A Dedicated Follower of Fashion

...since Tom woke me up at 3am coughing (guess he's got another plague). I very rarely have trouble getting back to sleep when awoken at ass'o'clock, but apparently this morning my brain was like NOPE WE'RE AWAKE NOW YAY GOOD MORNING!

D:

I laid in bed for about 45 minutes and then decided, this is stupid, may as well get up and do something. Tom had gone downstairs to sleep on the couch so as not to wake me up (ha ha) and I didn't want to wake him up, so was restricted to whatever was in the sewing room (cross stitch was downstairs or I'd have done that...we have VERY creaky stairs), quiet, and easily available.

Which meant I got a nice lot of sewing done on the green silk 18-teens undergown that I put aside a couple of weeks ago! Nothing like fitting a back closing bodice on yourself at 4:15 am. Lots of wriggling.

Just have to do the hem now, which I'll probably knock out this evening so as to feel very accomplished. Technically it's only about 85% done, as it doesn't have sleeves yet...but I'm not 100% sure what I want to do with the sleeves on the overgown so I'm not going to make the base sleeves til I figure that out. Probably a small short-sleeve puff to support whatever the overgown sleeve is, but it's possible I might not want a sleeve on the undergown at all, so may as well wait on that!

Well, um...*points to title of post* That's really about it. I had a good time down the shore at Ocean Grove with my family; no one got on anyone's nerves too badly (very likely because my stepfather wasn't present, as he had to work this week...shame...and the woman who owns the house we stayed in gave us a discount on our rooms, because she's in the middle of getting a divorce, is pissed off at men, and so anybody who comes down for an all-girls trip gets a discount. Hee). One of my favorite parts was going to this pinball museum in Asbury Park - you got to play for an hour on a hundred of the top American pinball machines ever made, and I'd never seen a pinball machine in person before, let alone played on one (...except for the pinball game on the computer...that's a giveaway to my generation! durn kids). Kind of awesome. My wonderful sister got a picture of me playing and looking like a complete idiot...

The beach itself was very nice; we only swam one day, but I'm perfectly fine with that, as I'm not that much of a beach person. Poking around antique shops in Ocean Grove and Asbury Park and spending *mumble* dollars on things I didn't need in the least which I probably could have found in the thrift store at home for far less money is more my speed.

At any rate, now I'm back, and I've sewed! Yay me. And I have tonight and tomorrow, then I move back up to school. Buuut...let's not think about my rapidly diminishing free time now.

I finished the 1947 Butterick Retro dress. I used the navy and white striped cotton I've been hoarding for years for a 1780s gown - because diminishing the Stash in any way possible is a Good ThingTM, and I have fabric for so many projects I'm probably never going to get around to, it's a bit stupid to hang on to it if I can use it for something else now.
 

I like it, but...I'm a little afraid it makes me look dumpy. Blaaah. I think heels and actually giving a damn about how I look might help. I hope so, anyway!

Also-also, Mozilla updated itself, and in the process ate all my bookmarked sites. Am annoyed. Thanks, Firefox. You suck.

Williamsburg was good times. Saturday morning, getting up at 4.30 in the morning to leave was slightly less enjoyable times. :P And the traffic on 95, once we actually got to VA, was wicked. When we got there (eight hours later), finally, we went to Busch Gardens. For some reason, I don't actually recall much of anything we did there, outside of buying an overpriced pretzel and waiting in line for a really long time in line for a certain ride, only for them to shut it down, literally, two people ahead of us. Grr.  When we finally got to our hotel, in the parking lot, the creepiest guy knocked on the driver's side window, scaring the crap out of my friend Kat, who was driving. Speaking very slowly, he said, " Your left headlight is out. Do...you...understand...? Your...left...headlight...is...out." Um, hi, Mr. Creepy Dude, we...all...understand...English...perfectly... Dinner that night was a bit late (10.30? Is that late?), and our waiter at Uno's was a guy with a French accent, who we all liked enormously, and consequently tipped well. (For the broke college students we all are, I must admit, that is a rare enough occurrence.) Pumping gas for ourselves was pretty funny; happily, one person in our van actually knew how to do it. We all stood round and oohed and aahed at the marvel that was pumping one's own gas.

Sunday was Water Country, USA. Being the very white person I am (I got teased for carrying the sunscreen everywhere by everybody...but then they used it as well), unlike most of the people I was on the trip with, I applied sunscreen fairly religiously and only got a teensy bit burned on the tops of my shoulders. Was kinda amazed by that, as we were there from 11.30 to 7, when it closed.I hadn't been to a water park in quite a while, I forgot how much fun they are! Foregoing any food that has any nutritional value whatsoever for money conservation, we ate at Taco Bell that night.

Then we went back to the hotel, hung out, watched television, and generally misbehaved in the way college kids in another state on vacation are wont to do. (I'm quite sure that my and Kat's extensive conversation about towels will be remembered for a while..."Dude, that towel's really bright orange." "Wow, dude, it so is. Seriously." "It's...it's just so bright." "I know...wait, do you mean the second or third towel?" "Oh, wow, I didn't even notice that first towel...cos it's white, you know, it's like it doesn't even count. Exist, even." "Yeah, well, exactly, cos if you were talking about your towel, not my towel...well, not my towel, it's actually my sister's towel, I just borrowed it..." "Yeah, but by nature of your having it here, it's more your towel than my towel is your towel." "Yeah...dude, we understand each other's mindset. This is fantastic...")

Sunday was Colonial Williamsburg, and dragging our butts out of bed in time to go get our hotel-provided breakfast (no motivation like free food), and check-out at 11. Of course, we had the misfortune to pick the hottest day of our vacation to go there. So all we really did was walk round a bit, buy lots of cold drinks, start whining about how hot it was, watching a show or two, then deciding that we'd leave around 4. I, though, insisted upon going to a store to buy hatpins. Well...didn't come out with hatpins, but a considerably-more-expensive-than-hatpins book; What Clothes Reveal by Linda Baumgarten. I was eyeballing those black felt hat blanks...then my eye fell upon That Book. And, well, I had to have it. It was fearfully expensive (well, it is  a very nice hardcover, and I just checked Amazon, and I only paid $2 more in Williamsburg than I would have on Amazon...and that would cost more with shipping, so HAH, I win!), but adding to one's costume book library is never a bad thing! 'Specially when it's the 18th century... :)

Then we drove home, and it was less than eight hours, because all the traffic was still on the other side of 95. And I came home, unpacked while listening to Beatles music (I've been deprived of Truly Good Music for three days; my friends in control of the radio and ipod have a tendency to listen to what another of my friends [not me, I swear!] called Whiny Black People Music), slept for almost twelve hours, and have lazed about all day. Tomorrow I'll get back to sewing, for the few days I have left, but today is Recovery Day!

And I've decided to waffle some more about the 17th century gown. I wouldn't be able to start it until the New Year anyway, so I'll just postpone a real decision until then! (And until I start seeing all the gorgeous 17th century gowns on my f-list and get really jealous!)