Camy here, and I’m knitting Regency knitting patterns again! This time, it’s “Shell Pattern Manchettes” from The Ladies’ Knitting and Netting Book by Miss Watts, originally published in 1837. You can download the .pdf of the Fifth Edition, with additions, which was published in 1840.
I had to Google what “manchettes” were. 🙂 In the 1838 version of this same book, the pattern calls them “cuffs” instead of “manchettes,” but they seem to be longer than what we would consider cuffs, so they could have been perhaps wrist-warmers or arm-warmers.
(And autocorrect keeps trying to turn “manchettes” into “machetes,” so I apologize in advance if the blog mentions long blades instead of long gloves.)
The pattern mentions adding lace to the top and bottom, so I think they were meant to be worn over the dress sleeve, like the “muffatees” (fingerless gloves) patterns in the same book.
Even though this pattern was first published in 1837, I’m almost positive these patterns were in use during the Regency era. Most knitting patterns were passed down from one woman to another by word of mouth or copied instructions, hence they were called “receipts” since they were received from someone else.
The intricacy and complexity of British knitted artifacts dated from before 1800 (in the Georgian, not Regency era) point to knitting skills already fully developed beyond just knit and purl patterns. Knitting was mostly done by wealthy women for themselves, or for poor women who knit fine articles to sell to the rich.
I originally picked this pattern because I wanted my heroine to be knitting a gift for her friend in my next Regency novel. 🙂 So I think I’ll knit these manchettes and then hold a contest to give them away when my Regency releases, like how I did with Gerard’s Red and Black Scarf from The Spinster’s Christmas.
Since most of us don’t have a maid to tie the ribbons of our manchettes for us (le sigh), I think I’ll knit these with ribbing to fit the manchettes to the wrist instead of the ribbon holes. But since these will be a giveaway, I’ll keep the arm part loose (no ribbing) so they’ll fit more people.
I’ve been away for a bit as I immersed myself in my latest writing projects. As you all know, I love the Regency, the mannerism, the wit, and the fashions. I am intrigued by the challenges the people of the times faced: the complexity and aftermath of war, the stark differences in the rights of women versus men, and the growing social consciousness.
But there is more, much more.
Did you know London was very diverse with large Jewish and African populations? Yet, it is very rare to see these aspects in Regency fiction. Except for my dear friend Ruth Axtell’s book, The Winter is Past, you do not typically see a racially diverse cast of characters.
I, an African American writer, am guilty of this, too. In my debut book, Madeline’s Protector, Justain’s conscience figure, Mason, was originally a free black, but I edited it out, thinking that such a close relationship between an earl and his black man-of-all-work wouldn’t pass the sniff test or even would upset some because he’s killed early in the book. I didn’t trust my audience as much as I should’ve, nor did I trust my ability to tell the tale. And if I had such worries, I can imagine how others feel when they lift pen to paper trying to write a historically accurate, compelling, and marketable tale. Those three components differ based on the eye or pocketbook of the beholder: Traditional Presses versus Indie Pubs, niche marketing versus mainstream pitches, Christian Bookseller Association versus American Bookseller Association, etc.
I applaud everyone brave enough to write their story in the way that they feel is right. I just know that for me and my pen, my laptop and smart phone, we shall tell the story and the whole story from now on, so help me God.
But London was diverse. And doesn’t love always win?
Let me show you some images. At first glance they may offend, but that is not my intent. With the sweetness of the Regency, one must also accept the bitter dregs, the things that have been swept away, because it is ugly.
Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University – Drawn by William Austin 1773
This is William Austin’s 1773 caricature: ‘The Duchess of (Queensbury) playing at Foils with her favorite lap dog Mungo’. This cartoon was meant to shame the duchess for spending 10,000 pounds (1 Million pounds in 2015 dollars) to teach one of her loyal servants, Soubise, how to fence. Soubise was treated like a son to the duchess. Think of the trust the duchess must’ve had in this black man to invest that sum in his education and to trust him to wield a sword. But was he so unusual in the Duchess’s world?
By Regency times, historians, Kirstin Olsen and Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, estimate that Black London (the black neighborhood of London) had over 10,000 residents. While England led the world in granting rights to the enslaved and ending legal slavery thirty years before the American Civil War, it still had many citizens who were against change. Here is another image from an anti-abolitionist.
