An Award First! Thank You!

September 10, 2012 ~ TheQuintessentialClothesPen ~ 4 Comments

I’m putting my last Gurriere post on hold for a few days, because…

Wow! It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was just starting this blog and spent a lot of time sifting through the mountains of fabulous blogs out there to look for inspiration in terms of sewing and good blogging. I kept running across side bar images like The Versatile Blogger, the Duchie Award, and the Liebster Blog and wondering if my blog would ever get to enjoy an entrance into that crowd of awesome blog-ery.

Well, today is the day! The very kind, ever supportive, beautifully dressed, wonderful Sabine of Kleidung um 1800 has nominated me for the The Versatile Blogger Award! Thank you, Sabine!!!

When your blog is nominated for this award you have to follow the rules:

1- Thank the person who nominated you and link back to that person’s blog.

2- Post the award on the sidebar of your blog.

3- Tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself.

4- Choose 15 other fabulous blogs and nominate them for the award.

7 things about me…

1- When I was in high school I took four years of German. Thus, while I really appreciate Sabine’s English translation on her blog (because I don’t have a big enough vocabulary to really understand all the sewing information in German), I also really enjoy seeing the German! Sometimes I can read things in German and understand them! And sometimes I just learn new words or remember things about grammar and construction that I haven’t thought of in years.

2- I may be an adult (most days) but I still have a childhood attachment to my family of Gund Snuffles bears. As you can see, I have a variety of sizes and colors.

3- I don’t have any live pets (I have my bears instead…).

4- I am in the group the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers, a group which recreates ballroom dances from the 19th and early 20th centuries (this is easy to pick up on my blog… since I post about our events often!).

5- I’ve been a modern competitive ballroom dancer with Mr. Q as my partner since 2005. We were members of the UMass Amherst Ballroom Dance Team from 2005-2008 and captains from 2007-2008 (hence the matching jackets…).

100_3923 — A picture from at least four years ago…

6- I really enjoy silly adventures and silly picture taking. Here’s an example from my everyday, non-costume life. (Yes, I do wear modern clothes!)

IMGP2792 — At the Frog Pond in the Boston Common. It was really cold that day! I was hoping the frog statue might turn into a prince!

7- I grew up in the suburbs of Seattle, Washington.

Graduation 087 — In the summer, this is what it looks like around sunset. This is Puget Sound. You can see the buildings of Seattle in front of Mount Rainer in the background. To the right is a ferry: an iconic Seattle image.

On to nominating other blogs!

Adventures of a Costumer: Three Graces Historical Clothing Blog: Lindsey has great research and photos of in progress and completed garments

Diary of a Mantua Maker: fascinating posts about shoe making and lots of other informative and interesting historic clothing things

Dressed in Time: Caroline makes lovely clothing from the 18th and 19th centuries and blogs about it with lots of pictures and research information

Experiments in Elegance: truly versatile blog posts from Antonia about historic clothing and research, events, and lots of other fun things

A Fashionable Frolick: lots of wonderful research and photos of clothing inside and out as well as events attended from two sisters: Rebecca and Ashley

Historically Dressed: Jenni has another versatile blog with lots of wonderful research and images of clothing in progress and completed

In The Long Run: Gloria has an information filled blog with lots of pictures of clothing in progress and completed as well as events attended, and other things

My Fanciful Muse: a versatile blog from Evelyn, who shares research on historic fashion plates, furniture, paper dolls, and occasionally other things, too

Plaid Petticoats: Raven shares information and research on sewing adventures, events attended, and other random things

Recreating the 19th Century Ballroom: Barbara shares such detailed historic information about dancing in the 19th century, it’s very cool

Regency Tea Party: it’s all about Regency, but still great fun, with lots of picture filled posts about clothing and events attended

The Secret Dreamworld of a Jane Austen Fan: a lot of lovely and picture filled posts from Aurora, generally about Regency clothing and events

15 is a large number. I’m stopping at 12.

1812 Guerriere Weekend Part III: Lounging at the Commandant’s House

September 8, 2012 ~ TheQuintessentialClothesPen ~ 4 Comments

Between our performances during the day on Saturday and the evening ball that night we had down time during which we wanted to escape the public eye and do a little modern relaxing. Lucky for us, the upper floor of the Commandant’s house was made available to us. The entire house is lovely, so I have pictures from various parts of the house, but the bulk of the pictures are from the upper floor.

In the front part of the main floor, an enclosed porch with lovely painted walls.

The opposite wall from the last picture. The large windows overlook the Boston Harbor.

