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Gettysburg 2015 recap
Since Alice has helpfully posted her photos, there are now enough of my own silly face to make a recap not entirely photo-less. Thanks Alice! :D
So! Wednesday night I decided to stay up late and throw together a hood, because suddenly cold was going to be a Thing. (Nobody wants the ones in my shop so I could have worn either of them, but didn't like how they looked with my coat and dresses.) Bulk of it took about an hour (because yay machine sewing!), but measuring and cutting all the strips of rabbit took another hour! So I of course had some sewing to do in Gettysburg, but since I think Katherine was the only one, I didn't feel too bad!
Thursday I headed out to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sewloud's place around noon, and we managed to shove her, me, koshka_the_cat, and alllllll of our stuff into one car. Wheeeee! Who needs to see out the back of their car, right? Katherine got these shots of it...
And yes, it was rainy Thursday, but cleared up just fine that night. Happily!
We popped into Needle and Thread before checking in to our campsite, as Robin needed buttons and I needed ribbon to lace my ballgown and shoes (not the same ribbon). We also tried to stop at a store that sold plaid shoes, whose hours listed them as open, but it was all filthy lies. Very closed. Maybe a good thing, as we didn't have to worry about running anyone down backing up out of the parking spot!
We stayed at the same campsite we did two years ago, except we upgraded and got a "cottage" this time. Had the all-important bathroom, and much more room for six people (though all in hoops was still a squeeze!). Our only real objection was no closets. Made it work by hanging everything off the edge of the bunk beds! So, close quarters (pile everything on bunk during day, shove off so can sleep, repeat), but there was still room to walk. Helped that most of us had wrappers to throw on for Cabin Time! Much smaller.
I was hugely entertained by our row of outerwear on pegs. So many pompom scarves! Katherine knitted us one each, because she is fabulous.
Katherine got a call from Bernie Sanders..."no, I'm sorry, I can't commit to anything right now...I'm in the 1860s..." (This was not actually said to the person on the other end of the phone but we were all giggling about it!)
Robin in her Unfrortunate Biggins and lovely wrapper! I think there are no extant photos of me in my own unfrortunate biggins, but it's basically Robin's with different lace.
Our lovely collection of oil lamps that, you will notice, are mostly not lit. Katherine and Robin and I couldn't get them to work properly,hiraimi and gilded_garb couldn't get them to work properly, and jennylafleur made them work when she arrive Friday morning but we were massively unimpressed with how much light they put off! How that was supposed to be an improvement over candles, no one knew. Except the little lantern worked just fine, for reasons unknown.
(Of course, when I was unpacking I decided to try out a lamp just one more time, and it was perfectly happy to burn brightly!
...
I guess the Ghost Rat of Gettysburg really hates oil lamps.)
Oh, right, let me tell you about The Ghost Rat of Gettysburg. It somehow became a running joke on Thursday night and we have no idea how. Anything going slightly wrong was blamed on The Ghost Rat. Now you know. We're weird. (But you knew that already.)
So! Sara had a later afternoon flight in, so Alice picked her up and they drove in late (traffic, dontcha know). We got them a pizza because we're nice, and set up the cabin and tried to light the lamps (and mostly failed). Some pretty crazy fog had rolled in while we were out for dinner - you could barely see the lit-up campground sign, and we lost our cabin! In which we had left the lights on. Drove the wrong way for a while, past some RVs, possibly off a road and through a campsite...but we found it eventually, after entirely too much time. When Alice and Sara arrived, Robin ran out with the lantern.
Adorable Robin with lantern!
Fun in the cabin! Well, last-minute sewing "fun". Katherine, as always, was finished her sewing and helped the rest of us out.
And then the Ghost Rat stole my camera all day Friday! So I got no pictures of the marquee dress. Womp womp.
Friday was our low-key day; we slept in, had oatmeal for breakfast, and waited for Jenny-Rose to arrive in the morning. (Alice and Sara got a lantern welcome; JR got an oatmeal bowl welcome, hee hee.) We called to ask if they had carriage tours of the battlefield, which they didn't ("but would you like to make a reservation for April??" um, no we wouldn't...), though we think they just didn't like us, since we saw a carriage in town later. And I personally vetoed a Segway tour in hoops. So in the afternoon we mainly did some shopping. Although no one ended up with plaid shoes, woe and sadness. There was much time spent in the jewelry shop, and a really excellent bonnet bought by Sara that clearly was made just for her ("would you like to put it in the box?" "NO!" *clutches bonnet*)
We made reservations for a late ghost tour, and miraculously managed to not fall asleep in the five hours of Cabin Time we had. Definitely a "it's got to be like 10.30, right?" "actually it's about 7" kind of evening. No, actually, I think Alice did fall asleep, thinking back on it... :D I finished up my hood and got most of the slippers done at that point.
