New York Society Tea 2014

Yesterday the Greater Bay Area Costumer's Guild hosted its not-quite-annual New York Society Tea at The Palace Hotel, San Francisco. This event is often also called the Bustle Tea, since the time frame is late Victorian. No fewer than two of my sewing buddies have birthdays between Christmas and New Years, and both of them wanted to be costumed for their birthdays. So we decided to make this year's tea a bit of a birthday party.

An afternoon spent with my gal pals, in costume, is always a blast, even more so after going nuts for weeks on end getting a new frock ready. More on that later.

But who wants to read me talking? Just enjoy the photos!

The two birthday girls, Ms. G and Sahrye.

Noelle and Mia.

Ms. D and Ms. H.

Total attendance was something near 50.

Mr. Hal and your friendly neighborhood blogger.

Birthday girl, Sahrye.

You may recognize Sahrye's dress as Mina Harker's dress from Bram Stoker's Dracula. Sahrye did an awesome version of the dress. She blogs over at It Came From the Stash! Head over there to read more about this fantastic dress.

 

I love Mia's dress above for how absolutely period it looks. Small wonder, here's the dress she used as a model:

Dress, 1879, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Ms. H provides our obligatory anachronistic moment.

Tea was followed by shenanigans in the bar.

Lastly, here's yours truly.

More chit-chat on this dress (and what is up with my hair) will come later. Right now I need to rescue my house from multiple weeks of frantic sewing.

Edwardian Parasol Workshop

What a fun day! Yesterday I taught a class for the Greater Bay Area Costumer's Guild, "Edwardian Parasol Recovering Workshop." I had eleven enthusiastic, talented, and creative students. No one finished, but just about everyone just had to do the final attaching-to-the-frame.

This was the first class I've ever taught for the GBACG (I've taught privately and at Costume College). I do wish everyone had been able to finish, and have some ideas for next time. Yes, there will be a next time, I had a ton of fun and would do it again!

Here's a photo recap of the day (scroll to the end to see some of the results!)

Umbrellas packed, student packets packed.

Parasols packed!

A handful of antiques from my collection. I brought them to
give a lecture on history and mechanics of parasols.

Some more antiques and two modern, recovered parasols.

AJ de-nuding her umbrella, with Tara and Leah.

Chris and Lynn stitching away.

Noelle, cutting deliciously striped silk.

Tara and Judith, who is deeply
contemplating her trims.

Lynn made her two smocking pleaters available for the
class (this one has been at my house for a few
weeks...I've had MUCH FUN with it).

We used them to gather up the rosettes.

And here are some of the results!!!

Judy's stripes.

Judy made her outside rosette extra long. Love it!

Anne's plaid.

Plaids just do GREAT on parasols.

Lynn's, with pinned on gimp
(there will also be FRINGE!)

Great deep dome.

Leah's cotton stripes. You can
run your stripes around, or up and down!

Manon's sea foam blue silk.

Tara's printed silk.

When we stepped outside, it positively
GLOWED.

I'll have follow-up posts for the two frames I prepared as demo's for this workshop, and then maybe I'll, like, stop talking about parasols for a little while. Maybe. ;)

Soiree of the Year, and Costume Preview...or Post-view...or...

Last night, the Greater Bay Area Customers Guild (GBACG, also on Facebook) hosted an "Evening at the Petit Trianon" at the Bellevue Club in Oakland, California. Visit our Flickr Pool for loads of photos (and keep visiting, photos will keep getting added). The costumes were fabulous. The venue was perfect. Accolades are inadequate. Of course, what makes GBACG events so much fun for me, is the company. The Guild is filled with great people.

Here is what I wore at the party: a French gown, or robe à la française, or sack/saque back gown (please don't call it a Watteau or I may smack you) c. 1750,  and some monumental hair.

This outfit has preoccupied me more-or-less-and-more since March. I'll blog it to pieces in the next few weeks to describe what you're looking at now, and will continue to blog about it as I *ahem* finish it.