Volunteer Sewing, or Stitching Meets History

I am in a long, dry spell of unemployment.  Having decided late in life to start a new career path, I went back to school to get a degree in History (yes, I know, not exactly a blazing path to success) and now find myself virtually unemployable.  The diploma looks nice hanging on the wall, but I have found out the hard way that youth pretty much trumps experience in the job market.  All my 20-something classmates have found jobs while I languish in the ranks of the unemployed.

In the meantime, I am doing volunteer work in my field. I sit on a local Historic Preservation Commission and I work part-time at a history museum. (This is exactly what I wanted to do when I went for the degree, only I hoped to be PAID for it!)

One of my jobs at the museum is deciphering 19th century letters like this and transcribing them:

(If this doesn't look like fun, then I can't explain it.  Either you love this kind of thing or you don't.)  ;)


When they found out I could sew, I was quickly given a project.  This, of course, is a costume, not an authentic reproduction dress.  (It has a zipper up the back and everything.)  But this was the pattern they asked me to make.

Here is this is the dress on the girl I made it for - not yet hemmed.  She wasn't available for fittings, so the waist turned out a tad too big, even though the size matched her measurements.  She said not to worry, since she will be wearing an apron with it (which I will undoubtedly make as well!)

I thought the dress looked awfully plain (they didn't want any of the trims included with the pattern) so I picked up my crochet hook and made a collar.  It looks great with the dress, I think, and the museum staff was duly impressed.

Then they asked me to make some vintage-style aprons.  JoAnn actually has a line of print fabrics reminiscent of the 1930s and 1940s.

I loved this print, especially!

Anyway, this sort of thing keeps me busy until I can find paying gigs...