We had a great view of reenactors and tourists from the windows. It was also a picturesque spot for photos.

Looking down on the stairs that led to the upper floor. I love this shot!

On the second floor the main hallway was nautically themed, as you can see by the change in carpet. There was also a continuation of the stairway which led up to another floor.

Unfortunately, that upper upper floor was not available to us and we couldn’t go much past this point.

IMG_3509 - Version 2 — The different rooms on the upper floor had nautical names: Topside, Leeward, Port, Windward, and Starboard.

There were also labeled servant bells all around. Unfortunately, the bells were not operational, but the bells still added a fun element of atmosphere.

The most exciting room for photographs upstairs was this one.

It had this lovely dressing table and mirror set with drawers and cabinets.

These sorts of things make excellent props for photos.

We all took turns trying out different angles and poses.

Across the hall was a library, from which we borrowed a book to use as a prop.

Doesn’t this just have that Jane Austen atmosphere?

And it helped that this particular chair was quite comfy!

Thinking of Mr. Darcy, perhaps? This settee was also in the same room.

These wonderfully Regency poses were so easy to think of in this space!

In another room (in my head it is “the Green Room”) were more comfortable photo options.

Our randomly chosen prop book: “The Works of Shakes-peare Volume VIII.” I am super amused when I say his hyphenated name aloud.

The exterior of the Commandant’s House, looking up from the side with the harbor on it.

Just one shot of the lovely hydrangeas that are planted all around the house.

The side of the house. See that big stone wall? That’s actually the original front of the house: the original front door is about 4 feet from the wall. And right on the other side of the wall is the modern 4 lane street. So you can see why the back of the house is now what seems to be the front of the house.

And there we are! We have lounged in the Commandant’s House! The last installment of pictures will be a post highlighting the new gown I whipped up!

1812 Guerriere Weekend Part II: The USS Constitution

September 5, 2012 ~ TheQuintessentialClothesPen ~ Leave a comment

In this second installment of the Guerriere weekend, we’ll look at pictures relating to the USS Constitution and the USS Constitution Museum. As I mentioned in my first post about the weekend, I sorted the pictures into loose categories to break them up for blog posting purposes. These pictures are all from Sunday, when the USS Constitution was tugged out of Boston harbor and sailed out in the Atlantic under her own power (this is one of the first times this has happened in about the last century! She is tugged and turned around every year or so, I think, but she doesn’t sail under her own power at those times.). From the Charlestown Navy Yard we could see the tugging, but unfortunately the open Atlantic was too far away for us to see her sailing under her own power. Despite that sad fact, it was still exciting to see her move!

Waiting for the Constitution to get under way. If you look really closely you can see her name poking out from behind our heads.

There she is, being tugged out of Boston Harbor.

We wanted to be on the opposite side of the wharf for the Constitution’s return, so a few of us ran around (it was maybe 1/4 of a mile)… Along the way was a deserted parking lot we could either go around, or through… Of course we went through, which involved climbing/jumping/falling over the metal barricades… You should know that going around would have been an extra 90 feet or so of walking (ie. not much)…

But we made it without injuries! Here is the Constitution being tug pushed back into alignment to return to her docking area. You can see the modern marines furling the sails, so clearly, she actually did use them.

The four adventurous ladies who surmounted barricades to get great Constitution shots.

As she slowly glided into place we took the opportunity to wave at the reenactors and modern marines aboard. Some of them even waved back!

See all the people on the deck? Some of them, with the not modern shaped hats are the reenactors. It’s really cool that they were able to sail on the Constitution!

On our way back to join our friends we had time to stop at this large anchor.

In the museum. The banner states the whole purpose of the weekend’s celebrations.

Upstairs at the museum is a hand’s on walk through being aboard the Constitution in 1812. At this point, you get to hoist Billy the Goat aboard for food stores (he’s stuffed and makes loud goat sounds as you hoist him!).

There were lots of paintings and informational signs to imitate.

Then there’s this great spot, where you can stand on a rigging rope and furl a sail. This rope is only about 6″ off the ground, but obviously the real sails are much higher up.

Yup. Here’s the real Constitution, with real modern marines in the rigging.

There are other interactive things as well. Here, I am scrubbing the deck!

In this room, you can climb into hammocks. The floor is super squishy, in case you fall out! The hammocks were actually pretty comfortable. And you see the guy in the corner? He’s another cardboard cut out.