The New Union Club Being a Representation of what took place at a celebrated Dinner given by a celebrated society – includes in picture abolitionists, Billy Waters, Zachariah Macauley, William Wilberforce. – published 19 July 1819. Source: Wiki Commons
This image is from 1819, a cartoon by George Cruikshank. It is supposed to depict an abolitionist’s dinner party, but it just shows fear of the races intermingling. It serves as a reminder of how many thought of blacks and how it was ingrained in the times. Notice the half-black half-white baby, the promiscuous woman sitting on the gentleman’s lap, the black-face additions to the artwork, the violence and chaos, even the blood shed amongst the party goers.
How many laughs did it draw in the parlors and drawings rooms of polite society? Moreover, how did the enslaved and free servants or the black men who owned shops feel fetching this paper to their masters, their employers, or watching it enfolded in the hands of their patrons?
Cruikshank drew fear, and he wouldn’t have, if Regency society didn’t possess it. For Cruikshank, a rising black middle class, intermingling in society, gaining in social power and wealth, was something to dread. Is this ugliness, this truth, the reason the fictional landscape of Regency exhibits stories abscent diversity and color? Does showing black or brown or yellow historical faces mean that the ugliness must also show?
Perhaps, or perhaps not. But to pretend it did not exist is to dishonor every person who received a racial slur and turned the other cheek, the unknown man lynched for the fault of his birth, or every fallen soldier felled on the road to equality.
My goal is to show through the stories pressing upon my spirit that truth and love can coexist on a diverse canvas. When love arrives, the picture changes and even the bad can be borne and overcome.
Here’s a picture showing love winning.
Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay (1761-1804) and her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray (1760-1825) painted in 1778. Source: Wiki Commons
Look at these two cousins, Dido and Elizabeth. Their great uncle, Lord Mansfield, loved them both and had them arrayed in fashionable apparel and pearls for this portrait. Both ladies are trapped by their circumstances, Dido by her race and Elizabeth by her lack of an inheritance. Johan Zoffany paints them, particularly Dido with no grotesques features, no overt subservient positioning, no hint of promiscuity or evil, just two lovely women.
It would be great if the date of these images showed progress, the growing changes in London society. They don’t. No, they just show truth. The landscape of Regency London was diverse and enlightened hearts embraced the diversity with love.
My second full length novel, Unmasked Heart releases on June 15, 2015. Gaia Telfair is a different kind of heroine. She’s a mulatto, with both black and white blood coursing within her veins, only she didn’t know it until she reached for love.
Horror author Stephen King admits he’s never read Jane Austen. I don’t have much interest in “relationship” novels or romance. I’ve never read Jane Austen. I do not say this with either pride or shame (or prejudice, for that matter). It’s just a fact. We are moved to quote the film Miss Austen Regrets: If…
Kristi here. As long as people have been having children, there has been the question of what to do with them if the parents die before the child can care for themselves. In Regency England that care depended greatly on who your parents had been.
Orphanages were frequently reserved for the poor or poorly connected. Those with higher connections and particularly those with money and property became wards, but the assignment of the guardian was not always simple.
Early 19th Century painting of the Court of Chancery, via wikimedia commons
The father was the only person able to assign a guardian for his children should he die too early. If his will didn’t state who it was to be, the choice fell to the Court of Chancery. The court could also in extreme cases overrule the father’s choice of guardian.
If the child had property and money the court cared a great deal more than if the child didn’t. If there was no material wealth, then the court didn’t get very involved unless someone made a ruckus. If no one sued over the child, then the court was likely to leave them with whoever wanted to care for the child, such as a stepfather who had no legal right to his deceased wife’s children from a previous marriage.
The appointed guardian was usually the most closely related person that could not inherit from the child. The court was very concerned about the child being coerced out of his inheritance by a guardian or through marriage. If the child was a minor and the court did not approve of the marriage, it was considered non-existent, particularly if the child were male.
Adoption as we know it today did not exist during the Regency time period, though it was not unheard of for a ward to be treated as a son or daughter and even inherit certain things from their guardian, unless of course there was a title involved. Titles had to move along bloodlines.
After the age of 14 the child could have a say in who their guardian was, but many children didn’t know this and felt they had to go along with whoever the court appointed. There were also instances where someone might have been appointed the guardian but someone else actually cared for the child (such as a brother or sister). This wasn’t an issue unless legal things such as permission to marry were involved.
