Photoshoot, Circa 1812

As a bit of an update, Christmas was lovely, as I hope everyone else's was! I'm back home now, and I hope to get back a bit to sewing and having fun!

One of my presents yesterday was a pretty purple scarf. Today, while my hair was in a bun, I decided I could tie it in a turban style. One thing led to another, and I brought out another scarf of mine. I tied that in a turban, then added the purple scarf into the style. After that, I thought it would be fun to curl some little pieces of hair to frame my face and make the style look like portraits and fashion plates of the early 1800's. Then, it was an easy step to convince myself that I needed to put on a dress and take some pictures. Many thanks to my brother, who took some really fantastic shots!

American Duchess- The Story of Another Giveaway

So, I was planning on posting a picture for the American Duchess gift card giveaway. However, with limited time and no preexisting photos of me in costume around Christmastime, I just couldn't get it to happen. However, when I saw with the advent calendar she has up that she's giving away the Season 1 DVD of Upstairs Downstairs, I thought I should notify all my readers, and try to get it, too!

Without further ado, here are some pretty pictures!

Video from Market Faire

A Trip Back in time is a cute little video about Market Faire in Dover, DE a couple of weeks ago. I encourage you to check it out! Have fun, and I'll hopefully be updating more often.

18th Century Event

Instead of a bunch of news today, though I did go to a ball last week that I want to talk about eventually, I thought I should tell you about a fun event that I'm unable to attend this year.
If anyone is interested, my hometown is having an 18th century Market Fair today. I believe the festivities have already started, but no matter! There's a cute video about it too!

Little Updates

Good afternoon! Today I thought I could update you all on my progress in the world of college thus far. I'm doing all my work and doing alright in classes. Some classes I'm doing better in than other, which is to be expected, I suppose. People around here are really nice and I've made lovely friends.
In other news, it's scarf weather! Also, I have more pictures of the picturesque trip I went on not too long ago.

Sorry it's a bit blurry,
but it was all I had time for before class.

Back to pretty pictures of my trip!

Menden Ponds Park

My Geology lab took a field trip to Menden Ponds Park a little while ago. I got some really nice photographs of it, and it was darn pretty because of the leaves changing colors. Hope you enjoy the photos!

The first kettle lake we saw in the section of the park known as
"The Devil's Bathtub"

Another kettle lake.

Same as above, from a different angle. I liked the woody scenery.

The kettle lake in (most of) its glory!

I believe this was the dried stream bed we walked up
to get to the top of an esker.

The first kettle lake again, taken on the way out of the park.

Time to leave!

For next time, I'll add more photos that didn't work in this one and that I don't have time to fiddle with at the moment. I'll also add some exciting updates about my life, but for now I have to study. Take care!

American Duchess Giveaway!

I'm hoping to get back into blogging with this post, letting all my lovely readers know about American Duchess's new shoe design. They're called Claremont, and they are designed after a pair of shoes from the 1930's. I sure wish I had someplace to wear them that would give me the excuse to buy them!

They're so pretty; I want to buy a pair!!

This is for an entry into the giveaway, which you can find at American Duchess's blog and you can buy the shoes on her website!

Soon, I'll be making a post detailing the experiences I've had at college so far. It may be this weekend, or sometime further in the future.

Short Hiatus

Hello everyone! I'm sure you're all wondering where I went. Well, probably not. I think I should say that I'm at college now, and I don't know when I'll be posting again. I'm a lot busier that I anticipated, and I hope you can forgive me! I'll be back with sewing adventures at some point in the future, I hope!

Feature Friday

Welcome to the very first Feature Friday!

There was a wonderful post by The Quintessential Clothes Pen about her day at a 1920's lawn party in Ipswich, Mass. You'll find excellent pictures of 1920's (re)creations in the post.

The excellent In The Long Run made a post about her experience at Gadsby's tavern, during their Jane Austen Ball.

Speaking of Jane Austen, A Frolic Through Time posted some pictures she took of her early Regency outfit and a 1790's hair tutorial that I quite enjoy.

I found pictures from the most recent Gadsby's ball via Art for My Sake when she linked to Hancock Photo's 2012 Jane Austen Ball pictures page, and found their 2013 Jane Austen Ball pictures of the night.

The above video is from a live performance of a band I was fortunate enough to see last week in Lewes. They're fantastic, I hope you check out more of the American Rogues' music!

This is the first video in a new webseries called The Autobiography of Jane Eyre. It's an intriguing modernized adaptation of the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. You can find all of the videos on this channel.

