Merry Christmas

I hope you all had a lovely and blessed holiday. This year we had a low key 18th Century Christmas with the Cartwrights. It was very nice and quiet. I also had a chance to use some of the lovely dishes I inherited from my late grandparents. I am so happy that these pieces have new life.

 

We started the morning by giving the chicken babies their stocking. Yes, all of my pets got stockings and they LOVED the contents.

The house with the stockings for Max, Leila, and Gico. I was thrilled to find stockings that had their initials on them!

Sir Thomas built a lovely roaring fire for the occasion.

The spread.

The 18th Century Cake

And the most important part, the guests, with two sweet doggies that actually sat still for us to take a picture.

God Bless!

Love Lauren

The Crazy Bird Lady…

Yup that’s me, and apparently the birds know it too. Monday morning I went out to our yard to let my chickens out of their fortified run when I found this….

Yup, that’s a chicken, and she’s not mine. Notice the green ball? Yeah, my dog Leila shares her ball when she accepts a new member into the pack. She immediately gave the chicken her favorite toy as a “Hi will you be my friend,” gesture.  I have really sweet animals.

Anyway, after a long and crazy day, I learned that she had been hanging out in my neighbor’s yard and they assumed she belonged to me. So, they put her in my back yard. I have a sneaking suspicion that she has been in my yard before. I have been finding chicken poop in places my girls do not have access too. I have also noticed the treats that I give my girls have been pushed thru the chicken wire to the other side. So, I suspect they have been feeding her thru the wire. Also, they all acted as though they knew each other. Anyway, she looked as though she had been on the lam for a while.

I emailed Out to Pasture, the same rescue that took in Muppet, and they happily took her for me. I wished I could have kept her, but I don’t have a place for quarantining a new chicken and I’m already at the limit for chickens in the city. Plus, she is not tame. It took hubby and me almost an hour to catch her and get her into a safe place. Once I got her to Out to Pasture, she calmed down and let me pet her for almost an hour.

Here she is at Kit’s office. Kit is the woman who owns Out to Pasture. They named her Lucia and she’s fitting right in with the other hens at the sanctuary.

So, that’s my crazy bird story of the week.

Love Lauren

Exercise…

So, I posted this this morning but something with screwy and I had to delete it. Here it is again.

Ok, so something I rarely share on my blog is my real life, beyond my family. I tend to focus on history and things I enjoy. Well, a huge part of my life is exercise and keeping active. I’m always on the lookout for new ways to challenge my body and keep it as healthy as possible. I, unfortunately, suffer from fluffiness, despite how active I am. Anywhoo, enough of that. I’m always on the lookout for new workouts to challenge me and keep me interested, besides my usual hours on the elliptical at the gym. Anyway, now to the point of this blog post… I found a new site, and it has lots and lots and lots of workouts and super healthy recipes. I thought I would share it with you, for those of you who like to workout at home, like I do :) It is a little on the immodest side, they show off the bodies of the trainers, but the workouts are AMAZING!!! Totally kicked my butt! So, if you are interested, you can check it out. The best part, in my opinion, is that it is totally free.  Here’s the link…

http://www.bodyrock.tv/category/daily-workouts/exercise-challenges-daily-workouts/

I promise, we will be back to our regularly scheduled costume programming soon :) I hope to be starting some new projects after the first of the year.

Finished Dress!

Here it is…

Lady Devereux and I in her parlor. She is wearing her beautiful 1870’s reproduction that she has been working on most of the year. Her gown was stunning.

1910’s Dress Plan

I started on my 1910’s dress yesterday. I finished the pattern draping and I started roll-hemming the chiffon. Here’s the plan, thus far…

The gown is going to be a bit of a hybrid between the first gown, from the Kyoto Costume Institute, and the Lady Maude gown, from Janet Arnold.

I’m using Sense and Sensibilty’s 1910’s Tea Gown as a base for the pattern and then building it from there.

Here’s the fabric. Gold silk taffeta for the main body, black chiffon for the overlays, and black silk taffeta for the sash.

I have 5 days from today to complete it. I think I can do it, we shall see :D

Love Lauren

Finished 1910’s Corset

I’m very happy with how the 1910’s corset turned out. It took me about four days, from pattern drafting to sewing, to complete it. I will probably make a second one in the near future, because, as always, there are a few changes I would make. The first, is that the original pattern was closure to my measurements than I had realized. I ended up adding a little too much to it, and now the corset has about 1” in the back when it’s laced. I prefer to have close to 3” left when laced. Also, I would probably use a heavier fabric like canvas or coutil. I used a couple of layers of muslin, which is very comfortable, but I think a heavier fabric will wear better for more use. Other than that, I’m very pleased with the results. Here are the pics…

I scaled up this pattern from Nora Waugh’s “Corsets and Crinolines”.