NOT that I think anyone is eagerly hanging around here for my every post, but I just wanted to throw out a warning that I'm on a bit of a hiatus right now...still sewing quite a bit, sometimes for the HSF, but rarely on time and too lazy to post about it. Lately I've done a woman's banyan, modified some modern shoes into mules, and worked on some UFOs, but my heart hasn't been in it as much because of a different (but related) project.
I'm trying to do some serious scholarly (read: over-eager amateur) research and writing on French women in the Illinois country, hoping to compile enough information from primary sources and consolidating tidbits from other researchers to make a short not-for-profit e-book. Most of the researching around here has focused mainly on men...trappers, merchants, farmers, soldiers, artisans...and mention of women is really just thrown in as an aside, so I have spent (wasted?) countless hours poring over whole books for just a few scraps that might be useful to me as a re-enactor. The laid-back, community-oriented, "it'll get done tomorrow after we play billiards" predominately Catholic society of French Illinois was certainly a very different culture to the orderly, Protestant-work-ethic-driven English society on the East Coast!
So that's what I'm up to, and why I might not get back to posting here for a little while, because I'm destroying my vision peering at heinous microfiche copies of already awfully scribbly French handwriting.
A 'little bit' German living and sewing in the French Illinois country
There is no nobler sacrifice that woman can make, than glowering at microfiche in the better interest of History and Understanding and (especially) Not-For-Profit Book-Writing. Wow! That sounds really awesome. As one of the groveling derelicts who constantly hang around your blog, sniveling for an update, I say keep us posted!
ReplyDeleteYour suffering *might just* distract me from the agony of picking a thesis topic. Maybe.