion Plate Collection, LAPL

Sutlers

  • Burnley & Trowbridge
  • Wm Booth, Draper
wordpress statistics

Creative Commons License
Kitty Calash blog by Kirsten Hammerstrom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

A WordPress.com Website.

  • Follow Following
    • Kitty Calash
    • Join 627 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Kitty Calash
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: