Burnley & Trowbridge Stays Workshop Weekend

Our weekend in Williamsburg has flown by and we will be back in the car tomorrow for another 9 1/2 hour (hopefully no longer!) drive back home.  The purpose for this trip was Burnley & Trowbridge's stays workshop with CW tailor Mark Hutter.  We have been waiting anxiously for this particular workshop to be offered again and are so excited to upgrade our stays!

Flowers are starting to bloom next to the CW shoemakers' shop

Friday morning was spent running a few errands in CW and stopping by a few of our favorite places.  We even had some time to see Mr. Jefferson and "scalawag" (TJ's term for his "impersonator") Mr. Barker at the St. George Tucker House prior to lunch.  At one point, Mr. Jefferson asked the audience to name the five members of the Declaration committee and to list their home colonies.  To my surprise, this was a difficult task for the group (don't they know the song form 1776?!).  One of the guests was bringing his two young grandchildren to experience the magic of CW.  Thirteen years earlier, he had introduced another grandson to CW and the young boy was inspired by meeting Mr. Barker's Jefferson.  It was so touching to hear this gentleman express his appreciation for the efforts of CW and its talented interpreters.

St. George Tucker House, CW

The Burnley & Trowbridge workshop was packed full of new information and techniques for creating an accurate, hand-sewn pair of eighteenth-century stays.  Our fellow workshop participants (aka "bosom buddies"!) were wonderful to work with and we had a lot of fun learning together.  Mr. Hutter was a very patient teacher and helped us all to create the foundation for our individual stays using period measuring and patterning methods.  We still have a lot of work to do before our stays are completed, but we can confidently continue thanks to Mr. Hutter's excellent instructions.  I know that many of you already know about the wonderful offerings of B&T, but be sure to keep an eye out for their upcoming workshops.  Angela will also be posting some pictures from the workshop on the B&T facebook page soon.  We promise to keep you all updated as work on our stays progress.  Thank you to Angela and Jim for hosting such comprehensive opportunities for us to learn and create our 18th century wardrobes.  And thank you again to Mr. Hutter for your excellent instruction and patience!

At the Margaret Hunter Millinery Shop

Today was a gorgeous sunny day in Williamsburg!  After spending a weekend of cold, rainy days inside sewing, we were glad to have the chance to enjoy a warm stroll in CW this evening.  We were hoping to make it into town in time to wish one of our Rev City friends a happy belated birthday (sorry we missed seeing you, Mr. M!) but we ended up running into another friend along the way.  As you can see from of our pictures, some of the flowers and trees are finally starting to bloom.  We're sad to be leaving Williamsburg just as spring is arriving, but are looking forward to UTR in just a few months!

A CW pony.