The girl I left behind me...

Dear White Collar:

NOT APPROVED. Peter. WHAT?! What would your wife say?

Trying to love,

Katie

The Plaid Beast plaid silk 1860s day dress now has a page on Theatrical~Historical, and you can view it here.

And because I'm always complaining about how I never get noticed whenever I travel in costume with lachwen and dandytailor, Gwendolyn kept a running tally of the comments I received while wearing this dress around Gettysburg with her on Saturday. There were quite a few! It was really fun to wear and quite comfortable, even with a trained skirt in crowded streets. I think the ballgown still wins for "favorite," but this one ranks pretty high, too!

Next will be a page for the obnoxious aqua paletot (which didn't get worn much because the weather was so nice!), and then onto new projects! I'm thinking an evening bodice for this dress, some winter wear for 1812, and a riding habit (or three. For various periods.)

November 22, 2009
Gettysburg, PA

So. I can finally say that I've been to Gettysburg. It was fantastic. This photo is actually from our last day there, Sunday, when Tyler took us on a tour of the battlefield, complete with explanations of troop movements and significance of different locations, markers, and memorials. The rest are under the cut, in roughly chronological order, with brief explanations.

( Onward! )

This is where I run out of pictures. Or at least, I have battlefield pictures, but they don't look like much. I'm not so great with landscapes. It was pretty cool, though, and I really liked being able to get a sense of scale, for how big it was really. I really had no imagination for it before.

I did actually buckle down and finish the other sleeve and add lace to the collar of the plaid outfit. So!


It seems that the new camera is doing slightly better at indoor pictures taken at night. These are less grainy than ones taken under similar conditions with my old one. Good!

( A couple more )

Anyway, the sleeves and collar are cotton organdy from Field's. It has very impressive body to it; moreso than even that extremely malleable taffeta I used for the ballgown. It presses reaaaally nicely. The lace on the collar is just a random length of needlerun lace I got at a different Field's when I was sourcing stuff for the first version of the ballgown. The collar is finished without it; it's just whipstitched to the edge. More versatile that way!

Now I just get to sew on a crapload of fasteners. Yaaaay.

There are occasions where I can churn out costume pieces in very little time. The graph paper Elinor dress dress was made in two days. This, however, is not one of those times. I've made a collar and a sleeve today. One sleeve--not so much a pair. My attention span for finishing the other one is not looking too promising. But, in the absence of progress, I offer pictures.


Sleeve #1...and only, at this point.


I have some needlerun lace I might add to the collar, but again with the attention span.

So, you know those trousers?

They belonged to Machinist's Mate 2nd Class Theron Tuttle, who served on the USS Caribou. During training in the Pacific Northwest, the military discovered his depth perception would keep him from piloting, and so they put him in charge of the Caribou's engine room instead. The Caribou, it turns out, was in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which is apparently considered to be the largest naval battle of WWII.

According to his brother, Theron didn't talk about his service much. If asked about Leyte Gulf, he would respond, "I don't know; I was below, asleep."

Ladies and gentle...man, Michael McCarty went and got himself a LiveJournal.

Introducing dandytailor. Go, greet, friend.

I had the best idea ever last night. I was at Hobby Lobby to get frames for a couple pictures, and decided to peruse the Christmas section. There were some really nice garlands, but I managed to only walk out with a couple strings of lights. As I was looking, though, I nearly tripped over a candle-holder. In my defense, it was five and a half feet tall wrought iron...and it was shaped like a lamp-post.

To which my first response was, "NARNIA THEMED CHRISTMAS PARTY!?!"

Oh man, that would be so cool. Someone needs to do that; I would totally go! The nerdy ten-year-old inside me is all full of squee.

Edit: ...Maybe I need to do that. I'm sure there's some way to creatively decorate my apartment...right?

No epistle-like event summary; I'm too tired and apparently have the swine flu, so I'm just putting up pictures. lachwen put a little bit up about it, plus a couple pictures of both herself and Mike. These are all her photos--my camera fails at low-light situations. I just used peer pressure and common thievery to get her to put them online so fast, and to steal some for myself.


Ballgown Version 2. Complete success.

( Don't worry, there are more. )

Okay, folks. I'm exhausted and quickly approaching incoherency, but I had a great weekend of doing all sorts of fun stuff in costumes. I'm going to bed now, but I leave you a photo as evidence:



See? Doing stuff. In history clothes.

There will be more later, and although lachwen was also in attendance at the event in question, I'm going to let her put up her own photos* of her dress and such. I made no such promises to the gentleman with whom I am dancing*, so Mike gets a cameo this time.

*Until Monday evening, Gwendolyn. Then I'm putting up my favorite pictures, including the ones with you and your almost-new dress in them.
**Technically, we're standing around in promenade position, waiting for something to happen. But we danced shortly thereafter.