Fun day! It’s so neat to be a part of interesting and exciting things like the sailing of the Constitution. The next post about the weekend is gong to be wonderfully picturesque photos of us Lounging in the Commandant’s House! Stay tuned!

1812 Guerriere Weekend Part I: Happenings

September 2, 2012 ~ TheQuintessentialClothesPen ~ 4 Comments

New month = new adventures! This one happened back in August (I did a lot of things that month, so you’ll be hearing about them for awhile) not too long after Newport Vintage Dance Week, the subject of the last… ahem… ten posts on this blog. Anyway, this was another fun filled dancing adventure with the same young people that attended Newport… but in a different period: Regency.

In August, the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers performed in and occupied the Commandant’s House at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston as part of the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the USS Constitution‘s defeat of the HMS Guerriere in the War of 1812. The Navy Yard was also host to multiple groups of War of 1812 military reenactors from both the American and British sides who did various exhibitions during the weekend in addition to just hanging around their camps looking stylish in their military uniforms.

I wound up with about 400 of my own pictures from the weekend, a number which I have slimmed down in order to share with you only the best of the bunch; however, it’s still more pictures than is reasonable for one post. Thus, I will be doing four posts about the weekend! I had to sort the pictures somehow, so I’ve created four different focuses for each of the posts. This first post I entitled “Happenings” because it is pictures of CVD members and reenactors doing things of various sorts (as opposed to the content of my next two posts: “The USS Constitution” and “Lounging in the Commandant’s House”). The final post will be about the all new hand sewn 1812 dress I whipped out in the week before the performance! I’ll have to come up with a fun title for that one…

You know us TNG-ers. We like pictures of us running around. In this picture, we’re running up the walk to the Commandant’s House, our hang out for the 1812 weekend.

Some CVD performers starting the weekend off with pictures!

A little bit of Wilson’s Waltz on Saturday.

It was pretty fabulous that on Saturday we had live music to dance to!

Between performances on Saturday we played Regency card games including Palace and… (oh no, my mind is blanking! Someone help me remember the name of that C game! It wasn’t Convergence… or Chance… Eep!)

Getting to know a few of the British soldiers while we were preparing for lunch in the dining room.

Lunch was a Regency food potluck affair. It looked pretty appetizing and picturesque.

I enjoyed looking out of the windows and exclaiming “Look! Dudes are doing drills!”

In the afternoon we played Blind Man’s Bluff, which is super fun and works really well on a wooden floor.

It’s quite possible that running around and playing this game was more tiring than dancing.

The way the game works is that the blindfolded person has to try and catch someone else and then correctly guess who it is. The trouble is that all the un-blindfolded people can either be really quiet or make lots of noise to confuse the blindfolded person.

More CVD: this time inside the house in one of the rooms we danced in.

I think almost everyone had made new clothes for this performance, since Regency isn’t a period CVD usually performs.

There was also an unoccupied guard hut in front of the Commandant’s House that begged for pictures.

How many people do you think will fit inside?

On Saturday evening there was a ball for the reenactors. Sadly, not many of them attended, and even fewer stuck it out until the end of the night. However, the small number of people made for a cosy atmosphere.

On Sunday afternoon we had a picnic out on the lawn of the Commandant’s House.

We also went down to the dock to see the Constitution. The reenactors were also there. Here are the Americans.

And here are the British. Isn’t the Boston skyline in the background an interesting contrast to the bayonets?

The British soldiers were posing for pictures for the tourists. We took the opportunity to join them, with many cheers from the crowd.

There was also this little mini-cannon. Not sure what it was for.

This hat beat them all! I love these fur hats! It’s like the guards at Buckingham Palace.

The British soldiers certainly made more appearances on my camera. Here they are heading off to create new adventures.

And that is the end of Part I: Happenings.

Newport Vintage Dance Week Part X: Newport in the New York Times

August 31, 2012 ~ TheQuintessentialClothesPen ~ 2 Comments

Newport Vintage Dance Week 2012 made it into the New York Times! There were two spreads of Bill Cunningham’s photos. How fabulous is that?

Wow! There was also a video (really a slide show) of images with Bill Cunningham speaking in the background about the week. You can view the video here on the New York Times website. Even just his voice gives you a feeling for Bill Cunningham’s wonderful attention to all of the attendees at Newport. Here are just a few pictures of him taking photos of us. If you’ve been reading my previous blog posts about Newport you will have seen these before…

Thanks Bill Cunningham! This marks the end of the marathon of awesome-ness that was Newport. Don’t worry, though, there are plenty of other awesome adventures coming soon and in the far future! Thanks for sharing with me!

