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~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Tag Archives: Dress U 2013

The Report: Sorry, No Pictures.

03 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by kittycalash in Events

≈ Comments Off on The Report: Sorry, No Pictures.

Tags

classes, Dress U 2013, Events, questioning my sanity, Travel

We came, we saw, we sewed. Next year, if we go, I would teach (lead?) one class only. It was just too busy to enjoy other classes and prep for my own, so it’s a rational decision.

 It was fun to see the same people again, to meet friends made a year ago. And it was really fun to see costumes and costumers. It’s a different world. And while I’m not saying that re-enactors don’t have fun, or a sense of humor, one finds that the sense of humor is a little…different…and that sometimes, a weekend of all women is a fine thing to have. In two weeks, I will be part of a weekend of mostly men, and I will look back at the air-conditioned hotel nights and hot showers with real longing. (Having just realized that I am about to spend two hot sweaty nights camping and then drive home to New England from New Jersey with a load of stinking kit in the car, I am seriously questioning my sanity. But, onward, to Happy Father’s Day in the miasma of New Jersey.)

So. The conference was smaller this year, but still busy. We skipped the crepes (prep!) and the tea, as my friend cannot eat wheat, and that was OK. I made significant progress on some required overalls, and that was amazing. (PDF files of the classes I taught are on the Dress U Handouts page above.)

On Saturday, my mother took us to dinner at a Thai restaurant in Haverford, which was delicious, and such good company! Ever evangelistic about her hobby, my mother gave us both plants to take home.

Before dinner, we had tried to go swimming in the hotel’s silly pool (it is a curious shape). The pool was nearly at its capacity by volume of guest with an exuberant extended family playing hotel pool volleyball with three inflatable beach balls. After my friend was hit on the head the third time and glared at, we decided to leave.

Glaring and staring continued on Sunday when the Golf Guys arrived. We rode the elevator down with a possible father-and-son duo after dropping off the iPad and projector so we could get some dinner before we donned tiaras. Golf Guy the Younger stared hard: that was the filthiest look I’ve gotten in a long time, and I have a sarcastic teenager at home. He seemed offended by my green silk bonnet (I know, I used almost slub-less dupioni and not taffeta for my Anne Carrowle bonnet) and the notion that I was hoping to get it rained on. Golf Guy the Younger stormed out of the elevator ahead of us, while Golf Guy the Elder held the door, smiled, and said, “After you.” He was the original owner of the thick white leather belt that held up his mint condition mint-blue polyester trousers, possibly purchased with the leather belt. The meatiness of the leather belt reminded me of the thickness of the bayonet belts worn by the Second Helping Regiment, belts which are probably of an age with Golf Guy the Elder’s belt.

Golf Guy the Younger found costumed women so horrifying that he would not even take the door we held for him, though GGtheE attempted to speed up to catch the door. At the Outback Steakhouse (ugh, but handy and with a gluten-free menu and cold beer), more staring happened. It was full of tables of Golf Guys, as weird as the day we drove home from Philly when there was an Eagles-Giants game at the Meadowlands and were surrounded on all sides by cars full of men. Not until we saw men with painted faces did I realize we were headed for a football game, and up on the skyway part of the NJTP, small sedans crammed with large men with blue faces were a sight to behold. We weren’t re-enactors then, but if we had been, I would have put on every uniform hat in our car.

So we had the usual conference mix of meeting people, learning things, and shocking the locals, interspersed with a trip to the Exton Mall for a power cord lost from the projector case by an errant colleague and a couple of tiaras. We were sparkly this year, but had to announce that we had stolen our mistress’s jewels, as the excuse for wearing paste with peasant clothes.

Next year, CSA is in Baltimore at the same time…time to look into train tickets. But now, packing and loading the car for a drive back in the rain. And just like last year, we’ll take 287 instead of 95. 

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Traveling

31 Friday May 2013

Posted by kittycalash in Events

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Dress U 2013

Phaetona, or modern female taste. LWDL 776.11.06.01+

Phaetona, or modern female taste. LWDL 776.11.06.01+

Traveling today to Dress U in Malvern, PA. No I don’t know what possessed me to volunteer to teach two classes. Heaven knows I have work enough to do at home sewing buttonholes and fringing frocks, but off we go, my friend and I, instead.

And to think how close we’ll be to… the Brandywine River Museum and the Chester County Historical Society, not to mention Brandywine Battlefield and Valley Forge. Winterthur is just too far with our schedule. I might get one of these in this trip…

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Happy Anniversary

06 Monday May 2013

Posted by kittycalash in Events, Making Things, Thanks

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

anniversary, Costume, Dress U 2013

The studious fair, Lewis Walpole Digital Library. 767.00.00.12+

The studious fair, Lewis Walpole Digital Library. 767.00.00.12+

WordPress was kind enough to point out that I’ve been blogging here for a year. Thanks, WordPress. Almost 200 posts later, what do I think? More to the point, what do you think? You can tell me in the comments.

Here’s what I think:

Pretty dresses are showing up on costume blogs as people get ready for Dress U, and I feel so very not shiny.  I feel the way I felt when my mother made a pretty blue and white and pink roller print robe à la Française for a classmate to wear as Mrs. Washington or Mrs. Jefferson in the 5th grade play in which I played Sam Adams.

And I look back at what I’ve written, and I realize that I’m never going to have that pretty dress until I figure out who is wearing that dress, and why. It’s about the research, about the narrative, about the documentation. It’s a curse, but it keeps me writing.

That, and some desire to be as busy as I can manage to be. Even with classes to prep for Dress U in four weeks, two men to outfit for Monmouth in six weeks, I still signed up for a weekly Wednesday night writing workshop this month.

What can I say? Life is good. Thanks for reading. Here’s to staying interesting for another year.

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