String Revolution

I was amused, last October, when I asked the Oyster what he wanted to dress up as for Hallowe’en, and he said, “A ghost!” He went on to specify how I should make the costume, by getting a sheet and cutting it into the right size and then cutting two eye holes. Moreover, the Feaster would need one exactly the same.

But-but-but! I thought. How am I going to blog about this? Because I have my priorities straight, innit.
Continue reading Dragon

I’ve finished Alice McAnnally’s bonnet!

My lovely reader Emma commented on that previous post with loads of additional information about Alice: she was apparently born in Louth in 1809, and convicted of robbing a person. She worked as a housemaid and washerwoman, and may have married a man named Manville.

The convict women of the Elizabeth were held in Cork before they sailed in 1827, and had a pretty difficult time, according to this account on ancestry.com.

(Emma, I’d love to know more about how you found these details – they are fascinating!)
Continue reading Alice’s Bonnet Completed!

Hey, it’s Sunday, and I have Stash! Happy coincidence.

This is a sample pack from OrganicCotton.biz – a total of fifty-eight pieces of fair-trade and organic cotton fabric. The range includes plain woven cottons (solids and patterns), denims, velvets, corduroys, crossweaves, prints, textured weaves, and jersey.

I am making plans. Oho yes. Watch [...]

I’m making a bonnet for a woman I will never meet, a woman who very probably died before my great-grandparents were born. Her name was Alice McAnnally, and she was a convicted criminal.

I don’t know what law she broke (although I imagine that anything I’d consider really bad would’ve got her hanged). Maybe she stole Trevelyan’s corn so the young might see the morn – something like that, anyway.

All I know about her is that she sailed to Australia in a ship called the Elizabeth in 1828, a transported convict.

Why am I making her a bonnet, of all things?
Continue reading Alice’s Bonnet