St. Michaels Part Two!

That was fast, I know, but I got more pictures and wanted to share! The couple in this post made a wonderful slideshow that I can show you the pictures of. How exciting!

St. Michael's, Girl's Weekend, and an Announcement

To kick off this post, I'll tell you about my Saturday at St. Michaels in Maryland. I was there to perform with the Dover English Country Dancers during the day of August 10th, which was the bicentennial celebration of the Battle of St. Michaels. Typically we go to Revolutionary War reenactments or festivals and the like, but it was like we were launched about forty years into the future. It was surreal to be in front of the public in a 1810's dress with a line of women dressed similarly and a line of men dressed in 1810's fashions (for the most part) in order to compliment that.
I certainly didn't get as many pictures as I wanted, but I had friends who made a point to get some fabulous ones. Consider this Part 1 of my story of St. Michaels, which will be continued as soon as I get my hands on more pictures (and motivated to post them)! Bunches of pictures under the cut!

Nemours and Movie Day

I visited Nemours, built by Alfred I. DuPont, on Tuesday. It was absolutely breathtaking. Sadly, due to a policy they have, I can't post  the pictures I took of the gardens. However, there is information about the house and gardens at this link. If you go there, you can also go on a virtual tour. It's not quite the same as being there, but the visuals are still stunning.
I got to spend yesterday with a friend and her excitable dog!

Coconut, Sarah, and me!

Front section of hair in pincurls

How silly it looks from the front,
before the rest went up in curlers.

Hopefully I'll have these shoes all ready for my event (which is tomorrow).
Maybe I'll even make a tutorial. Or just document my progress. We'll see.

Trying to Get Back to Posting

I just can't seem to keep up with this blog. I'm working on it, I promise! There's just so much to do to prepare for college in the fall, and going away to the beach for a week didn't help with getting me to post more. In the spirit of catching up, I have some great pictures from Longwood Gardens, taken the day before my beach trip, to share.

Away for a While

I'm heading off for a nearly week-long vacation, and this is my last post before I go. Dear readers, try not to miss me too much (insert winky-face here).

Here, have a yawning kitty!

Sewing Progress

I actually got some velvet cut out for a beret I'll be sewing up A.S.A.P. (This weekend, maybe.) So, without much further ado, here are some photos!

The original size of the velvet. It wasn't much larger than the final circle.

Preparing to draw a circle.

Ditto. By the way, my mom helped me a whole bunch!

How the rope stayed in the middle.

After cutting it out.

Figuring out the directions. And the realization of, "Oh dear, I need
to cut out a band."

The finished circle. You can see some scraps in the corner.
There weren't very many and they weren't very big.

Adventures!

I've done quite a few things this summer that I suppose should be cataloged here. Today's post will feature some chickens and my kitty, Missy. Though the chickens look somewhat startled, Missy seems to love the camera.

Playing Catch-Up

Sorry for the posting hiatus. I am a procrastinator and admit it. But I have pictures from the ball I attended about three weeks ago! So I hope that will make up for my absence a little. (Also, be warned, tons of pictures to follow!)

I spent the better part of three hours getting ready to go. My hair was up and braided intricately. I should have counted how many bobby pins I had in it, as there was a pile by the time I had my hair down! My mom was sweet and took a couple pictures of me outside before my brother and I were picked up for our little trip to Virginia.

Ready for the ball!

I'm Alive!

I promise, I am. Life's gotten really busy lately, and I haven't had time to finish my post about the ball I went to on the eighth. I hope to have it done by tomorrow, but I thought I could leave you with a few pleasant little pictures until then. Best wishes!

From my day at Six Flags this past May.

I've heard geese are ferocious. Is it true?

Because this goose was pretty chill.

Sewing Progress

Last night, I decided to work on my 1920's dress, which will be adapted from a commercial pattern. The cutting out is going well so far, I have to go back in and trim everything, then take the time to sew all the bits together. It will be interesting, to say the least.

Before, about to read the instructions. The background fabric, which the
mock-up will be made out of, used to be a shower curtain.

After cutting out all the pattern pieces, deciding where to place them.

One piece cut out, three to go.

Both the main segments of the dress cut out, but not yet trimmed.

All the pieces cut out, and the curtain awaiting draping.

The only piece I got completely trimmed.

Sadly, I won't be attending my friend's party on Saturday. Instead, I was scheduled to go to a ball, and I hadn't realized it. My friend was very sweet about it, though I'm sorry to miss the opportunity to get dolled-up in a 1920's dress. He said that perhaps my brother, he, and I will go see the Great Gatsby so I could wear my dress. I'm extremely excited about that!

