Reader's Digest Version of behind the story of "What NOT to Sew" articles. In 2004 I began cw reenacting but didn't have any idea what I was doing; and trust me I was doing it all wrong, and making very costly mistakes... then fate intervened and I was introduced to people who were trying to educate reenactors about authenticity in the hobby. They were a part of the Midwest Civil War Civilian Education; I attended a conference they hosted the next year; then I was elected to be on the board to help educate others; I met Connie Payne (who was at the time editor of Citizens' Companion); we started talking about how difficult it was to start out and how few places there were to answer clothing questions; She suggested I write an article; I said I didn't know enough and who would take my advice anyways; I was a nobody in the hobby; before the weekend was over; I had agreed to write "A" article and had three friends going to help, two seamstresses and a historian; the more who heard what we were doing; the more who wanted to help. The birth of my Secret Sewing Society. "A" article turned into a series. The funny part (well at least to me) was the first few articles my editor corrected my grammar (English not being my strong suit); but one issue she was tight on her deadline and published my article "as is" and it was stated like that in the issue, so everyone knew all the typos etc were mine. People liked it; they liked that I typed how I spoke, definitely no doctorate or masters degree here; so from then on out she left my "gonna" and "whattcha" alone. People liked and needed the information we were giving them. 17 is the number of articles in the series. They originally ran from March 2008 until Nov/Dec 2011. The Moral of My Story: People with a passion for educating others can do amazing things together!

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I have put downloadable pdf files in the links below. Please NOTE that these are not the articles as published, they are the versions I sent in originally. All TYPOS are mine.