Belvidere 2014

Hooray, an actual event! A few of us managed to get up to Belvidere's Victorian weekend today - it's a cute little Victorian town in North Jersey that has this weekend every September. They've got lots of oldey-timey stuff, food, and vendors. Afterwards, a carload of us drove out to Fabricland on a tip from a friend, that there were $5/yd silks. Between that and the silks from Belvidere...we were pretty well packed in!

Unfortunately I remembered to snag a passer-by to snap a picture of us only after the group had split up, but I did get a couple of the four of us.

And I met a reader of my blog, who came up and introduced herself. Congratulations, you're my first "I think I read your blog..." meeting! :D Lovely to meet you, and I'm trying to get a group of us together to visit Allaire during the Christmas season! (I'm not too scary in person, and I love meeting People From The Internet, so if you ever see me at an event, come up and say hi!)


As you can see, I wore my old early 1860s grey dress, because it was just this side of cool enough for it (80 is my usual cutoff for wool). And because every other time I've worn it has been with some kind of outerwear over it, so you can't see much of it! It's nothing special (and has both some dumb mistakes and some unfinished things...like a hem that's not turned up and quick-basted...yes, I made this three years ago...), but it's nice when I don't feel like being covered in fluffles. Though I suspect those would have been a hit.

Thought my red spoon bonnet was a bit too wintry, so I wore the hat I usually wear with the fluffy beast. Ooh, mixing it up. How daring. Alice borrowed my early 1870s little hat, which we deemed Close Enough. I like when people borrow things so I can see how they look! (How does it look? Well, the ribbons are starting to look a little tired, as they're at least five years old...but, um, I'm lazy. And hardly ever do early bustle any more.)
Wrinkly bodice is wrinkly. Shameful! It looks a little better when I'm not sitting on the ground, I guess.
We left Belvidere relatively early, but the Land of the Five-Dollar Silk was over an hour away and closed at five, so off we went, two-thirds of us in our 1860s undies. But it was for Very Important Things! (Actually, the fabric seller at Belvidere had silks by the roll that worked out to $5/yd or less too, but I didn't see anything there that needed to come live with me. Lots of it wanted to, but...I was trying to be good.)

And we bought ALL the things at Fabricland. Probably a good thing we didn't have another person in the back seat of that car...
Not this way! Try again!
I suppose there are worse ways to go than smothered under a pile of silks...
I was good (er, relatively), and only got two silks. There's 21 yards between them, but... ;) Hey, the one on the left was in pieces on the remnant table, so I got it for even cheaper! Neither do I have any idea what I'll do with them. My default setting is 18thc, but they'd work just as well for lots of other things. Depends what I need first!

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I have been working on Katherine Parr, though I'm a bit behind schedule. I'm at the point where blogging in detail about her takes time that I need to be sewing instead! The kirtle skirt and bodice just need to be sewn together, and I can move on to the undersleeves...which also need spangles and pearls sewn to them, eek!

And apparently I forgot, in my very well-laid-out and detailed schedule, to allot time for the scarletwork on the puffs and cuffs. Oops. So they may not be done for the first wearing. As that's not when I was planning on getting my nice photos anyway, I'm not too fussed.

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