Today, in honour of Mother’s Day, I thought I’d write a post about how amazing my parents are. And they are pretty darn amazing! My parents are organic permaculture (permaculture is, very briefly, an agricultural and social practice that aims to be more than sustainable, and to work completely with nature) farmers in Hawaii.  I was born and raised on their farm (yes, literally born!), and no matter what, it will always be my home. We realised on my last trip home, a year ago, that their farm is probably the longest-running working permaculture farm that is fully supporting/earning a living for the farmers as a farm, not as a teaching facility or tourist attraction, in the world.  My parents are never going to get rich off the farm, and while it has made them minor legends in permaculture circles, they will never be famous in the wider sense. What they have achieved is something much bigger and more amazing (yep, I’m going to keep using that word). They have given more to the environment than they …

What I’m working on: Regency stuff!  Last night I scanned and re-sized the 1810-20s stays pattern from Percoco’s Regency Women’s Dress, the 1795 transitional stays from Salen’s Corsets, and did the (super easy) re-sizing of  J.S. Bernhardt’s View C 1810s stays on Kleidung um 1800. And then realised that none of these is low enough to fit beneath my Recamier gown, so I decided to be super lazy and just draft a really simple pair of ca. 1800 transitional stays of the style beloved by reenactors, but not so common in extant examples or the visual records of the period.  I’m really trying to avoid reenactorisms, but this does seem like the best thing to wear beneath that dress in this case. Maybe…it’s entirely possible that I’ll have changed my mind by the next time I blog, and be well progressed on one of the other ones! What I’ve been reading: I’ve just finished Terry Pratchett’s Dodger, set in Dickensian (literally, as Mr Charles himself is a major character in the book) London.  Not my favourite Pratchett, …