Alice got a few pics at this point, so I do have a couple that show how well a hoop fit in the cabin (not super well).
"I think my butt's stuck on something."
"Yup, definitely."
The ghost tour was fun, but maybe a little more informal than we'd thought. Next time I think we'll go for an historic one, that starts earlier than 11.30! More time to come back to the cabin and have mulled wine, dontcha know. They took us back in the woods a bit for the second half of the tour, and Katherine fell in a ditch and had a ghost steal her garter, and a ghost stepped on my hem. That's the way we're telling it, anyway. ;)
Alice also got a couple shots of Katherine and I waiting for the tour to start. I was glad I'd stayed up too late Wednesday night and made that silly hood! And I think those are the only pics of my paletot, too. Since it was warm enough Saturday I didn't need it!
(Look, guys, orbs. The ghosts must like us. xD )
Saturday morning was our appointment at the Victorian Photography Studio, so we actually had to get up and dressed at Decent Times. *grumble grumble* My camera reappeared in a really obvious spot under a chair (thanks, Ghost Rat) so I handed it off to Robin in disgust so I didn't have to be responsible for it any more!
When Costumers Attack. We might have been a wee bit of a mess at that point.
Probably snarking something at that point. That's what I get. (Plz admire 1845 tecups rather than mah face.)
ORANGE PETTICOAT
Alice is making sure they don't escape. ;)
Waiting round the back at the photography studio; they won our hearts right away by having pastries etc. on the back porch!
You've already seen the group tintype but Katherine took a proper scan of it, so I'm going to be annoying and post it again, really big. Probably because I'm in it, I think it's just so fascinating! 30 second exposure, which didn't sound like that long but absolutely was. *eyeballs fall out of head* Sara, Katherine and I were a bit twitchy, so we're just a little blurry; Robin, Alice, and Jenny-Rose are much more ideal Victorian subjects! And the way the colors and shading of Katherine's dress came up in the plate vs real life is so cool! My favorite part was that we got to watch the picture develop, and that really does look like magic. If I think it's that fascinating, I can only imagine how it must have been to anyone who got to watch their picture develop in the 1860s!
Katherine, Sara, and Jenny-Rose also got an individual picture done, and the rest of us managed to be fairly well behaved so we could stay and watch! And then we got to sit outside the studio and watch the parade and look decorative, no doubt. Much better on the bum than the usual curb!
I hid behind my veil for a while because I liked it - probably bad form to wear it for our only group pictures though. Ooops.
I am smiling in that one though! No, you can't see it...
Not this one. "WHAT?"
"I will BOP YOU WITH MY POMPOM." I am nothing but class and charm, you guys. 3:)
We had lunch after the parade, which we didn't time so well. With the inevitable wait (since when the parade ends EVERYONE wants lunch), we ended up getting into a bit of crunch time with ball prep. Well, now we know!
Happily we had an hour of leeway in between the "social hour" start time (we aren't social) and dinner start time, so it was all good. Dinner was delicious, though as usual corseted me had a problem shoveling it all down my gullet. There was a half-hour or so where the staff was turning the tables to empty out the ballroom - well, it wasn't a half hour for us. We were on the reject end of the ballroom ("do they know who we are?!"), so we got dinner last, dessert last, and DAMMIT I AM GETTING MY TINY MUG OF TEA last.
I danced a lot more than I did at the ball two years ago; the caller was SO much better. Enough instruction for those of us who don't know anything (me) without making it painfully long and drawn out. I didn't waltz (I only count in fours, not threes. Threes are just wrong) or polka (omg I need to do workouts in prep for balls), but I danced a fair amount.
Except for the third dance...because one of the rows of lace was hanging off my skirt, and it had to be ripped off. SIGH. There's definitely a picture somewhere of three girls sitting around me on the floor, ripping the lace off my skirt. And the lowest tier is ripped and hanging in places, too, though at least that didn't need to be pulled off too. The dress looked quite nice if I do say so myself - but it's really not great for the rigors of a ball. And it's damn HEAVY.
Bertha looks drunk but it wasn't, I swear.
Maybe it was. *squints**
Katherine and I enjoyed when some woman came up to Alice and told her she loved her gown, and that she didn't like the ones that were too off-the-shoulder. Nope, we're not standing right there, with our off-the-shoulder dresses. Vastly amused. In our defense, when small-busted ladies have too highly-cut necks, they look like sister-wives. And Katherine and I aren't very good at being sister-wives.
