Handmade History

It's officially spooky season, and this week we're talking about crafts that people have used for thousands of years to protect themselves from witches and the evil eye. Whether or not you believe in supernatural phenomena, these forces have driven people to carve, burn, stitch, and create amulets and other protections since the time of the Neanderthals.

Did you know...

🧹The largest collection of witches marks in England was found carved into a cave wall...by two people on a cave tour?

👻At least one soldier made a witch bottle for protection...during the Civil War?

🧿The nazar is one of the oldest amulets used to protect against the evil eye in the world...and it was made into an emoji in 2018?

Join us for a tour through the millenia, with, as always, fun rabbit holes and sidequests (spoiler alert: there a cryptid in this episode 😈).

Show notes and sources here: https://tinyurl.com/hhepisode39

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 [email protected].

Or visit our website at handmadehistorypodcast.com for more information.

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].

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.

The Saturday Evening Girls began as a story hour in Boston's North End at a trade school for young people--and quickly grew into something more.

This episode is sponsored by our Patreon Patrons. Thank you!

We invite you to sign up to our Patreon at any level. Free members get a blog post with links and photos from each episode. Paid members get special discounts to crafty businesses as well as access to our Discord.

The Saturday Evening Girls Club included 250 girls at its peak--and launched pottery business that made these girls and women into "icons of the Arts & Crafts movement," according to the Met. Join us for a deep dive into Paul Revere Pottery and the SEG, where we talk about:

• Edith Gurrier, the unique woman who started the SEG and PRP, including her connections to Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Tubman.
• Helen Osbourne Storrow, the benefactor of the club, who knew the value of a good vacation.
• Sara Galner, the most collected pottery artist today--whose tile recently sold for almost $300,000
• Fanny Goldstein, who created Jewish Book Month and became curator of Judaica at the Boston Public Library--the SEG was her higher education
• Numerous other girls and women who made beautiful pottery that remains collectible today--and graduated college at a rate three times that of their peers

Plus, with this episode we kick off a read-a-long 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 May 6 on Instagram, Facebook, or Patreon.

Grab your favorite handcraft and listen in for fun facts to text to your crafting bestie!

Show notes and sources: https://tinyurl.com/HHepisode34

Have a question, comment, or idea for a future episode? Email us at [email protected].

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.

When you think of sports gear, what do you imagine? Stretchy synthetic fabric, baseball caps with stiff brims, huarache sandals...

...yes! Join us as we talk sports gear from head to toe, and share deep dives into questions you didn't know you had, like

• Who invented the sports bra, and when? (Spoiler alert: two women, less than fifty years ago!)

• Why is the baseball cap round, instead of shaped like a "tiny layer cake"?

• What does synthetic fabric have to do with explosives?

• Who won the Guachochi Ultramarathon when she was 22 while wearing sandals, beating out 500 competitors?

• What is the Ravens' secret weapon against other football teams?

Grab your favorite handcraft and listen in for fun facts to text to your crafty pals.

Show notes and sources: https://tinyurl.com/HHepisode33

Have a question, comment, or idea for a future episode? Email us at [email protected].

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.

Check out the Sports Bra Project: https://www.thesportsbraproject.world/

In this bonus episode, Alicia chats with author Anne H. Putnam about her newest book, Make Do and Mend, a breakup memoir. Grab your favorite handcraft and listen in to learn about kintsugi, the Japanese art of filling cracks with gold and silver; why Anne decided to self-publish this memoir; and how embroidery and mending helped guide her through a difficult time. Scroll to the end for a giveaway!

More about Make Do and Mend:

Radically vulnerable and illuminating, Make Do and Mend is perfect for anyone who's ever played one of Taylor Swift's heartrending breakup songs on repeat or talked a little too much about her ex on a first date.

Anne Putnam has a doting British boyfriend, a job in book publishing, an East London flat with a water view—even a published book of her own. But, having never expected the fairytale, 28-year-old Anne has no reason to anticipate its abrupt ending. When her fiancé cheats and their wedding is canceled, she's knocked into a tailspin that takes out nearly everything that held her life together.

She flees London for her hometown of San Francisco, which becomes the unstable base camp for the steepest uphill climb she's ever faced: a torturous game of will-they-or-won't-they with her ex. Slowly, painfully, and with a lot of snark and bravado, she claws her way back from depression, with the help of an assembly line of bad dates, her cohort of brilliant friends, and a lot of guidance from her annoyingly astute therapist.

Ultimately, she faces one major decision: take back the one person who loves her most, or burn it all down and start over.

A touching, and sometimes funny, tale of one millennial's journey through the ugly parts of heartbreak, Make Do and Mend examines the decidedly unsexy process of healing and post-traumatic growth.

To celebrate the publication of Anne's book, we're doing a giveaway of both of her memoirs! Enter to win a copy of Make Do and Mend and Navel Gazing in three ways:

• Sign up at any level, free or paid, on Patreon! All of our members are automatically entered to win.
• Find us on Instagram--we are @handmadehistorypodcast! The giveaway post will be pinned at the top--just follow us and comment to win.
• Send us an email! Don't do social media? No worries! Just email us at [email protected] and mention that you'd like to win Anne's books.

Check out Anne's website, where you can find all of her books and writing.

And for more information, please visit our website at handmadehistorypodcast.com.

This episode is sponsored by our Patreon Patrons. Thank you! And a special thank you to Emily for supporting the show!

We invite you to sign up to our Patreon at any level. Free members get a blog post with links and photos from each episode. Paid members get special discounts to crafty businesses as well as access to our Discord.

You probably have heard of sewing machines...but did you know that there are also knitting machines? Knitting machines are used to make accessories and garments at home and in factories. They can be very simple--a cardboard tube and some popiscle sticks--or extremely complex.

In this episode, we share the early history of knitting looms, including...

• A simple knitting machine you can make at home
• The earliest knitting machine, which peacefully coexisted with handknitters
• The true story of the Luddites (they actually used knitting machines!)
• The connection between knitting machines and the first computers, as well as Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, and Joseph-Marie Jacquard, early computer/knitting programmers
• The story of knitting machine inventor Masahiro Shima, who invented the first glove knitting machine after a week of no sleep!

Grab your favorite handcraft and listen in for fun facts to text to your crafting bestie.

Show notes and sources: https://tinyurl.com/y8hwefyp

Have a question, comment, or idea for a future episode? Email us at [email protected].

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.