Gwendolyn

So tired right now, but my gown was finished in time (minus cuffs/sleeve trim) and so far I've had a wonderful time at UTR. 

The stripe in the fabric is quite small, so from a distance it sort of visually blurs into a light grey-ish color, but it's really a white and lavender/grey stripe with tiny black pinstripes in between.  I'll most likely do a more in-depth post about it on my blog later, but right now it's time for dinner and then later it's back out again for libations at Chowning's Tavern.

Here's hoping they won't always be frogs...


(also, this marks the first time I've ever thought "Oh, I should do a painting/drawing for cards this coming holiday" and then actually went and did it.)

One thing I will definitely say for my new job, is that already my buttonholes have shown a marked improvement.  This is a result of the hours and hours I've spend doing a buttonhole stitch along worn edges and corners of garments.  In fact, I've done nothing but mend so far, and still have another week of mending ahead of me before I get to progress to alterations. 

Yet whenever I start to get tired of fixing yet another hem or patching another hole, I just remember that instead of sitting in a large, quiet room stitching I could be waiting on customers, and I instantly feel much better about life.  And in a week's time I'll be able to take on more interesting projects, but for the moment I feel like some sort of mending queen. 

Tuesday night I attended dance practice with the Williamsburg Heritage Dancers, and had so much fun!  We did several dances that were way more complicated than anything I'd done at previous balls, and for once I felt like a novice instead of the experienced one!  Every other Tuesday evening is sewing circle though, so I'll only be able to go dancing every other week unless I decide to try Scottish folk dancing which is apparently on Thursday nights... I'm thinking if I'm not too tired I'll go for sure next week.

And my mind is swimming with all the dresses I want to make for myself, but I'm just. so. tired.

I might work a little bit on my wool dress for Gettysburg before going to bed.  The skirt panels are sewn together, and I want to attach the hem facing yet tonight.

Right up after the wool 1860s dress though must be a new 18th cen outfit.

I have some pretty pale pink homespun look cotton that I think I'll make a little pet en l'eir jacket with.  Right now I'm thinking of doing something like this:
 

I also want a charcoal grey robe a l'anglaise, but I don't even have fabric for that yet.  And I absolutely need a cloak and mitts if I'm going to spend the winter in Williamsburg!

This past weekend was a kind of eclectic mix of reenact-y fun of different sorts plus some straight up non-historical good times.

I left home fairly late on Friday night and drove down to Mike's place where we both stayed up too late finishing our new Civil War outfits.

We were up early Saturday morning, and headed out to a timeline event at Ft. Meigs in Ohio where we met up with Tyler.  Since it was a timeline, we could wear whatever we wanted, and decided to go with the 18th century for the majority of the day.  Mike and Tyler hooked up with Daniel O'Connell from the King's 8th Reg and borrowed various pieces to complete their kits, although Tyler later on joined up with some other friends for an Australian WW2 impression. 


(In order: Tyler, me, Mike)

( I wore my basic 18th cen ensemble, and finally got decent pictures of it. )

We met, and talked to, a lot of people at the fort.  It seemed we could hardly walk a couple of yards before someone else that Tyler knew came up and engaged us in conversation.  I quickly discovered that while hanging out with Mike and Tyler is great fun, spending time with a group of guys is very, very different from hanging out with a girlfriend or two.  The biggest difference was the style of shop talk.  All of Tyler's aquiantences are very knowledgeable, and care deeply about their specific time periods and crafts, and can wax poetic on the most mundane of topics.  The latest Big Thing within this particular group of people is the recent forming of an 1812 group, the 1st Regiment of Volunteers, which Mike, Tyler, and I are all planning on being involved with.  This resulted in what seemed like hours upon hours of talk about haversacks and cartridge boxes and buttons and coatees vs. jackets and hats and shakos and cockades etc. etc.

All of the uniform talk made me very grateful to finally get a chance to meet Ericka Osen, who I'd exchanged an email or two with, but had never spoken to before.  She was incredibly friendly and welcoming, and basicly offered to set me up with anything I might need at a reenactment with the 1st reg.  I felt fairly privilaged to spend time chatting and shopping with her, as she really, really knows her stuff having been head of clothing at Conner Prairie and Greenfield Village for quite a few years.

( All the talking aside, we pretty much just mosey-ed about the fort all day. )

We ended the afternoon just relaxing with the WW2 guys, before heading back to Mike's home. 

Katie joined us there that evening, as did a couple girls which Mike had met at Greenfield village, and we tromped through the woods behind his house to the place where we had planned on camping.  It was incredibly soggy out from the torrential rain the night before, and it was a fairly unanimous decision to NOT camp and just have fun anyway.  We rounded out the evening with a swim in his neighbor's pool before the other girls left, and Katie, Mike, Tyler, and I crashed in the basement where we watched most of Zoolander before falling asleep.

Sunday the 21st was Mike's 21st birthday.

We went antiquing in the morning, and even though I hadn't planned on spending money, I found a really nice fashion plate from 1828, which was priced ridiculously low, that I had to buy.  I think Tyler got a print of a Remington painting, but the others came away empty-handed.

We got back to the house shortly before lunch, where we were joined by a couple others, and all got dressed in our finery for an afternoon of shooting flintlocks.

I wore my brand new Civil War day dress, which ended up not really resembling the dress from Cold Mountain at all.

True to form, it wasn't entirely finished (though I suppose I can cut myself a little slack this time as I had less than a week to make it in).  I didn't have time to make a collar and cuffs, which it desperately needs, and I'd like to add some more trim on the sleeves.

Katie (rvqavalon ) already posted pictures from the day, and I have a bunch of photos from the afternoon (and more from Ft. Meigs) on my flickr page as well.

We shot for an hour or two, and were completely dripping with sweat by the end of it.  The weather was hot... sunny and humid, and we were all grateful to strip off our many layers of clothing and jump in the pool again.  Swimming, brandy, chocolate cheesecake, and pipes filled the end of the day nicely before Tyler headed back to Ohio.  Katie and I left for home the following day, and that was that.

Not much to report, but I spent my evening working on the muslin for the bodice of the Sleepy Hollow Stripey. Our camera is almost officially dead (as in won't work for love or money) so you'll just have to imagine it. I'm almost scared by how smoothly the whole process went... I'd been quite intimidated by the prospect of doing en fourreau pleating without a dressform. I was lucky though, in that the robe a l'anglaise pattern in Jean Hunnisett almost exactly matched my measurements; so I was able to scale it up and with only a little tweaking (such as... oh, narrowing the back... like ALWAYS) make it fit. 

It's terribly exciting to be starting on the dress though... it feels like eons since I last made something big and fun. Underpinnings might be pretty, but they don't satisfy the soul.