There was one especially dippy woman in our first Virginia Reel set - and I say this as an aggressively mediocre dancer. (I'm a chronic counter! Though I did enjoy the one dance where Alice and I kept counting, rather loudly, at all the sets of people opposite us that kept trying to speed up the dance. STOP THAT RIGHT NOW ONE TWO THREE FOUR) I hope she was having fun, because she was very easily flustered and kept blundering around and getting lost and getting in everyone else's way. Jenny-Rose got a video where Sara's forcibly moving this lady out of the way! I think we all shoved her at some point.
Oh, and my CF seam did in fact fray all the way through, because it's an asshole. However, it's under the bertha, so if I ever decide I want to wear this again, I'll just whip it together and not care if it's ugly. (Also, maybe reattach that lace on the skirt. If I haven't lost it by then.)
We had a bit of an Incident in the last dance, in which Katherine was thrown and then attempted to be picked up by a total, very drunk stranger that was very Bad Touch, which wasn't a great way to finish off the ball...but other than that it was really very nice! And next time I am not wearing a ten-ton satin dress. My slippers actually held up very well; they'll definitely survive at least one more ball, maybe even two! I may or may not have taken no pictures of them, so, um...you'll just have to take my word for it.
And then it was Sunday and time to go home! Sadface.
Or, blurry pouty-face. You know. Whichever.
Everyone's in normal clothes! This is so wrong! (Well, yes, I am in fact wearing my sontag. It's cozy! And Sunday was windy and cold.)
We did a very abbreviated tour of the battlefield, went back to the photo studio to help Sara pick out a case for her tintype - and then it was time to part ways! Waaaaaah. At least I got to encourage the plotting of 1830s dresses on the drive back? And then I drove home, got back around 11, and refused to unpack the car for two days.
So, thank you to my cabin-mates! I had a ridiculous amount of fun, and I'm glad you let me tag along even though I hadn't spent that much time with half of you. You didn't make me feel like a twerp (even though I am a twerp), so, Socially Anxious Eternal Introvert Amanda thanks you. :)
And I would like to note that I started writing this post approximately 12 hours ago! Silly Thanksgiving dinner and eternal cleanup! *flops* But hey, now I can sew 1830s without (much) guilt! Still need to get pics of the marquee dress. May in fact wait til the Victorian Christmas tea at Smithville if we're doing that, though. Am bad blogger.
Gettysburg photobucket album here
So! Wednesday night I decided to stay up late and throw together a hood, because suddenly cold was going to be a Thing. (Nobody wants the ones in my shop so I could have worn either of them, but didn't like how they looked with my coat and dresses.) Bulk of it took about an hour (because yay machine sewing!), but measuring and cutting all the strips of rabbit took another hour! So I of course had some sewing to do in Gettysburg, but since I think Katherine was the only one, I didn't feel too bad!
Thursday I headed out to
sewloud's place around noon, and we managed to shove her, me, koshka_the_cat, and alllllll of our stuff into one car. Wheeeee! Who needs to see out the back of their car, right? Katherine got these shots of it...And yes, it was rainy Thursday, but cleared up just fine that night. Happily!
We popped into Needle and Thread before checking in to our campsite, as Robin needed buttons and I needed ribbon to lace my ballgown and shoes (not the same ribbon). We also tried to stop at a store that sold plaid shoes, whose hours listed them as open, but it was all filthy lies. Very closed. Maybe a good thing, as we didn't have to worry about running anyone down backing up out of the parking spot!
We stayed at the same campsite we did two years ago, except we upgraded and got a "cottage" this time. Had the all-important bathroom, and much more room for six people (though all in hoops was still a squeeze!). Our only real objection was no closets. Made it work by hanging everything off the edge of the bunk beds! So, close quarters (pile everything on bunk during day, shove off so can sleep, repeat), but there was still room to walk. Helped that most of us had wrappers to throw on for Cabin Time! Much smaller.
I was hugely entertained by our row of outerwear on pegs. So many pompom scarves! Katherine knitted us one each, because she is fabulous.
Katherine got a call from Bernie Sanders..."no, I'm sorry, I can't commit to anything right now...I'm in the 1860s..." (This was not actually said to the person on the other end of the phone but we were all giggling about it!)
Robin in her Unfrortunate Biggins and lovely wrapper! I think there are no extant photos of me in my own unfrortunate biggins, but it's basically Robin's with different lace.
