About Us

Me in my Regency ball gown

Hello everyone, my name is Bascha.  I absolutely love to sew and play dress up! I received my first toy sewing machine when I was around 7 years old. Although my mom allowed me to use her machine because I would become so upset about not being able to actually sew cloth on mine.  I was given a real Kenmore sewing machine of my own when I was 9 years old, which is still the machine I use today!


My younger brother Abraham also loves history and dresses in time period clothing and volunteers at Latta
as well. He has been exceedingly sweet while I poke and pin him for his period clothing.  My brother Abraham is the most loving, caring, giving, talented, thoughtful, and sensitive boy I know. <3 He loves to dabble with whittling, practices the etiquette of time period dancing, spends most of his summers in the pool and swims for the neighborhood swim team, enjoys playing guitar and the Jaw Harp, writes both poetry and stories, and loves to make people laugh! :D

Abe volunteering at one of the camps at Latta Plantation

I started volunteering at historical Latta Plantation, see page on Latta Plantation, four years ago and love it! It is a great place to visit and volunteer. <3   I made my first PC (period correct) dress two years ago, it was a mint green regency dress.  I have been slowly progressing with outfits for my family and me for other time periods since then.

I am a big history lover!  The 1700's is my favorite time period to study and reenact. I love everything about the 18th century, from their clothes and lifestyle to dancing.  I also love to dance. Abe and I have actually spent the last 5 years taking Scottish Country Dancing classes and I am now plunging on independently.  There is something about dancing that is so free and sometimes I really do feel like I am flying! Along with dancing I like to play recorder. I own an alto and soprano German recorder. I am no expert at it, but I sure love it!

Abe and I dancing on the green

I met fun-energetic-outgoing-puts a smile on my face-:D Theresa last August at a homeschool driver's Ed class! She remembered me from a homeschool day at Latta Plantation a couple years before. We exchanged emails and have been emailing each other since. :)   A month or so later she came out to Latta in her really cute first self made Rev War outfit.  I adored her stomacher! (see photos in portfolio) And now here we are ten months later writing a blog together!   I love having her as friend, sewing buddy, and kindred spirit in historical reenacting. :D 

P.S. Expressing myself verbally or in written form is excruciatingly more difficult than sewing! :P

~Bascha

Hi!

(give you a hug) My name is Theresa, what's yours?  I'm glad you've happened upon our blog for any reason :D.  If you've read any of our blog posts, I'm sure you know by now I love sewing and writing really long blog posts.  But I like some other things too so if you read on for another minute I'll tell you a little bit about myself.  

Me, after a big WWII event 2013

I'm 17 and privileged to be the oldest of 7 children (Caroline 15, Joshua 12, Stephen 11, Elizabeth 8, Benjamin 6, Andrew 3). My dad owns his own computer company, and he does most of his work here at home in his office downstairs.  Mama has been homeschooling all of us since 1st grade and is an excellent teacher and homemaker.  We have a cozy house on the end of our street and 2 acres of land (read plenty of woods and a creek).  It can be quite noisy around here though....I'm currently hiding in my dad's office to try and concentrate :P

The story behind how I got started with the whole re-enacting thing is actually pretty interesting.  Whenever we go on vacation, you can call it a school trip.  We hit every museum in the area, make lap-books full of info we've learned, and go at it all so hard we normally have to take an in-home vacation when we get back.  Well I think it was 3 years ago we went to Williamsburg, Jamestowne, and Yorktowne for a week.  Don't get me wrong, I love our "vacations", but I am a little bit more my dad's type...beach...hammock...grape soda...swimming pool.  And I can't believe it now, but when I heard about us going to Wburg, Jtowne, and Ytowne for a week I thought I almost didn't want to go!!  And then an interest was planted.  What do you mean people dress up in costume to go there?  What do you mean the interpreters stay in character, and are in in costume?  And that started sounding kind of cool.  I almost thought I wanted to go there.  But not quite.  When my mom suggested we go in costume, I decided I wanted to make a dress. And then my sister wanted to make a dress.  And then the boys wanted clothes, and then Elizabeth wanted a dress.  So we went in costume TOTALLY inaccurately dressed, but TOTALLY loving it and TOTALLY having a ball! :) That was the beginning. 

Joshua (12) has always had a love for history.  He actually enjoys those enormous boring books (5 inches thick no kidding) and has shelves of them.  He's read every RevWar and Civil War book the library has and I mean shelves of them!  And so not surprisingly, he wanted to go to Latta Plantation to watch a Civil War re-enactment for his birthday.  I didn't go to that one, but I went to the next one and got to talking with one of the soldiers (Mr. Matthew, staff of Latta Plantation).  After that day, I wanted to be a volunteer in costume.  

Truly though, it was Bascha :) that pushed me over the edge.  Sweet, quiet, diligent Bascha :) Twice a year, Latta has a homeschool day and on one of those days I saw Bascha.  The only convo we had was me asking her if she'd made her dress and her saying yes. You'd think nothing, no? I didn't even know her name.  But-then there was driver's ed.  I know it was God's will for me to take it as soon as I turned 14 1/2.  I can't imagine if we hadn't!  During that week, every time I saw her, I knew she looked familiar but couldn't place her face. It was the second to last day before I remembered.  On the last day of driver's ed we ate lunch together and exchanged email addresses.  One email went to 2 emails and then I was eagerly checking my email everyday so see if she'd emailed me.  Guess what she did?  She sewed and worked in costume at Latta! Yay! Emailing turned into chatting on the phone, which turned into sewing at each others houses which turned into me and 3 of my siblings volunteering at Latta. Bascha and I are pretty much best friends!  I can't say I absolutely love history now (I do appreciate it much more, and I've certainly learned a lot), but I can say I LOVE the history of clothes, and I use the majority of my computer time researching historical clothing and how to make it.  To bring it back to where it started, my sister Caroline and I went to Williamsburg again for our birthdays, this time wearing stays and drinking out of period mugs to boot. :) 

I first started sewing when I was young, and I made a 3 layer skirt.  Before I met Bascha though, I'd only sewn 3 skirts, 2 shirts, and messed with a few other things.  After I met Bascha....I can't even list everything I've sewn! :) She is an excellent friend and teacher and she has taught me SO much!  I owe just about my entire historical wardrobe to her and her mother! For my last birthday, my grandparents gave me this  delightful sewing machine that can do 99 stitches!!! I use it for a lot of my sewing, but I hand-sewn a lot too. I sew all the time. :D!

to enlarge the image, click on it

And since I'm telling you about myself, there is something else you should know.  I love Jesus.  Some people call me religious, but I'm not.  I have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and because of that I tell people about it.  I don't light certain candles, or pray certain prayers, I read my Bible and do my best to act upon it.  I'm not perfect, but God is, and because he lives in me, it is my desire to be like him-to be a light, a messenger, a follower of his.  I've been saved, and I know that if I were to die today I would go to heaven.  Where will you spend eternity?

Well this is me!  It was nice getting to meet you!  I hope you enjoy the blog, and if you are interested in reading upcoming posts, just enter your email into the "follow by email" slot on the right hand side of the page and voila! Updates will be sent right to your inbox! Thanks for checking us out! :D

Oh, and I have a personal blog, Tmarie that you're more than welcome to take a look at!

~Theresa