Everyone needs a place to call home and this is my new home covering the things that I enjoy to do and that are important to me. It will take a long time to get this space as I want it but welcome! Please make yourself at home and see some of what I do for fun and relaxation.
On Family History
I am a big fan of History. Maybe not a very learned historian but I love to read and learn. My favorite podcast is Dan Carlin's Hardcore History and I have books on my shelves covering Scotland, Ottoman Turkish History and a lot more. So with a love of history, why not know your own history? You don't have to be famous to have a good history and there is a lot to be said of getting a feel for your people and where you come from. I can remember an enthusiasm about my family history when I was in my early 20's. My mothers cousin, Patsy Louisa Crox Underhill, came to visit and I loved listen to her talking about her research and being in the DAR and the Colonial Dames. I was hooked from there listening to her telling stories from all of the information she had found and her telling us about a family I have never known and never will. My mother had gone to Tennessee in her teens and had met some of her relatives. I have not met many from the Duncan/Baldwin clan and if I did, I was very young so I don't know any of my cousins and family from there.
Sadly, because I never knew the older generation, I won't have stories to tell. My family history is more of a factual history and anything I can tell is from a dim memory. I remember on one visit after Patsy got me so enthused I started my own family history, I had found a marriage certificate she didn't have and I was so excited to fill a hole for her. I can't even remember whose marriage it was now but I was so thrilled to hand over that document find to her. Since then I have dabbled with the intention of getting back to it seriously and now, finally!, that time has come. While I have her family history in a book, I use it as a reference and have been working on family lines that have been dead ends. The internet opens up so many possibilities now which I try to remember when I get frustrated over endless link clicking with no reward. When I get irritated I pull open a Duncan file and look at the twenty letters I typed on a Royal typewriter with a sheet of carbon paper so that I could have my mailing copy and my file copy and realize how good I have it now.
Duncan Hensley Briggs Edwards - North Carolina
On Knitting
I knit. 'Nuf said. It all started when I was a child, I
am sure of it. I used to sit on my grandmothers lap and
she would knit around me and over me while conversing with
the entire family that was visiting, watching tv if something
interesting was on and while smoking those long Tarryton
cigarettes. She was a multi-tasker and I am sure that is
where I got this skill from. The knitting? Well, she made
it look easy and I finally gave in to the call and started
to knit about two years ago. I mean, I could always knit
and purl, I was taught these things as a child. My grandmother
would set me up with needles, yarn and having shown me how
to knit a scarf to send me back to Rochester from Akron
with a project in hand. I would usually return the needles
to her without a scarf because oddly enough, they are not
so easy to knit! Scarves are very easy to pick up extra
stitches on the end so while you might start with 20 stitches,
you can end up with 40 very quickly. So I fought knitting
for a great many years but then I ended up with all of this
beautiful handspun yarn and what do you do with it? You
can only weave so many scarves for gifts so I suppose you
have to know how to knit.. oh twist my arm! So I gave in
and I am knitting now.
Once upon a time I said weaving was easier than knitting. I was able to work out weaving in my head for the most part and understood the mechanics much more than I have knitting. But I knit. I am currently knitting my first sweater (cast on August 2008). We will see if it will be a "wear at home only" sweater or not. I knit socks and have learned the toe up construction recently, it all depends on the pattern whether I can finish a project or not. I do not have a good grasp at understanding construction of knit garments so I am heavily dependent on good simple patterns in order to create a knit garment but that is okay. I don't have to be a fabulous knitter to enjoy it. I find I am a slow knitter and that goes way against my personality. I am a person that wants things done fast once I start them and I am trying to teach myself to slow down and enjoy what I do, not stress myself into a quickly finished project. I do everything in life the way I approach driving.. point A to point B as quickly as I can. I am really trying to change that flaw and trying to enjoy life before I find it is gone.
On Spinning
I
have been spinning for about ten years. Once upon a time
I was considered an intermediate spinner and spent a lot
of time spinning or dying or weaving. For many years the
fiber arts were the central point of my focus and I remember
spinning year round for the various competitions to enter
like the New York State Fair and Maryland Sheep and Wool
Festival. I did try my hand at teaching intermediate spinning
but I found I was not comfortable at all as a teacher. I
had the skill, I did not have the ability to get my talent
across so other people could learn from it or enjoy what
I was telling them. It was a learning experience for me
and some are suited to it and some are not. Then came a
6 year break from an activity I love. I like to say I had
a 6 year depression and when I say that I usually say it
with humor but I think it is what it is. I decided I was
not happy in my marriage and that spiraled me into having
to move from my house where I was very grounded and happy.
I gave up doing the things I loved most when I probably
should have clung to them all the more as therapy. Ah well,
that is plenty of wool through the mill and I am now unfolding
my wheel and sorting through the bins and bins! and boxes
and boxes! of fiber just waiting patiently to be spun into
beautiful yarn. I have wool, silk, cashmere, cotton, angora
bunny... I have it all!!! I decided to spin for a sweater
and dug out a large box of ramboullet, wish me luck!
On the SCA
I am not as active in the SCA as I would like to be or should be. I live in Rochester, NY in the Barony of Thescorre and the Kingdom of Aethelmearc which happens to have a lot of great people as members. I have a lot of excuses as to why I don't do things that I would really like to. I am kind of a reclusive sort of person in many ways. I am much happier at home with my hobbies, books and internet. In large groups I tend to be very quiet and often feel uncomfortable unless I am with people that I know very well. While I do enjoy going to events, getting myself out the door is the hard part and fitting in once I am there. I should be doing a lot of research. My garb needs a lot of detail work to be more period than it is. Most of my wardrobe is to survive the heat of Pennsic so short cuts are taken. It is my goal to make a few of my outfits as period as I can make it. I don't see why having three sets of good garb can't be done. To, there is textile research I can be doing and bringing my spinning and knitting to period level. I took a class at Pennsic last year on Turkish Embroidary. It is very beautiful and it was a large part of a Turkish woman's day back in time.
In the SCA (Society of Creative Anachronism) I am Safiye bint Kara Sun'Allah, a Ottoman Turkish woman from the middle 1500's.
On Letterboxing
My
newest craze! I had heard about it before and had an interest
in trying it out. In short, it was established as a game
in England in the 1800's. Jars were hidden for people to
find with a calling card in it and when you found the jar
you would write a letter to the person telling them you
found their card. This game came to the United States in
the 1900's and over the years has evolved into what it is
now. Basically you get a stamp or make your own with a design
that will be your "calling card". You find boxes that other
people have hidden in parks, cemeteries and all sorts of
nifty places and once you find it, you put your stamp in
the log book inside the box and take the stamp from the
box and stamp your personal travel log book showing what
boxes you have found. There are two great websites listed
at the side to give you more detail and history. I enjoy
it. Though I have just started, I like the idea of getting
outside and doing something. I suggest doing it with a friend
as I don't think women, or anyone, should be roaming parks
alone to more less traveled areas to find these boxes. It
is a shame to have to say that but the world is what it
is.
I letter box with a friend from work and our first trip took us to a cemetery here in Rochester called Mount Hope Cemetery. I have to say I was actually surprised to realize how much I enjoyed it there and how beautiful this cemetery is. Susan B Anthony and Frederick Douglas are both buried there. There is a scavenger hunt type letterbox here that has turned out to be so much fun.