Our lovely collection of oil lamps that, you will notice, are mostly not lit. Katherine and Robin and I couldn't get them to work properly,
hiraimi and gilded_garb couldn't get them to work properly, and jennylafleur made them work when she arrive Friday morning but we were massively unimpressed with how much light they put off! How that was supposed to be an improvement over candles, no one knew. Except the little lantern worked just fine, for reasons unknown.(Of course, when I was unpacking I decided to try out a lamp just one more time, and it was perfectly happy to burn brightly!
...
I guess the Ghost Rat of Gettysburg really hates oil lamps.)
Oh, right, let me tell you about The Ghost Rat of Gettysburg. It somehow became a running joke on Thursday night and we have no idea how. Anything going slightly wrong was blamed on The Ghost Rat. Now you know. We're weird. (But you knew that already.)
So! Sara had a later afternoon flight in, so Alice picked her up and they drove in late (traffic, dontcha know). We got them a pizza because we're nice, and set up the cabin and tried to light the lamps (and mostly failed). Some pretty crazy fog had rolled in while we were out for dinner - you could barely see the lit-up campground sign, and we lost our cabin! In which we had left the lights on. Drove the wrong way for a while, past some RVs, possibly off a road and through a campsite...but we found it eventually, after entirely too much time. When Alice and Sara arrived, Robin ran out with the lantern.
Adorable Robin with lantern!
Fun in the cabin! Well, last-minute sewing "fun". Katherine, as always, was finished her sewing and helped the rest of us out.
And then the Ghost Rat stole my camera all day Friday! So I got no pictures of the marquee dress. Womp womp.
Friday was our low-key day; we slept in, had oatmeal for breakfast, and waited for Jenny-Rose to arrive in the morning. (Alice and Sara got a lantern welcome; JR got an oatmeal bowl welcome, hee hee.) We called to ask if they had carriage tours of the battlefield, which they didn't ("but would you like to make a reservation for April??" um, no we wouldn't...), though we think they just didn't like us, since we saw a carriage in town later. And I personally vetoed a Segway tour in hoops. So in the afternoon we mainly did some shopping. Although no one ended up with plaid shoes, woe and sadness. There was much time spent in the jewelry shop, and a really excellent bonnet bought by Sara that clearly was made just for her ("would you like to put it in the box?" "NO!" *clutches bonnet*)
We made reservations for a late ghost tour, and miraculously managed to not fall asleep in the five hours of Cabin Time we had. Definitely a "it's got to be like 10.30, right?" "actually it's about 7" kind of evening. No, actually, I think Alice did fall asleep, thinking back on it... :D I finished up my hood and got most of the slippers done at that point.
Alice got a few pics at this point, so I do have a couple that show how well a hoop fit in the cabin (not super well).
"I think my butt's stuck on something."
"Yup, definitely."
The ghost tour was fun, but maybe a little more informal than we'd thought. Next time I think we'll go for an historic one, that starts earlier than 11.30! More time to come back to the cabin and have mulled wine, dontcha know. They took us back in the woods a bit for the second half of the tour, and Katherine fell in a ditch and had a ghost steal her garter, and a ghost stepped on my hem. That's the way we're telling it, anyway. ;)
Alice also got a couple shots of Katherine and I waiting for the tour to start. I was glad I'd stayed up too late Wednesday night and made that silly hood! And I think those are the only pics of my paletot, too. Since it was warm enough Saturday I didn't need it!
(Look, guys, orbs. The ghosts must like us. xD )
Saturday morning was our appointment at the Victorian Photography Studio, so we actually had to get up and dressed at Decent Times. *grumble grumble* My camera reappeared in a really obvious spot under a chair (thanks, Ghost Rat) so I handed it off to Robin in disgust so I didn't have to be responsible for it any more!
When Costumers Attack. We might have been a wee bit of a mess at that point.
Probably snarking something at that point. That's what I get. (Plz admire 1845 tecups rather than mah face.)
ORANGE PETTICOAT
Alice is making sure they don't escape. ;)
Waiting round the back at the photography studio; they won our hearts right away by having pastries etc. on the back porch!
You've already seen the group tintype but Katherine took a proper scan of it, so I'm going to be annoying and post it again, really big. Probably because I'm in it, I think it's just so fascinating! 30 second exposure, which didn't sound like that long but absolutely was. *eyeballs fall out of head* Sara, Katherine and I were a bit twitchy, so we're just a little blurry; Robin, Alice, and Jenny-Rose are much more ideal Victorian subjects! And the way the colors and shading of Katherine's dress came up in the plate vs real life is so cool! My favorite part was that we got to watch the picture develop, and that really does look like magic. If I think it's that fascinating, I can only imagine how it must have been to anyone who got to watch their picture develop in the 1860s!
