At Her Leisure

A couple of weeks ago, the Houston Area Regency Society was invited to a private Beethoven piano concert. There were about a dozen attendees at an excellent house party that included a light meal, an hour concert, and cards until we had to break up. About half of the attendees were regular HARS members, and half were other guests of our host and pianist. It was a lot of fun and felt like it fit with novel descriptions of house parties except that we were not served our dinner, it was buffet-style. Compromises are required for modern life, right? Still, it was an excellent afternoon and evening.



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I was really pleased with how my hair came out.



I followed the setting instructions for one of the hairstyles in 18th Century Hair and Wig Styling (the Plume, I think). I didn't tease it, though, just used a rat and sort of half-combed the curls before pinning them over the rat. I was thrilled that it came out so well, even if my husband wanted me to promise him never to do that to my hair again! Apparently, he doesn't go for the 1780's aesthetic.

The concert got me thinking about things to do at private evening parties since we've had two this year. I think we need more music. Kaycee had a keyboard out at her party in January and offered to let nuranar and me play, but we didn't have enough notice to work anything up. My repertoire is heavily centered on the 1930's through 1950's so I would have to work something up. Now I need to figure out a way to do something like this, preferably by incorporating Ginger's vocal talents so I don't have to perform alone!

I finally bothered to get all dressed up and take pictures of my remade 1770's green-striped cotton robe a la anglaise. Everything new is hand-sewn. I didn't rip apart the sleeves or skirt so they are still machine-sewn.



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And since I was taking pictures anyway, here's the 1890's petticoat I made in the last couple of weeks. I think the pattern will do nicely for my 1897 Harper's Bazar dress, whenever I get around to it. I will probably take a couple of small tucks in the petticoat, though, to shorten it a bit.

I tore apart my 1770's green-striped dress that was poorly made and too long in the waist and started putting it back together again. Now I've got the bodice finished except for the shoulder pieces, which wait until the sleeves are in. I'm hoping to get the skirt pleated tonight. Then I could sew it down tomorrow and work on sleeves over the weekend. We'll see how it goes.

I've also started a 1930's bolero as my new knitting project. So far it looks like the given needle sizes are good, though I think I'll only be sure of that when I finish knitting the back and give it a light pressing. I've managed a lace pattern repeat each night since I started it, working while listening to the girls read.

I hope mine comes out looking like the pattern photo.