I am a time traveler. I usually live in 2011 (as of the start of this blog) but every few months I travel to North and South America and the Caribbean circa the late 1660s, in the company of the Hermanos de Sangre, a fraternity of 17th century privateers. I used to frequently travel to Europe of the tenth and later fifteenth centuries through the Society for Creative Anachronism, and on occasion have been spotted as early as third-century Rome.
Obviously traveling through time and space, jeans and tee shirts don’t fit in, so I dedicate myself to creating wardrobe items that fit the local aesthetic. I also on occasion create modern fashion pieces. Now into my eighth year of doing this I keep thinking I should put it in a blog, so I’m giving it a shot, and I’ve started by catching up current projects with photos as they stand currently. If I can keep from being distracted by a shiny piece of history, I’ll be updating these items as I progress toward completion. So far I update two or three times a week with projects and research, and occasionally my (terrible) sketches of future ensembles or items.
While I do a reasonably responsible amount of research before starting projects, and I am somewhat educated in costume creation, most of my pieces are designed with the ten-foot rule in mind. That means that from ten feet away it looks correct. I don’t use zippers, but I do use modern fabrics and I frequently use machine stitching. I don’t put Celtic trim on my Turkish garb, but my Turkish garb is occasionally more SCA-typical than it is period accurate.
Right now I’m focusing on creating garb from reclaimed and recycled fabric sources. Instead of buying 100% cotton or upholstery fabric from retailers, I’m experimenting with creating pieces out of bed sheets, duvet covers, curtains, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to make a couch into a bodice one of these days just for fun. Using recycled materials is more ecologically and economically friendly. My most recent upcycled project is a Turkish entari made from a recycled duvet cover. I’m also working on a 1670 corset made from a bed sheet and ribbon.
I’m happy to sew for others! Email me at jenna@essentialphotography.com (my day job) for details.
The Time Traveler's Closet 
Love it that you’re using recycled fabrics … the corset from 1670 is something I’d love to see! =D
The full list of entries about that project can be found here. I finished it October 2011, and it took almost a year total. By the time I was finished I’d lost too much weight to really wear it, so I’m thinking I should find someone about my old size to put it on.