Tiger Lily's Threads

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...

Last Friday, I had the greatest honor of being part of the lecture series "Lunch Dates with History", at the Howard County History Museum in Ellicott City, MD. (My hometown).  For those who are not familiar with Ellicott City or it's history, I'll give you a crash course: EC (or Ellicott Mills as it was originally called), was founded by the Ellicott Brothers; Quakers from Bucks County, PA. The Industrial Revolution was the only revolution the town participated in with many mills popping up, the growing city was given its namesake "Ellicott Mills". Before I go down the rabbit hole and continue on with EC's history, I'm just going to post a link so you can read at your own leisure.  Aerial view of Ellicott City's historic district Anyway, The topic of my lecture was on clothing in the colonial period. Again, this is in reverence to the early period of Ellicott Mill's minute colonial history and curiosity of the residents. ...

About a month ago, I participated in a very awesome experiment at the Museum of The American Revolution in Philadelphia. The program is called,  Meet The Revolution  a series featuring myself, Cheyney McKnight , and Joel Cook  where we would share the experiences, opinions, traditions and the day to day lifestyles of the African-American peoples during the time of the American Revolution. Through this program we would be giving our ancestors the voices that would have otherwise been untold.  From June 18-23rd, I reprised my role as Ona Judge and would interact with the museum's visitors as well as perform my show "Freedom on The Horizon". Coincidentally my residency fell on the week of Juneteenth   (which is a very important day.) Anyway, the day would start as early as 9AM for the morning briefing with the education department on what we'd all be doing during hours of operation, where each member would be, where I would be stationed, what groups wo...

Celebrated my friend Taylor's birthday this past Saturday at the Historic Edgewood Plantation Bed & Breakfast in Virginia. The theme was Victorian Gothic, in which we'd all wear full or half mourning gowns from 1800-1910.  When I did my  last post , I mentioned that my gown is a composite of both 1875-1885 styles. I'm really glad that I decided to just have fun with creating it and going over the top in decorating with lace and pleated trims.  Ironically the night before the party, I received a phone call from a relative saying that my uncle had died. Naturally I would have stayed home to mourn but given that I had put blood, sweat and tears into this gown in preparation for Taylor's party, I opted to just go on and have a good time (I won't lie, there were some moments where I did fight back some tears-but that's what the veil's for).  Anyway, I took a lot of photos of the event and for the sake of not going picture heavy on this site, I crea...

Just recently I was invited to my friend Taylor's birthday party in mid-June. The party is held at a gorgeous Bed & Breakfast in southern Virginia called Endview Plantation: the theme being Victorian gothic. With that being said it was time for me to get in touch with my inner goth, and pull out all of the black 19th century outfits I had in my costume closet. However of the 2 outfits I have, I ran into some trouble deciding on what to wear: a black calico print 1860's gown from Lincoln's Lady, and an 1812 full mourning gown; also while it's not an outfit (yet), I have a late 1870's black skirt. So, being the glutton for punishment as I am, I opted to just focus that skirt and build from it; making a proper late Victorian mourning gown.  Now, here's the thing...What style did I want to go with? Looking through pinterest, I saw so many options! It was overwhelming to a point where I really didn't know where to start. So my solution was to just pul...