Since the Court of Chancery was exceptionally bogged down and notoriously slow about things, they tended to ignore whatever didn’t involve titles, property, or angry people. As long as nothing untoward was happening and no one objected, guardianship of well-to-do but penniless people could be decided by society.
A working or middle class family might take in a neighbor’s child out of love or a wish for another pair of hands. There was no legal ramifications for this unless someone sued.
This lack of oversight comes into play my novella coming out in July. A Lady of Esteem is a complete story – no cliffhangers! – offered free as a preview to the upcoming Hawthorne House series. If you’re on Goodreads, hop over here and add the book to your to-read shelf. If 250 people add it, I’ll do an early release of Chapter One on my webpage.
*The assignment of wards and guardians and trustees could get very complicated. This is a very high level look at how guardianship was handled. For more information on the Court of Chancery, there are several books available through Google books that go into the formation and responsibilities of this particular court. Here are some other websites that go into greater detail about the types of guardians: Regency Researcher and Word Wenches
Hello, my Regency-loving friends. Interesting, isn’t it, that the actual Regency last only from 1811-1820, but the periods before and after can also be considered part of the era? When trying to explain to the uninitiated, what the Regency is, I’ll often bring up Jane Austen. I find that most, but not all, have heard of the book Pride and Prejudice and they can get a grasp on what kind of fiction genre I am writing.
So, to bring Jane Austen alive again, in our minds only, I bring you some of her delicious quotes.
Originally posted on All Things Georgian: ‘Maid of all work’ – courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library ? Many of our posts take a look at the upper echelons of Georgian society, so this time we thought it might be interesting to look at what it would have been like to have worked ‘below stairs’ as…
In a world of deepfakes and media spin—from Meghan, Duchess of Sussex to Megan Thee Stallion to the White House Correspondents Dinner—the real question isn’t what’s true… it’s why we don’t care anymore.
We are living in a moment when the old question—what is truth? —is being asked again.—has become the question of the moment. Aren’t you tired of relative half-truths?
In an era defined by dishonest politicians, fragmented media ecosystems, and an internet that resembles a lawless western, the ability to trust what we see and hear is gone. The phrase “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”—popularized in Duck Soup—has shifted from comedy into cultural diagnosis. It was satire, people. Now it feels like instruction.
At the center of this crisis is the mistrust of visual evidence itself. A recent controversy involving Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, illustrates the problem. A report from The Daily Beast, a source I relied upon in the 2010s, included a video clip on April 23, 2026, that critics argue appeared slowed down or altered to make the Duchess seem robotic—supporting a narrative that she, a woman of color, a Black woman, is difficult to work with. Observers suggested the footage has been misleadingly edited or even AI-manipulated.
This incident is not isolated; it exists within a broader pattern of fabricated or distorted media. The point is not merely whether a clip was altered, but how easily perception can be engineered. Biased people want angry or disillusioned eyeballs.
More manipulation is on the way, fueled by the rapid rise of deepfake technology. According to data from the Global Cyber Alliance and others, the number of deepfake files online is projected to have grown from 500,000 in 2023 to 8 million by the end of 2025—that’s an annual increase of 900%.
The average American now encounters approximately 2.6 deepfakes per day, with younger adults seeing even more. And our human ability to detect these falsehoods is surprisingly low: studies show our ability to detect deepfakes is below 25%, which is worse than flipping a coin.
The consequences extend beyond embarrassment or celebrity gossip. Deepfake-driven fraud caused an estimated $547 million in losses in just the first half of 2025, and AI-enabled fraud could reach $40 billion in the United States by 2027. Our midterm elections are in trouble. Seventy-eight deepfake election manipulations were discovered in 2024 alone. This is a growing threat to democratic processes.
Yet, if this past weekend is any indication, we have a worse threat: apathy. Over the weekend of April 25–26, 2026, two major events unfolded: a security incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and the highly publicized breakup between Megan Thee Stallion and Klay Thompson. The former, involving a reported shooting and evacuation of the president, should have dominated national concern. Instead, the latter—a celebrity breakup fueled by allegations of infidelity—captured social media attention, with search interest spiking over 800%. Lord knows I have seen as many think-pieces on male-female relationships as I’ve seen screeds saying the correspondents’ dinner was fake.
