In Wait for Their Return, my historical character needs appropriate dishes. Some of these dishes are made from redware, a kind of pottery that went into production in America in 1625. Redware was given its name because that was the color the clay turned after firing. The production of redware continued at high levels [...]

Tags: kiln, potters, pottery, redware, sturbridge

I was at Sturbridge Village last weekend (detecting a theme?) and there happened to be two costumed interpreters making soap, the old way. In an earlier post, I mentioned that the ashes from all those wood fires were saved for making soap. I had a vague idea of the process, but took the [...]

Tags: lard, lye, soap, sturbridge, village