I also want to mention, as a final note to this post, that this is my 100th post on this blog! Time flies when you’re having fun! Here’s to another 100 posts!

Newport Vintage Dance Week Part IX: You Thought The Week Was Over?

August 29, 2012 ~ TheQuintessentialClothesPen ~ Leave a comment

I thought so, too! I was all prepared to go to sleep on Friday night… but instead I wound up staying up until about 6am! What was I doing all night, you ask? Just hanging out and enjoying the company of my fellow TNG-ers. We spent a lot of time putting on as much bling as we could find: it was kind of like the game from my childhood “Pretty Pretty Princess.” Did you ever play that game? Basically, you have to collect certain pieces of plastic jewelry to win… We were using our many stashes of sparkly historic bling instead of plastic jewelry.

You can see the state our common room was in by this point in the week after all the sewing. Only three of us made it to 6am, when we went outside to see the sunrise… and realized it was so foggy that the whole sky looked like the window in this picture. Clearly, this was not one of the people who was still awake for that adventure…

When it was all said and done we had thousands of pictures and so many really fabulous memories and new friends. Whee! I’m so pleased to have shared the silly-ness with you. I’ve got only one more post to do about Newport…

Newport Vintage Dance Week Part VIII: 1890s Soiree at Roger Williams Park Casino

August 27, 2012August 27, 2012 ~ TheQuintessentialClothesPen ~ Leave a comment

Wow! I am so pleased that you are still here with me to share my copious yet fabulous memories from Newport Vintage Dance Week. The end is near, but not here yet… These pictures are from the last formal event Newport Vintage Dance Week will ever host: the 1890s Soiree at the Roger Williams Park Casino.

Built in 1896, the Casino at Roger Williams Park features a brick exterior and verandas…[in the] Colonial Revival architectural style of the late nineteenth century. The interior walls of the first floor are constructed of hand-finished wood panels, the original maple floors are intact, and details such as beveled mirrors and an emerald green tiled fireplace lend a formal and elegant air to the surroundings. Upstairs, the…grand [ball]room, with it’s birch floors, is painted in warm, rosy tones to evoke a sense of well being, a priority during the “Gay Nineties”. Plaster friezes and frescoes of cherubs and musical instruments adorn the 20-foot ceilings.

We arrived after sunset, due to a lot of last minute sewing, thus I didn’t manage to get pictures of the exterior of the building, but here is one courtesy of one of the catering companies that often does events at the venue (found via google).

rogerwilliamscasino1 — The exterior of the Casino.

Now, before we proceed any further, I think we must ponder the definition of the word “casino.” To our modern minds, the word evokes a house of gambling, but that is not the appropriate definition for this particular venue. Here is Merriam-Webster’s first definition of the word: 1-a building or room used for social amusements; specifically: one used for gambling. Clearly, we were going out for social amusements! An example of the word in use (and related to our ball!): “on summer evenings dance bands would perform in the seaside casino.” So fitting!

This is Friday afternoon. The ball was Friday evening…

Getting ready to go wound up taking awhile because this decade needed lots of hair teasing and fussing from all of us to compliment the tiaras and bling!

Three all new dresses that were finished the evening of the ball!

Luckily, everyone made it to the ball wearing clothes!

405299_4340296187706_1760252607_n — I made an all new 1893 silk ball gown for this event. I received many lovely compliments, including some that expressed the feeling that I had achieved both the silhouette of the period as well as the overall style and that I really looked as though I had stepped out of the past. Yay! Goal successfully reached!

Another TNG picture. The bling was borrowed amongst all of us so everyone had sufficient sparkle.

Such a great ensemble! Adorable dress, fabulous feathers, and really awesome shoes!

A little blurry, but aren’t all the penguin-look-alikes fabulous?

Dancers at the ball. This is the upstairs ballroom.

A figured dance, I believe. Isn’t the atmosphere amazing?

432162_4339277962251_273494763_n — Directing traffic around a tight turn in the Grand March. This particular Grand March went up and down stairs multiple times!

The Cake Walk. It’s a silly dance that where you prance and posture around the room, or, if you are in TNG, you might participate in the “Zombie Cake Walk.”

Some TNG-ers dancing in the downstairs ballroom.

The ballroom grew quite warm, but we discovered air vents in the floor!

Then we had people stand on them but didn’t tell them ahead of time about the nice, cool air… (insert sneaky laugh)

Preparing to leave. It was a long, fabulous week.