It is a shame that political events are now filtered through suspicion, conspiracy, and fatigue. When reports emerged of a potential assassination attempt, many didn’t ask what happened but whether the attack was staged. Questions about security lapses—how an armed individual could approach so closely—become entangled with blatant distrust in institutions and others using the event to get a ballroom built. Cynicism ran rampant.
Cynicism and para-social relationships make celebrity narratives feel more immediate, and perhaps more “real.” But these narratives take hold by performance and perception.
In Lyin’ Eyes by the Eagles, we were told to: “You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes.” In 2000, the denial anthem “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy fed the growing, complicit beast.
“Never admit to a word when she say
And if she claim, ah, you tell her, “Baby, no way”…
But she caught me on the counter (It wasn’t me)
Saw me kissin’ on the sofa (It wasn’t me)
I even had her in the shower (It wasn’t me)
She even caught me on camera (It wasn’t me)…”
The deeper issue is not simply that misinformation exists, but that our collective response is to believe the lies or not care about what’s right or wrong, and to spread the wrong.
We no longer fully trust our eyes.
But we also lack the will to interrogate what we see. Facts have become negotiable, subject to “both-sides” framing that equates evidence with opinion and treats the right as equally wrong. This erosion of journalistic standards undermines personal judgment and public discourse.
Honesty, we must begin at the top.
Political leaders who lie and distort reality set the tone for our society.
When “truth” becomes a strategic tool rather than a shared foundation, citizens are left to believe everyone is lying. And soon we don’t care to believe differently.
We are fragmented.
We are divided.
So we are that much easier to manipulate.
In a world where images and narratives can be fabricated, what will spur us to try to discern the truth? It won’t be technology alone that saves us. Somehow, we have to get back to being better angels and our brothers and sisters’ keepers.
That requires a renewed commitment to finding the truth. Until we do, we’ll settle for the least offensive lies we can stomach.
We must do better. We must relearn how to care about the things that are supposed to matter.
This week’s book list includes:
Deepfakes by Nina Schick. A clear, urgent look at how AI-generated media is reshaping truth, power, and global politics.
And if you just want to raise a sword and cut to the truth, consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea, my latest release, and all these books from The FoxTale Book Shoppe. They still have a few signed copies of Fire Sword and Sea.
You can also try one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are in the trenches with me.
You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.
Hey. Let’s keep rising and creating together. That’s the truth, I need you. Like, share, subscribe, and stay connected to Write of Passage.
Thank you for being here. Thank you to everyone who came out to Conyers or Detroit!
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Last September I had the privilege of attending the Jane Austen Festival in Bath, England. I know, right? SQUEE! And best of all, they had a period clothing parade that broke a Guinness Book of World Records for most people dressed in Regency era styles. Want to see what I saw?
It is a truth universally acknowledged that websites are like sharks: they must continually move forward or die.* So it’s time for AustenBlog to make with the fin and big teeth. Those who have read Deborah Yaffe’s delightful book Among the Janeites already know that I have been planning to shut down AustenBlog for a…
Camy here! Lately I bought a hand-made Regency-style dress from my friend and Steampunk author, Shelley Adina, (it was a steal because she didn’t want it anymore) and so now I’ve been looking for accessories. (I’ll post pics of the dress soon!)
I realized that the blue dress is perfect for some lacy gloves I had made for myself a while ago. Actually, I originally made these gloves because Shelley had wanted opera gloves (designated “16-button gloves” even though there aren’t actually 16 buttons on the gloves) for when she goes Regency dancing, and I made my gloves as a test run before making Shelley’s.
These are a pale blue lace-weight alpaca yarn, although the original pattern called for crochet cotton. I also had to extrapolate a bit to extend the gloves beyond my elbow.
The gloves have pearl buttons at the wrist because Shelley had requested that, for ease of removing the hand portion when she has to eat. I found out later that the button slit is actually Victorian, and not Regency, but it’s extremely practical, don’t you think?
I’m rather proud of these gloves because they’re just so pretty! 🙂 I’m also so excited that they’re light blue, which matches the gown I just bought!
I originally picked this pattern because I wanted my heroine to be knitting a gift for her friend in my next Regency novel. 🙂 So I think I’ll knit these manchettes and then hold a contest to give them away when my Regency releases, like how I did with Gerard’s Red and Black Scarf from The Spinster’s Christmas.
