Tiger Lily's Threads

Back in October, the Ellicott City B&O Railroad Museum announced that they were going to renovate the historic red caboose (stripping and possibly gutting the entire 1930's train car from the inside out to bring it back to its former glory).  With permission from the museum,   my brother and I took this perfect opportunity to  experiment with his camera and take  some victorian themed shots b efore they closed the car off for the next several weeks .  Though I cannot speak on my brother's behalf as his opinions are very much different than mine, I can say that experimenting with lights & shadows, subject placement and perspective (worms-eye view vs. birds-eye view) was something of a challenge; the natural lighting from inside the museum made things very dark and shadowy on camera - considering Jared does not have any lighting equipment yet other than his camera. To counteract with that, we had to move around a lot to get the right lighting; the out...

       Picture this: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 28th, 1777. The British have occupied and taken over the city by order of the Crown. The townsfolk are up in arms in an outrage that they're subjected to martial law. The State House in which the Declaration of Independence was adopted has now been converted into a prison, and there are soldiers everywhere!  However, through the crowd of angry patriots are loyalists who are relieved to see the red coats and hope that not only do they stay for as long as they please, but to also join them and leave Philadelphia behind when the British make their next move.  This was the concept of the weekend's Occupied Philadelphia event at the Museum of the American Revolution. Many reenactors from all over the East Coast participated in this reenactment and interpretation. While historically the British occupied the town for several months, we managed to compile it to just 3 days.  I had the ...

Back in early September, I was invited to the New York Historical Society to participate in their first interpretation program called "Black New York". This experiment was to shed light on the untold stories of the free black population of New York City during the times of the American Revolution and the mid-17th & 18th centuries.  Since I am a Maryland native and have predominate knowledge about black history in the southern states, I will be very honest with you in saying that I know little about black New York history other than the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920's-30's and during the time of the American Revolution, New York's population of enslaved people was larger than the small percentage of people who were free. This was because abolitionism did not come into effect until the turn of the 19th century (which would later make New York a free State ). Members of the free community contributed to New York not only in ways of having thriving bus...

Last Month, Gloria & Mike from  In The Long Run Designs,  invited me to participate in a special photo shoot called “Kit-Kat Club Portraits”. I was very excited to be part of a really cool photography experiment and debated on what to wear. Many of the subjects wore gorgeous  silk gowns and summery 1780’s ensembles. Given it was the middle of Autumn and I wanted to mix it up a little bit with the selection, I got some advice from my friend Jennifer on what to wear: my Royal Artillery regimental riding habit (we’d figured that we’d be complimenting one another with my blue to her red habit).  After getting everything ready, I realized that my habit needed something a little extra. So this is where my idea of making the fur muff comes into play. Not only does it work with the military habit, but also it works with every outfit of any period.  Trying to make a muff on a shoestring budget was exactly easy, but I can tell you now, it’s VERY doabl...

On September 5th, I participated in a very unique and groundbreaking workshop at Historic London Town & Gardens called, Decolonizing Our Museums: Perspectives on Diversifying Our Narratives . This was presented by the Four Rivers Education Committee of Annapolis, MD. The workshop's goal was to initially address the issues most living history museums face in not having the proper resources and information needed to better interpret the histories of people of color and other marginalized groups that are often overlooked or sugar-coated.  With a wonderful team on the panel, we each gave our perspectives based on our knowledge of each subject, our lifestyle, and our experiences inside and outside the museums' atmosphere: Indigenous Peoples of maryland's from the perspective of Crystal Nkechehosi Proctor, Asian history and interpretation in 18th century America from the perspective of Daniel Sieh, African-American Interpretation in Public History from my perspective, an...

Over the Summer I was thinking about making another Chemise la Reine, but wanted another color other than white or black; since there were other documented exants of pastels and bolder colors existing in the 18th century, I went online and picked out the sunniest color I could find in 4 yards of cotton voile.  Originally, I was going for a more sunflower/turmeric color like the portrait above, however the color I received in the mail was a lot bolder than what I initially saw online. There's a saying that fabric colors are always a little different depending on the computer monitor...they weren't joking. This fabric was a deep orange sherbert color. After that discovery, I had 2 options: to get rid of the color by using RIT color remover and re-dye it with natural turmeric, or keep it as is and and pair the gown up with other warm colors such as reds and garnets. While I'm still making decisions on what to do, I may continue to experiment a little more with other co...