Final tally: 20 pictures out of 468 from this event.

Newport Vintage Dance Week Part VII: Glen Manor Continued

August 25, 2012 ~ TheQuintessentialClothesPen ~ Leave a comment

At the very end of my first post about the Ragtime evening event at Glen Manor, I had just shared with you our series of pictures of the “young set” spelling out our most recent acronym: TNG. You’ll have to read the captions in the pictures of the that post to see what it stands for, because this post is moving on to pictures of the Ragtime ball. Before I start on pictures, I just have to share that this ball had the most fantastic food catered for our dinner. I don’t know what company catered it, unfortunately, but it was spectacular and delicious! We all ate generous first and second helpings and were super full… but it was SO good!

The light was fading as we returned from our adventures down by the water and on the dock… This is the back side of Glen Manor with the lights on in the downstairs rooms and the twilight sky behind.

The orchestra for the night. I believe this is the New River Orchestra.

IMG_1627 (2) — The doors were thrown wide open to the patio and gardens, which allowed for picturesque viewing of the dancers.

IMG_1635 (2) — This was one of the venues in which the dancers progressed through a series of small-ish rooms.

It was fun to look in and watch people dance. Because they were traveling through different rooms there were always new people to watch.

There were lots of really beautiful gowns to admire.

The interior of one of the beautiful rooms.

The fabulous red carpeted staircase. Not quite as grand as Rosecliff or Ochre Court, but still beautiful.

Most members of TNG lounging on the stairs.

One of our faithful cameramen caught lounging without a camera in hand!

None of the young set danced very much, but there were a few times we stood up and danced. This is one of them.

And another, blurry, picture of members of the young set actually dancing.

Photographic proof the Scott the Portsmouth Policeman danced (and with one of our own young set–as well as many other dancers).

On the left is Scott the Policeman. Elsewhere are other wonderfully dressed dancers.

We may not look like we’re dancing, but we had just finished a tango. One of the few times the young set danced.

And we basically had the room to ourselves, which meant we could be super silly!

A silly Charleston figure called something like “shine your shoes.”

The traditional TNG “raise the roof” Charleston! (It’s like patting your head and rubbing your stomach… to Charleston while raising the roof! You should try it!)

Follow the leader. Now everyone is doing the “raise the roof” Charleston!

Double trouble! We caught one of our TNG faithful photographers and Bill Cunningham in the same picture!

I believe at least some of us are doing the “flying Charleston” in this picture.

We’re all laughing and smiling! Doesn’t it look like a wonderful time? Don’t you just want to jump in the photo and join us?

The fearless leader of TNG and the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers. What a fabulous fan! Doesn’t it just scream for sillyness?

Well, here you go! Sillyness! (Can you tell that it’s her tail? Like a peacock?)

Okay, I’m not actually asleep… but the stairs were a pretty comfy place to relax… Clearly, it is nearing bed time.

“Follow the moon path!” I said, knowing you can’t actually follow the moon path over the water. It’s a good metaphor for life though, to follow your dreams.

Last view of Glen Manor that night, with the lights on and the rising moon. So lovely!

Final tally: 72 pictures between 2 posts out of a total of 1,266 pictures total for this event. Not bad, I say.

Newport Vintage Dance Week Part VI: Ragtime Dinner and Ball at Glen Manor

August 23, 2012 ~ TheQuintessentialClothesPen ~ 2 Comments

The next formal event at Newport was a Ragtime Dinner Reception and Formal Ball held at Glen Manor House in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Glen Manor was designed by renowned architect John Russell Pope to resemble the Petit Trianon at Versailles. Construction began in 1921 and the house was completed in 1923.

It is truly lovely inside and out, as you will soon see in the photos! I have 1,266 pictures from that evening… and even though I’ve slimmed down the number I’m going to share with you I’m going to have to break the evening up into two posts. The first part will be before the ball and the second part during and after the ball.

One of the ladies’ changing rooms just off of the entrance hallway.

Once I passed through the rooms, this was the view that greeted me.

The magnificent garden was also behind the main house.

Before dinner we took some group photos. While standing in the group I took the opportunity to snap a shot of Bill Cunningham taking photos of us! We were a little afraid for his safety on the ladder, so you can see people keeping careful watch.

This is Scott, from the Portsmouth Police. He has worked this particular event in years past and really loved it; indeed, he jiggled his work schedule around to join us again this year. He was so excited by the historic clothing that he had purchased a historic uniform to wear just for the event!

After the group photo the four of us and our faithful photographers set out to be silly and take beautiful pictures.

