About
William's Creek
You know what they say, "Do
something you love and you'll never work a day in your life."
And how fortunate I am to live that every day.
A lifelong sewer
(and I do mean life long), I literally fell into making little girls dresses for
local one room schoolhouse programs over twenty years ago.
The demand for my line grew and soon I moved William's Creek to shop in downtown
Rochester, Michigan.
Several years ago,
when the economy crashed, funding for local school programs dwindled and so too, did the demand for my products.
I turned to the internet to see if I could continue doing what
I love and as they say, "The rest is history."
My business exploded and I am eternally grateful that I can do what makes me
dance in front of my ironing board every day.
My clothes for girls and ladies are designed to project the image of the 1800's.
I use only 100% cotton and work very hard at keeping within
the print and color range of what would have been worn back in those olden times.
Some may think that some colors might be too bright, but, pioneers wore very bright
colors when they could get their hands on those materials.
They lived a very hard life and found joy in the lively prints that came their way.
All of my ladies clothes are historically accurate.
For my purposes, historically accurate means no zippers, no elastic
and no ric-rac trim.
Those items
did not become available until the 1900's.
Those
that are historically accurate for girls are noted in the descriptions for those items.
Of course, everything is made with a sewing machine, which is not historically accurate.
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A Little History about
the Sewing Machine
In Colonial
Time and expanding out to prairies of the Midwest, sewing was done completely by hand. Children had very modest wardrobes because
every piece of clothing that was worn had to be made by their mother or older sisters. If you were very rich in
Early America, you were able to hire someone to make your clothes.
The first, very crude sewing machines were invented around 1800, but it wasn't until the late
1800's that the sewing machine became practical for use.
The first practical sewing machine was designed by a French tailor and he built 80 of them and installed
them in his clothing factory.
The tailors, however,
were so enraged that the machine would be doing their work,
wrecked all of the machines and Barthelemy Thimonnier, the inventor, died bankrupt.
Isaac Singer, an American, was the first
to develop a hand crank and foot-treadle sewing machine.
Although available around 1850, most farm families continued to rely on hand sewing well into
the turn of the century.
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Shipping
I ship only to the United States and Canada.
For the United States, shipping is handled through my shop on Etsy. For my Canadian
friends, each order is different.
For Canadian customers,
simply drop me an email with your town, province and postal code and I can tell you what the shipping will be.
Orders for Canada are not handled through the Etsy shop.
Canadian orders are handled personally by me and require separate billing through Paypal.
My email is williamscreek@att.net .
I'm
Carole Bodin and I'm so glad you stopped by.
