The Emotional Support Chicken KAL
Osgoode Township Museum, October 2024
As the programs coordinator for OTM, I wanted to combine collections-based programming with the viral Emotional Support Chicken knitting pattern. The result was an hour long session to knit and chat, prefaced by a presentation on the history of poultry raising in 20th century Osgoode Township. I organized a partnership with the Ottawa-based knitting store, Wabi-Sabi, for an in-person session.
Image Coming Soon.
A Victorian Picnic
Museums of Mississauga, August 2022.
This video was created as the final project for my summer internship. After extensively researching work bees and picnics in Upper Canada, I created a menu and experimented with cooking it on the hearth. The menu was created by using multiple primary source texts about picnics, and the recipes used were primarily from Canadian cookbooks that would have been available around 1830 - 1860.
If you'd like to try these recipes for yourself, I have translated a selection of recipes to be compatible with a hearth-less kitchen.
Stitch a Sampler Workshop
Hutchison House, 2022
In partnership with Hutchison House Museum, a small group of my classmates and I prepared a virtual program about cross-stitched samplers. Using the samplers in the museum's collection, I created a series of patterns that will be available for download. In addition to the patterns, we created a lesson plan, instructional booklet and a series of videos for their YouTube page. The videos discuss the history of samplers in Upper Canada, a tutorial on how to create one of your own using our patterns, as well as a troubleshooting video for any roadblocks that might happen over the course of creating the sampler.
This was a great project to work on as we were able to work closely with a community partner and their collection. For objects that aren't on display, finding projects to be able to increase their visibility helps to show off more of the collection, support museum mandates and shed some light on some of the lesser noticed artifacts in the collection. As a result of this project, I was able to closely study extant samplers and share some information about them on the world wide web!
If you feel inspired to create your own Hutchison House Historical Sampler, feel free to share on social media platforms using #hhxstitch and tagging Hutchison House Museum.
The video series can be found here, and accompanying resources can be found here.
Pattern testing designs derived from three samplers in the Hutchison House collection.
On set at Hutchison House.
Hearth Cooking Workshop
Hutchison House, 2021
Over the course of three consecutive Saturdays, participants at the Hutchison House hearth cooking workshop were able to prepare a full meal using historical recipes, techniques and equipment. My role was primarily to assist with food prep, clean up and duties as assigned. Though I did get to help with some of the actual hearth cooking, giving my clothes a nice campfire smell.