12th Night Fancy Dress in DC
Jan. 14th, 2019 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mandie_rwRobin's already done a post that sums it up, but I shall write a gratuitous event post anyway! And a blog post on the striped dress if I'm feeling super industrious, and the tea supply holds out. (ETA: Yes, and an even wordier post than this one! Woo.)
The five Usual Suspects met up athiraimi 's house to carpool down to Carolyn's fabulous house in D.C. for a 12th Night fancy dress-themed party this past Saturday.blackcat452 is in possession of a vehicle large enough to take 5 costumers and their crap down to an event, and very kindly volunteered to do so. Which was very much appreciated, especially considering the valet parking fee *which was the only option for parking at the hotel)! Ahh, D.C.prices...
Some of us decided to wear 1860s fancy dress that had been made for last Gettysburg; the rest of us poked our closets and said, "hmm, what Victorian dresses do I have that I can make into fancy dress with minimal effort?" Which is entirely a period-correct approach, so. I wanted to get another wearing of the ivory and black striped natural form, and figured I could stick stars all over it and be Starry Night or something. Alice had the same idea with her natural form dinner dress, and I thought we made a fab counterpoint, with me in black and ivory and silver, and her in yellow and gold.
(Properly Victorian miserable, we were. In this picture anyway...)
Carolyn's house is gorgeous, the food was delicious (so much CHEESE OMG), and the company was lovely. We showed up around 5, and got back to the hotel a little after 10:30. A very satisfactory showing! And we very much puzzled two Lyft drivers. The one on the way back was taciturn, but the one on the ride out was chatty, and he asked us if we were connected to the people he'd dropped off on U Street wearing pajamas earlier. Ah...no?
Tintype Guy aka Dave was there, doing tintypes - he's taking his show on the road, so to speak, so this was a trial run for him. I don't know that he expected to have every slot filled, but costumers reaaaaaaaally like tintypes, so I think we made it worth his while! Not me, personally...I've never yet made a dress that I felt strongly enough to spend tintype money on (they aren't exorbitant, but they aren't, like, $5), but Robin wanted a tintype of us together. I hope she's happy with my epic derpface, I look like I have crossed eyes! Not the world's most flattering photograph...
.
Scandalous! Also those stripes do some really delightful things to one's waist...
The long-haired ladies took a tintype (of which I was not a part, as my hair Does Not Get That Long), which was especially neat. The tintype wasn't varnished before Taylor left, but I'm sure a copy of it will pop up sooner or later. They had a LOT of hair in that picture...
The gloriously picturesque snow made a lovely background for our party...but as it was supposed to be a little more than a dusting, and worse further south, we did lose some people earlier than we might have done otherwise.
For our part, we might have stayed a little bit longer the next day, but as it was supposed to continue to snow all day in the D.C. area, we decided to get out of Dodge sooner rather than later. Up here we ended up with a little bit more than a coating, but the roads were almost entirely dry. Not too often there's less snow as you go further north!
For my part, I couldn't resist asking for a few pictures in the snow before we went up and got changed back at the hotel! I adore snow (when I don't have to drive in it on unplowed and untreated roads), and I adore it even more in costume. Historical winter-wear is in my top three types of costume to make, really.
So. Incredibly. Fluffy. And. Ridiculous.
I'm of two minds with this coat...I was contemplating taking off this marabou (5" strung marabou) and replacing it with boa-type marabou. Thicker than your craft store crappy type, but narrower than this. This marabou sheds feather bits like nobody's business and stabs me with the occasional hard-feather-bit. Also it's ridiculous.
On the other hand...those feathers are really really warm!
Robin also is an enjoyer of snow, and has more appropriate footwear for it, too.
So we were on the road relatively early the next morning (at least, for the morning after a costume event!), and had an uneventful drive back to the Land of No Snow. One of the reasons I love carpooling to costume events, apart from the obvious practical considerations, is the post-event chatter on the drive home regarding future sewing and events. We never end up making half of what we plan, but the planning is more than half the fun! We're all inspired to go home and sew immediately!