Katherine, Sara, and Jenny-Rose also got an individual picture done, and the rest of us managed to be fairly well behaved so we could stay and watch! And then we got to sit outside the studio and watch the parade and look decorative, no doubt. Much better on the bum than the usual curb!
I hid behind my veil for a while because I liked it - probably bad form to wear it for our only group pictures though. Ooops.
I am smiling in that one though! No, you can't see it...
Not this one. "WHAT?"
"I will BOP YOU WITH MY POMPOM." I am nothing but class and charm, you guys. 3:)
We had lunch after the parade, which we didn't time so well. With the inevitable wait (since when the parade ends EVERYONE wants lunch), we ended up getting into a bit of crunch time with ball prep. Well, now we know!
Happily we had an hour of leeway in between the "social hour" start time (we aren't social) and dinner start time, so it was all good. Dinner was delicious, though as usual corseted me had a problem shoveling it all down my gullet. There was a half-hour or so where the staff was turning the tables to empty out the ballroom - well, it wasn't a half hour for us. We were on the reject end of the ballroom ("do they know who we are?!"), so we got dinner last, dessert last, and DAMMIT I AM GETTING MY TINY MUG OF TEA last.
I danced a lot more than I did at the ball two years ago; the caller was SO much better. Enough instruction for those of us who don't know anything (me) without making it painfully long and drawn out. I didn't waltz (I only count in fours, not threes. Threes are just wrong) or polka (omg I need to do workouts in prep for balls), but I danced a fair amount.
Except for the third dance...because one of the rows of lace was hanging off my skirt, and it had to be ripped off. SIGH. There's definitely a picture somewhere of three girls sitting around me on the floor, ripping the lace off my skirt. And the lowest tier is ripped and hanging in places, too, though at least that didn't need to be pulled off too. The dress looked quite nice if I do say so myself - but it's really not great for the rigors of a ball. And it's damn HEAVY.
Bertha looks drunk but it wasn't, I swear.
Maybe it was. *squints**
Katherine and I enjoyed when some woman came up to Alice and told her she loved her gown, and that she didn't like the ones that were too off-the-shoulder. Nope, we're not standing right there, with our off-the-shoulder dresses. Vastly amused. In our defense, when small-busted ladies have too highly-cut necks, they look like sister-wives. And Katherine and I aren't very good at being sister-wives.
There was one especially dippy woman in our first Virginia Reel set - and I say this as an aggressively mediocre dancer. (I'm a chronic counter! Though I did enjoy the one dance where Alice and I kept counting, rather loudly, at all the sets of people opposite us that kept trying to speed up the dance. STOP THAT RIGHT NOW ONE TWO THREE FOUR) I hope she was having fun, because she was very easily flustered and kept blundering around and getting lost and getting in everyone else's way. Jenny-Rose got a video where Sara's forcibly moving this lady out of the way! I think we all shoved her at some point.
Oh, and my CF seam did in fact fray all the way through, because it's an asshole. However, it's under the bertha, so if I ever decide I want to wear this again, I'll just whip it together and not care if it's ugly. (Also, maybe reattach that lace on the skirt. If I haven't lost it by then.)
We had a bit of an Incident in the last dance, in which Katherine was thrown and then attempted to be picked up by a total, very drunk stranger that was very Bad Touch, which wasn't a great way to finish off the ball...but other than that it was really very nice! And next time I am not wearing a ten-ton satin dress. My slippers actually held up very well; they'll definitely survive at least one more ball, maybe even two! I may or may not have taken no pictures of them, so, um...you'll just have to take my word for it.
And then it was Sunday and time to go home! Sadface.
Or, blurry pouty-face. You know. Whichever.
Everyone's in normal clothes! This is so wrong! (Well, yes, I am in fact wearing my sontag. It's cozy! And Sunday was windy and cold.)
We did a very abbreviated tour of the battlefield, went back to the photo studio to help Sara pick out a case for her tintype - and then it was time to part ways! Waaaaaah. At least I got to encourage the plotting of 1830s dresses on the drive back? And then I drove home, got back around 11, and refused to unpack the car for two days.
So, thank you to my cabin-mates! I had a ridiculous amount of fun, and I'm glad you let me tag along even though I hadn't spent that much time with half of you. You didn't make me feel like a twerp (even though I am a twerp), so, Socially Anxious Eternal Introvert Amanda thanks you. :)
And I would like to note that I started writing this post approximately 12 hours ago! Silly Thanksgiving dinner and eternal cleanup! *flops* But hey, now I can sew 1830s without (much) guilt! Still need to get pics of the marquee dress. May in fact wait til the Victorian Christmas tea at Smithville if we're doing that, though. Am bad blogger.
Gettysburg photobucket album here