Sewing Progress?

I've made some form of progress, in that I've measured how long my fabric is and I've read instructions for the pattern. My mother was also kind enough to measure me in my Regency short stays. That's as far as I've gotten, and as far as I'll be going without assistance. I'll leave you with pretty pictures from today.

Where my pattern will be from. The instructions looks difficult.

The fabric for my wearable mock-up.
It's a little over three yards. Wish me luck!

All together.

Write-up of the Weekend

This post will just be a quick summary of my weekend and I'll be back to costuming projects and such by tomorrow or Wednesday.

I had a wonderful weekend. Friday night was my own graduation. The ceremony lasted two hours, though I thought I was going to fall on my face. See, my shoes fell apart. That wouldn't normally be such a big deal, but they only started falling apart once I was walking up to the stage.

Needless to say, I was pretty darn upset. They were wedge heels, with criss-crossed straps. After walking down the aisle between chairs, I made it safely to the stage, only to find that one strap had completely come out of the left side of my right shoe, and the other shoe was starting to lost a strap as well. I tucked the strap between my toes, where a flip-flop strap would go. My name was called to walk across the stage to receive an award, so I awkwardly walked up, across the stage, in front of all my classmates and their families, and then scurried back to my place.

I finally walked up to get my diploma. That caused the other strap to fall off on one side. It didn't matter, because then it was time to process out. That was fine, until I got to my friend's mom halfway up the aisle. I stopped for a quick hug, took my horrid shoes off, and made my way out of the theater. I went downstairs to grab my diploma, hug teachers and friends, and say my goodbyes.

After spending time outside taking pictures and talking, everyone left in order to regroup at my grandmother's house for ice cream and cake. It was a pleasant evening, enjoyed by all.

My brother, the valedictorian, and me. My friend Allison, pictured above,
kindly sent me the two picture sets.

Graduation cake!

My Jaime's graduation was on Sunday. I ended up wearing the same dress as my friend. That funny and weird coincidence was noticed by everyone. The ceremony was wonderful; it was only about an hour and a half long. Her parents took the whole group out to dinner at the Iron Hill Brewery. The food was marvelous, and the cake was spectacularly sweet.

Jaime in cap and gown, then out at dinner, being silly with icing.

A Regency Ball

In lieu of 1920's sewing content today, I'll leave you with a picture and a little write-up on a Eighteenth century/Regency ball I attended earlier this year.

I'm making a bit of a funny face, but this is the only
non-blurry picture I have.

I went to a ball in April held in Lancaster, PA. The gown I wore was the first of my "real" sewing adventures. It was completed last summer for another ball in Bowling Green, VA.

My mother and I arrived late, due to traffic and a late start. We rushed in to get dressed, some ten minutes after the official start of the ball. To our surprise, it hadn't yet begun. We found the restroom, got dressed, and were in the hall, pictured above, before any dancing had commenced. It couldn't have worked out better.

There were twelve dances: The Accomplished Maid, Mulberry Garden, Barbarini's Tambourine, Auretti's Dutch Skipper, Never Love Thee More, Fandango, Childgrove, The Duke of Kent's Waltz, The Lovely Nancy, Mrs. Savage's Whim, Dublin Bay, and Easter Thursday.

I danced all twelve. The majority were called, but there were two dances, Dublin Bay and Fandango, that weren't. Those two dances that were considered "expert" and so only experienced dancers could attempt them. Thankfully, each dance had the steps in a little booklet each participant was handed at the beginning of the night, so I was prepared.

The little booklet that contained dance steps.
This happened in 2013, not 2012, so ignore the date

Artsy shot.

It looked really nice.

Everyone was quite polite and very kind. There were three people there I already knew from Dover and one more I had met before when I was much younger.

Throughout the whole night, there were large breaks between each dance, which I hadn't experienced before. The way my group does it, is teach and dance in great quantities, take a short refreshment break, and finish out the night with more teaching and dancing. Each has pros and cons I suppose, because the by the end of the Lancaster ball, our callers rushed us back out onto the floor for the last two dances.

I spent most of the little breaks filling my tankard or playing dominoes. Oddly enough, no one at my table could remember all the rules. So we made it up as we went along. The ball was so fun, and the people wonderful.

It was a lovely time and, if you have the opportunity, I strongly suggest you attend.

The end, for now.