Of course, for my part I came home and found the lure of reading and Boyfriend Snuggles were much stronger than sewing, but hey. ;)
The five Usual Suspects met up at
hiraimi 's house to carpool down to Carolyn's fabulous house in D.C. for a 12th Night fancy dress-themed party this past Saturday.blackcat452 is in possession of a vehicle large enough to take 5 costumers and their crap down to an event, and very kindly volunteered to do so. Which was very much appreciated, especially considering the valet parking fee *which was the only option for parking at the hotel)! Ahh, D.C.prices...Some of us decided to wear 1860s fancy dress that had been made for last Gettysburg; the rest of us poked our closets and said, "hmm, what Victorian dresses do I have that I can make into fancy dress with minimal effort?" Which is entirely a period-correct approach, so. I wanted to get another wearing of the ivory and black striped natural form, and figured I could stick stars all over it and be Starry Night or something. Alice had the same idea with her natural form dinner dress, and I thought we made a fab counterpoint, with me in black and ivory and silver, and her in yellow and gold.
(Properly Victorian miserable, we were. In this picture anyway...)
Carolyn's house is gorgeous, the food was delicious (so much CHEESE OMG), and the company was lovely. We showed up around 5, and got back to the hotel a little after 10:30. A very satisfactory showing! And we very much puzzled two Lyft drivers. The one on the way back was taciturn, but the one on the ride out was chatty, and he asked us if we were connected to the people he'd dropped off on U Street wearing pajamas earlier. Ah...no?
Tintype Guy aka Dave was there, doing tintypes - he's taking his show on the road, so to speak, so this was a trial run for him. I don't know that he expected to have every slot filled, but costumers reaaaaaaaally like tintypes, so I think we made it worth his while! Not me, personally...I've never yet made a dress that I felt strongly enough to spend tintype money on (they aren't exorbitant, but they aren't, like, $5), but Robin wanted a tintype of us together. I hope she's happy with my epic derpface, I look like I have crossed eyes! Not the world's most flattering photograph...
. Scandalous! Also those stripes do some really delightful things to one's waist...
The long-haired ladies took a tintype (of which I was not a part, as my hair Does Not Get That Long), which was especially neat. The tintype wasn't varnished before Taylor left, but I'm sure a copy of it will pop up sooner or later. They had a LOT of hair in that picture...
The gloriously picturesque snow made a lovely background for our party...but as it was supposed to be a little more than a dusting, and worse further south, we did lose some people earlier than we might have done otherwise.
For our part, we might have stayed a little bit longer the next day, but as it was supposed to continue to snow all day in the D.C. area, we decided to get out of Dodge sooner rather than later. Up here we ended up with a little bit more than a coating, but the roads were almost entirely dry. Not too often there's less snow as you go further north!
For my part, I couldn't resist asking for a few pictures in the snow before we went up and got changed back at the hotel! I adore snow (when I don't have to drive in it on unplowed and untreated roads), and I adore it even more in costume. Historical winter-wear is in my top three types of costume to make, really.
So. Incredibly. Fluffy. And. Ridiculous.
I'm of two minds with this coat...I was contemplating taking off this marabou (5" strung marabou) and replacing it with boa-type marabou. Thicker than your craft store crappy type, but narrower than this. This marabou sheds feather bits like nobody's business and stabs me with the occasional hard-feather-bit. Also it's ridiculous.
On the other hand...those feathers are really really warm!
Robin also is an enjoyer of snow, and has more appropriate footwear for it, too.
So we were on the road relatively early the next morning (at least, for the morning after a costume event!), and had an uneventful drive back to the Land of No Snow. One of the reasons I love carpooling to costume events, apart from the obvious practical considerations, is the post-event chatter on the drive home regarding future sewing and events. We never end up making half of what we plan, but the planning is more than half the fun! We're all inspired to go home and sew immediately!
Of course, for my part I came home and found the lure of reading and Boyfriend Snuggles were much stronger than sewing, but hey. ;)
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Date: 2019-01-15 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-16 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-15 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-16 01:03 am (UTC)I knooooow! I would LOVE to come! I don't know if it'll be possible, finances-wise, since that's pretty soon after our Gettysburg trip...but I asked her to keep me in the loop just in case it's possible. I'll see what I can do! :D
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Date: 2019-01-16 02:14 pm (UTC)Tin types always look so weird which is part of their charm.
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Date: 2019-01-21 02:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-18 01:02 am (UTC)Also love the snow photos. =)
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Date: 2019-01-21 02:56 am (UTC)Snow is such fun for costume pics!
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Date: 2019-01-18 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-21 02:59 am (UTC)