Handmade History

A milliner of fabulous hats & pillar of the Black community and the creator of the iconic cowboy hat both started their companies in Philadelphia, PA. Mae Reeves and JB Stetson's iconic work could not look less alike, but both of these epic American hatmakers shared a love for their local communities and left their mark on the trade.
In this episode, you'll learn...
👒About the hat shop you can visit in the Smithsonian
🎩The truth behind the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland--and its connection to hatmaking in real life
🤠 Where the first cowboys & cowgirls came from -- spoiler alert, it's not the American West!
Show notes and sources here: https://tinyurl.com/HHepisode38
Sponsored by our Patreon Patrons. Thank you for your support! Visit patreon.com/handmadehistorypodcast to learn more and sign up to get our posts in your inbox.
Have a question, comment, or idea for a future episode? Email us at handmadehistoryhosts@gmail.com.
Or visit our website at handmadehistorypodcast.com for more information.

What do Mary Martin, Rosey Grier, and Loreta Swit have in common? They all wrote needlepoint books!
We're kicking off Season 3 with a deep dive into needlepoint. With stops at King Tut's tomb in 1922, Edo-period Japan, and Renaissance Italy, we take you on a tour of the stitches, materials, and makers that made needlepoint into the wildly popular craft it is today.
Highlights include
A unique counted running stitch called Kogin
Where Berlin woolwork sits on the embroidery evolutionary tree
Perhaps the priciest needlepoint kit on the market today, courtesy of Fendi
We also answer the big question: What's the difference between needlepoint and cross-stitch?
Find out if you agree with us! Listen in and share with a needlepoint-obsessed friend.
Show notes and sources here: https://tinyurl.com/HHepisode37
Sponsored by our Patreon Patrons--shout out to Maggie! Thank you for your support. Visit patreon.com/handmadehistorypodcast to learn more and sign up to get our posts in your inbox.
Have a question, comment, or idea for a future episode? Email us at handmadehistoryhosts@gmail.com.
Or visit our website at handmadehistorypodcast.com for more information.

Join us for a very special bonus episode! Alicia sat down to chat with Jane Healey, the author of The Saturday Evening Girls Club, a novel set in the early 1900s. The SEGC was a real club that launched a pottery venture, Paul Revere Pottery. Bowls, plates, tiles, and vases from this small shop are held in museums today, and sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most of the girls in the SEG were first-generation Americans in Jewish and Italian families in Boston's North End.
The Saturday Evening Girls Club follows an imaginary SEG, Caprice who wishes to open her own hat shop, and three of her friends, who face struggles in their families, work, and social lives. The intertwined stories of these four girls are inspiring and relatable. 
Alicia and Jane talk about:
Why Jane decided to combine Edith Gurrier, the founder of the SEGC, and her partner, Edith Brown, the co-founder of Paul Revere Pottery, and what she would do differently today
The annual SEG tradition that she wishes she could have put into the story
Why we still to relate to the struggles of turn-of-the-century girls and women today
The special emails she's gotten from descendants
This episode also caps off our readalong of Jane's book. You can find all of the posts for this readalong (and join in anytime!) at patreon.com/handmadehistorypodcast.
Grab your favorite handcraft and listen in for fun facts to text to your crafting bestie!
Have a question, comment, or idea for a future episode? Email us at handmadehistoryhosts@gmail.com.
Find links, images, and more on the free blog post for this episode; visit our Patreon page at patreon.com/handmadehistorypodcast.
Or visit our website at handmadehistorypodcast.com for more information.

If you were a 90s kid (like Alicia was) or the little sister of a 90s kid (like Sonia was), chances are Laura Ashley influenced your bedroom design. Laura Ashley, born Laura Mountney in Wales in 1925, started her iconic, eponymous company by screenprinting in her Pimlico apartment with her husband, Bernard. Inspired by a Women's Institute exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Laura wanted to make a patchwork quilt--but she couldn't find any fabric that she liked. So, she designed her own.
This episode is sponsored by Quiltfolk. Travel stitch by stitch with Quiltfolk — wherever you like to read… or sew. Use coupon code HandmadeHistory for 20% off your order on Quiltfolk.com.
Soon, the Ashleys were selling scarves (a la Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday) and tea towels in shops in London--and just a few years later, they opened their own London showroom. Listen in to learn:
How the Ashleys went from two shops and a showroom in the UK to 450 shops around the world
The interesting lifestyle choice that Laura made in order to escape a cramped cottage in Kent
The Laura Ashley brand today (it's still classy!)
What exactly the Women's Institute is
A pretty sidetrack about smocking
Grab your work-in-progress and your crafting bestie and listen in for more fun facts and trips down rabbit holes. (And deep apologies for Alicia's butchering of Welsh place names!)
This is our last regular episode of Season 2 - stay tuned for one more bonus episode, and then we will take a break and be back in September!
Show notes and sources here.
Have a question, comment, or idea for a future episode? Email us at handmadehistoryhosts@gmail.com.
Find links, images, and more on the free blog post for this episode; visit our Patreon page at patreon.com/handmadehistorypodcast.
Or visit our website at handmadehistorypodcast.com for more information.
Also, in May 2026 we are doing a readalong of Jane Healey's The Saturday Evening Girls Club (this is an affiliate link--your purchase will support Handmade History at no cost to you). Grab a copy of this fantastic historical fiction novel and join us on Instagram, Facebook, or Patreon.

Close your eyes and picture a sampler. We bet you are picturing a cross-stitched design with an alphabet on it. This type of sampler is quite common in England and North America, but there are many other types of samplers. In fact, samplers have been made in almost every culture around the world for several thousand years.
This episode is sponsored by Embroydica. Visit Embroydica.com and become part of a growing global archive of embroidery and creative expression. Also check out Alicia's blog post about samplers on Embroydica!
Listen in to learn about:
The oldest preserved sampler, from the same Peruvian culture that created the mysterious Nazca lines.
The oldest synthetic dye, Egyptian Blue, plus how to make it yourself (with a thousand-degree kiln)
The oldest British sampler, which is also the oldest signed sampler, the Jane Bostocke sampler
3-D globe samplers (!!!)
And so much more!
Grab your favorite handcraft and listen in for fun facts to text to your crafting bestie!
Show notes and sources: https://tinyurl.com/HHepisode35
Have a question, comment, or idea for a future episode? Email us at handmadehistoryhosts@gmail.com.
Find links, images, and more on the free blog post for this episode; visit our Patreon page at patreon.com/handmadehistorypodcast.
Or visit our website at handmadehistorypodcast.com for more information.
Also, in May 2026 we are doing a readalong of Jane Healey's The Saturday Evening Girls Club (this is an affiliate link--your purchase will support Handmade History at no cost to you). Grab a copy of this fantastic historical fiction novel and join us on Instagram, Facebook, or Patreon.