Everybody, this is a public service announcement. I had a really horrible day. It was the kind of day where, when I left the office, I considered it a miracle that I'd gotten through the day without getting yelled at, lambasted, written up, or otherwise raked over the coals. I've been having mood swings, and I think my current "doctor" is messing with my head. My grandpa is having cataract surgery, and if I'd had a cat, it would have barfed on my rug. That kind of day.

I was going to post about how horrible my day was and emotional whiplash and all sorts of over-thinking emo nonsense. Then I sat down to My Life is Average. It pretty much made my day. It's basically a collection of everyday stuff that random people found amusing, awesome, or otherwise remarkable. 99% of it at least made me smirk a little, and some of it sparked an actual shout of delighted laughter. Well worth a look!

Julie's still working on her photo series of people in costume this fall; the 1890s swimsuits was the first, and this weekend we took some shots with a vintage wooden canoe. Not as many snapshots this time, since it was less of a logistical nightmare and therefore had less Sherpas with digital point-and-shoots. This time Julie's coworker Kristen and I dressed up, and Julie ran around in waders and a not-wooden canoe (steered by her dad) to photograph us.


Don't tip!

( A couple more here. )

All in all, good times were had, and I vow to not let it be two years until my next canoe excursion.

The buffet in its new home.

It's definitely grown on me. I laid down a protective sheet (like, literally, a sheet) and covered the top with the fabulous shawl that superiorcaploaned me. And when Mike came home from spring break this year, I had just moved into my apartment and he brought me back a set of prints to decorate with. Those are three of my favorites.

My great-aunt passed away about a month ago, the last of that generation in the family. My grandfather is still alive and well, but Aunt Eldora was his brother's wife, and his brother was ten years older than he was. They may be considered the same generation in years, but there was a definite cultural gap there...and now no more. My mother has heroically spent the last few weeks driving down to Jackson to help empty out the old house, until now--there's still a ton of stuff left, but whatever isn't spoken for has been willed to the couple's old church.

So a couple days ago, my mom called me and said, "You've inherited an antique buffet. Now we just have to go get it." She didn't think it would fit in my car, but I measured and it would, so we drove down to Jackson on Friday night to pick it up. I was totally unprepared for the state of the house and nearly had a panic attack--which is why I say my mother has been "heroically" helping out--but we managed to get the buffet in the car without too much trouble. As a bonus, I also walked off with a severely water-damaged old dresser. It only had two and a half of its original casters, all damaged, and you could see the mildew from a past basement flood. We lashed it to the top of the car, though, and drove off.

Today, then, was spent cleaning up neglected old furniture. The buffet has really grown on me, helped in no small part by how ecstatic the older relatives all are by the fact that it's still in the family. It's really too heavy and dark for my taste--I would never buy it for myself--but it was free, it's quite spacious, I need the storage, and it's mine. I like to think my great-grandma would be pleased I've got it. And the dresser, well, it was like an episode of Extreme Makeover, Old Crappy Furniture Edition. It's still airing out, and it's still obviously old, but it no longer looks like a piece of trash! Anyway, since all you really want is to see what I'm yammering about, pictures:



( A few more. Both are still a work in progress, obviously. )

The buffet wasn't nearly as gross as the dresser, but the top of it is peeling away from the body, so it'll need a little TLC. Hopefully tomorrow, they'll be in my apartment!

It seems that LJ Archive is working for me again. I know I saw some scattered dismay over errors a few weeks ago, so just throwin' that out there!

So, these pictures are actually from two weekends ago, when Julie, her cousins, a friend, and I went to Saugatuck (the day after I went to Jackson) to do a photo shoot at the beach. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves--other than that I did not wear a costume, I did not make a costume, and these are just snapshots. Julie hasn't developed her actual photos yet.


Sarah, Kristen, Annette, Julie.

( More, plus behind-the-scenes )

So that's what I get for letting Tyler use my computer. *sigh* Although I will admit that I'm less shocked that he took advantage of a situation to hijack my journal, and more surprised at the brilliance of tagging the entry with the appropriate LJ tag. Well played, Mister Putman.

Also, I'd never seen a full tux before he unbagged his in the hotel room about five minutes ago.

Dear World,
Little does Katie know that she left her account logged on and then let me use her computer...
Love,
-Tyler

So, I went to a Civil War reenactment (though I do use the term loosely) in Jackson this weekend. The site was...fine, but the shopping was quite good. Above are a couple of the buttons I bought for the slowly-progressing plaid day bodice.

( And under the cut, more stuff! )

Parchment crocuses from Spencer's Mercantile, purchased at Fort Erie.

The white ones will be used on the next incarnation of the Civil War ballgown. The colored ones were bought simply because they're a) maroon...sort-of, and b) pretty. I figured they'd probably go nicely on a hat. Maybe 18th century. More photos under the cut!

( Speaking of hats... )

So yeah...yay, pictures, and please--thoughts on the hat ribbons! I'm undecided.

Oh, and as a bonus, the crocuses were photographed sitting on the flounces of that petticoat I was talking about, since I had it laid out in the work area already (aka, the living room).