One of our faithful photographers caught Bill Cunningham (another of our faithful photographers) taking photos of us! It was really magical to have Bill Cunningham hurrying to catch our pictures! At one point he said he would “stop bothering us for five minutes” and then five minutes later he was back again, saying “I couldn’t resist, it’s been five minutes!”

The picture Bill Cunningham was trying to capture included frantic waving of the arms…

Running around is a returning theme for us. This time we were just enjoying the beauty and being silly.

Striking theatrical poses under the trees…

There were so many lovely flowers in the garden! We found some to match each of our dresses!

Flowers to match the burgundy in my dress.

Looking the other way. I think I like the first one better, but this is lovely as well.

Those hibiscus flowers were huge! And they matched so well!

There was also this lovely hydrangea bush that looked so droopy we just had to imitate it.

One more panorama of the garden, because it is just so lovely!

After being in the gardens awhile we began to be drawn toward the water…

But decided to turn and take another picture before heading down the hill.

At water’s edge. Literally, the water was lapping at the rocks just a few feet away.

Looking to our left, we noticed that enticing dock…

So naturally we had to go and investigate!

Diving in! With a red moon rising beyond the water.

The sun was obviously setting as the moon was rising. We stood on the end of the dock, thinking of the Great Gatsby, pointing across the water at the moon, and talking of West Egg and the green light.

Looking off into the distance and enjoying the twilight.

The sash on the left was another of my last minute creations.

There was a breeze and we just had to soak in the atmosphere. So magical!

Don’t you just want to jump into the picture and join us?

By this point in the week the “young set” had taken on the name TNG “The Next Generation” (of the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers). We’re trying to spell TNG, but the N is hard to see and the G is a little like a blob…

So we tried again with all caps. Can you see it?

32715_f520 — The new name sparked many bouts of Star Trek references… I hope that you see the connection!

I leave you for now, in a magical twilight world with TNG.

Newport Vintage Dance Week Part V: Ochre Court Continued

August 21, 2012 ~ TheQuintessentialClothesPen ~ Leave a comment

So ends the first ever Speed Virginia Reel.

Last post, I left you just at the completion of our young set’s Speed Virginia Reel. This post is going to be a continuation of Ochre Court pictures, because there were too many I wanted to share for just one post. At the end of the ball we decided to get some young people pictures on the fabulous red carpeted stair case in the entry way, so that is where we begin Ochre Court pictures: part II.

Congregating on the stairs. If you look closely, you can see the flower clump casualty on my dress.

Of course, we’re all very tired after our exertions…

But that doesn’t stop us from taking animal pictures!

Bill Cunningham caught us taking photos on the stairs and was very excited. BUT… We caught Bill Cunningham taking pictures of us on the stairs!

304769_475849342426292_533868699_n — Halfway up the stairs, pretending to jump!

Another view. It was particularly amusing to us because we were tired and the floor below the stairs is marble, so obviously one would not actually want to jump over the railing…

Okay, now we’re trying to be serious and look like we’re having casual conversations.

And now we’re being elegant. Look! Bill Cunningham!

Descending the stairs with camera flashes going off as though I was a celebrity!

But I’m not… I’m just me, missing a flower clump… backed by young men in tails…

This was the skirt puddle pose which followed the traditional jellyfish dance… (aka all of us jumping up and down in a clump and moving through the rooms before suddenly plopping and letting our skirts billow around us).

While being a jellyfish I lost a second clump of flowers! I didn’t think I had sewn them on so loosely!

So sad. You know it’s a good ball when your dress suffers injuries not once, but twice!

Oh my! Tartan drawers to match the tartan dress!

I was so happy to just BE in Ochre Court. Do you get that feeling from this picture? I’m just soaking it all in.

Exuberant might be a better word for me.

Posing by the fireplace in the white room. Isn’t it lovely?

The necessary bum picture, particularly amusing when wearing hoops.

One last glimpse of the back lawn before we pack up to leave.

I LOVE Ochre Court. I just wanted to drink it in as much as I possibly could.

That was a long one! But you made it! Thanks for sticking with me through all those photos. I sincerely hope that you were able to get a feeling of excitement and unrestrained happiness from the pictures that matched even half of my feelings from that night. It was truly spectacular. Thanks to all my lovely friends for assisting me in having such a marvelous time.

Final tally: 66 pictures from this event between two posts out of 1047 possible Ochre Court pictures… Honestly, I don’t think I did too terribly narrowing them down, considering the possibilities!