At Her Leisure

The trip for the DFWCG's Georgian Picnic was so much fun. Getting dressed at jenthompson's house was fun - it's always better getting ready together. Then we went over to the picnic. The pavilion turned out to be available, and nuranar and I found a place in the sun but not out of the breeze. It's a rare thing that I'm looking for a sunny spot, but with the blustery day, sun was definitely desirable. From that point for all practical purposes, either I monopolized her, she monopolized me, or we mutually monopolized each other. However it may have been, there was a lot of laughter.



I didn't take any pictures, but Jen and Kaycee were both there and have kindly shared their pictures so any pictures linked here were taken by one or the other of them. Their pictures far outshine anything I could possibly have taken. They got some good pictures of my new-ish dress.







I did mention there was lots of laughter, didn't I?

I wore my 1780's dress that I started right before last year's picnic and didn't quite finish in time. So I had long sleeves and a wool dress. It was tropical-weight wool, though, so it will be quite comfortable if I get a more temperate opportunity to wear it. I was pretty chilly, but I had all the layers so it wasn't awful. The gusts were a bit of a trial, though. My old cap ended up looking very nice with the way I did my hair so I wasn't unhappy about not having made the new one in the end. My apron turned out to be a very nice color with my gown

There were a couple of lovely chemise dresses.



Jen's gray silk gown and tambour (or tambour-look) fichu and apron were lovely. I want her fichu. And her apron.



Ginger doesn't have to worry about me taking her polonaise since it would look awful on me, but she had probably better keep an eye on it because it's as beautiful as I expected it to be. Her wig was fabulous too.



I'm a sucker for green and white stripes so I loved Susanna's dress. I like tucks too.



There was lots of other good stuff - like Megan's tete de mouton hair and Beth's cross-stitched pinball that they posted about. And Jen wore her pinball. And I wore mine. Hmmm. Pinballs may have been a bit over-represented, but they're so cool, how could we possibly complain? And we met a girl from Houston who is interested in joining us for shenanigans so that's welcome news.

We then retired to La Madeleine, arriving about 4:30. We left a little after 8:30. Oops. But it was great talking to everyone at length and at leisure and drinking tea. I kind of wished I had brought my knitting in from the car because after a couple of hours I started to get bit fidgety and wanted something to do with my hands. It was in the car, though, so I wound up playing with my cup. Knitting would have been better, but it might have seemed rude so maybe it's just as well.

Then we went back to Jen's house and wound up talking until after midnight. It was a good night of conversation. Then we had to get up and out Sunday morning because Kaycee had to pick up the dogs she's adopting by 3:30 so we needed to get a fairly early start.

I managed to get everything I brought for specific people distributed to them and rather surprisingly came home with a couple of new books from Jen - The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower and two non-Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout. And I sold my old muff. Beth says she's going to make cross-stitch garters so I can't wait to see them. The picture on the MFA is clearer now than when I patterned them so maybe she'll be able to do the figure above the lettering that I couldn't make out before but is now clear as day.

The downside of the whole thing is that I've talked more in the last thirty-six hours than I think I've talked in the last three weeks. My throat is tired of talking. Still the fun and the laughter were definitely worth it.

Here is my year in review. I'll put it behind a cut, but first here's a picture of my favorite dress ever.



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The Georgian picnic was great, more because of the people than the activity. It was certainly chilly, but several years in Virginia stood me in good stead - I had the cold weather gear. It was funny to realize after the fact that there were two groups: those who kept warm with period garb and those who used long underwear or similar modern fixes. It never even occurred to me to wear anything that wasn't period...except that there was a time when I was considering an 1860's petticoat to prevent shadowing through the wool dress I was trying to make in time. It's funny how different people's minds work. Still, I was warm enough until the wind changed near the end of our time there at which point the retreat to La Madeleine was welcome.

Once again, I took my camera and had the best of intentions, but I never managed to take it out of my basket. I didn't even put it in my pocket. I'm such a lousy photographer. Anyway, if you want to see pictures, jenthompson posted several and wrote nicely about the picnic.

Oh, and I didn't finish the 1780's wool round gown I attempted. At bedtime Friday night I still had to pleat and sew the skirt to the bodice, and I was not going to stay up late sewing when I had at least four things I could have worn, all of which I like. I chose the piemontaise since they were no longer predicting a 30% chance of rain.