Ragtime at Glenn Manor

The Ragtime ball, as usual, was at Glenn Manor. We ate a fancy dinner, spent some time frolicking in the gardens, and did some significant chilling. And we recycled outfits from the Titanic weekend, which saved a little on sewing. Newport is so much work!

Looking cute outside

Teddy bears dancing!

Mother with an enormous black ostrich feather fan. I am overwhelmed by the beaded peacock fabric of her dress still.

On the stairs. I love sitting on stairs.

More people on the stairs!

Chilling in the garden

We each found the flowers that best matched our outfits, so we have a matched set of pictures in the garden. Here's Raven.

That's me

Julia

Quinn

We walked down to the water for some pictures.

Story time! I love Saki.

Unfortunately, I don't really like the color of this with the dress I was wearing, but this is a wrap I made in pink satin with brown feathers. It is based on one in a museum collection, and I should really do a good post about it someday, but I haven't really worn it yet. Eventually, I will!

Events Attended: Performance at Orchard House

Every time I drop off the face of the earth, I never know how many excuses to give. Let us just say that I had a massive flu followed by a massive cold, and have been wrapped up in other things. But quick, let's have pictures instead of excuses! Orchard House, home of Louisa May Alcott and model for the house in her famous book Little Women recently celebrated its 100 anniversary as a museum. To celebrate, CVD dressed in 1912 clothing and did a charming dance performance. I wore the dress I made by the Titanic Weekend, plus a straw hat an a silly hair curl. I was feeling sort of Mary Pickford-ey, although I think she always does more curls.

 Anyway, it was a lovely afternoon performance. Check out those cute dancers.

Posing on Window Sills - Nadejda Mikhailovna and Me!

I love this picture of Nadejda Mikhailovna de Torby. Why? First of all, because she has a lovely dress, which kind of reminds me of a less-ruffly version of my new tea dress. I might need a plainer one, perhaps with a darling dangling sash like hers! Second, that hair bow ROCKS MY WORLD and I intend to make a giant one soon, now. When I was a little girl I frequently wore giant hair bows for events (even though they hurt my hair! I was not yet making the wardrobe decisions...), but I never thought of them as a fabulous look for older girls. That said, I think she doesn't look any younger than I am currently. Third? This is a girl who knows how to pose in windows! Obviously this is one of my favorite pastimes (second, perhaps, to posing in trees!). Clearly we are time traveling sisters.

  

OH WAIT. You say she had a sister? Obviously Julia's going to need a Countess Anastasia dress. With a cute headband! Yes. I think so.

 

This is us, for comparison.

Olga Paley's Corsage Ornament... or Hat Ornament!

Because of that MFA exhibit, I've been very interested in the idea of corsage ornaments, which as far as I'm concerned basically boil down to monster brooches, sometimes articulated or sometimes shaped to match the neckline of a dress. It seems to me you can call them any number of things, but they are just a category of sparkly ornament that you usually wear somewhere on your bodice. But something I've been learning (and which delights me, I must say) is that once you have a purpose-build piece of sparkle, nobody seems to care if you wear it somewhere else on your person. Got a cool necklace? Let's wear it as a tiara! Nice tiara... I'm going to drape it down the front of my dress. What a pretty brooch. I'm going to pin it to my hair. Oh yeah! Case in point, here is a picture of Olga Paley's Cartier Corsage Ornament/ Stomacher/ Massive Sparkly Brooch Thingy. And then there it is in her hat (in about 1912-1913)! Why not?

 Of course, now we're going to speculate on things I am not sure about. I know that the hat ornament is the Cartier stomacher. But what about her necklace? Doesn't it look a lot like a convertible fringe necklace? I don't know if she had access to one, so I cannot guess at the likelihood, but since everyone else likes to wear fringes as necklaces, why not? Another thing, I am pretty sure she owned one of those tiaras that are large diamond-encrusted circles, and you can hang drop gems in the windows (big honking diamonds? emeralds? pear shaped pearls? oh yes!). Is it just me, or does it look like she has one of those tacked to the front of her bodice?

There you have it! A serious lesson in alternative jewelry uses. Also, extra credit for the delicious fur, fringe, and bow ornament on the cape. I'm working on a bow-brooch post, too.

Events Attended: Titanic Ball

Saturday evening was the grand ball (and I'll warn you now, I have nothing to say about the Sunday events - I heard they were lovely, but I had to go home and do schoolwork!). It was all very grand, with a nice dinner and some great music. A lot of people did not make it to the end, but they were missing out. I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves, now.

This picture does totally insufficient justice to Mother's new dress. It is made of the most AMAZING fabric, embroidered all over in dramatic metallic purple peacock feathers, and embellished with glittering seed beads everywhere. It is really exquisite, but the camera loses all the drama of the light playing across the beads and threads. Tragic.

Julia is a rat fink and fell asleep (because she'd barely gotten any sleep in the past 48 hours and had been working really hard, blah blah blah), so I got exactly no good pictures of the new dress I threw together for her. So unfair. On the other hand, I do adore this picture. Tiara and bunny ears? Oh yes! Hahaha.

Events Attended: Titanic Tea

On Saturday morning, there was a early morning dance workshop. The sad part was that it was so early I was tired (if you close up an event and get home at 2 in the morning, then have to drive an hour to an event the next day that starts at 9, how miserable are you going to be?). But I pushed through and tried to be high-energy anyway! I can think of nothing more miserable than being in a dance class where the teacher is sucking the energy out of the room, instead of adding to it (and I have been in such a class, oh yes). We had a tough mix of skill levels, with about half the people having never done any ragtime dance at all and the other half being fairly expert! So we compromised and taught some relatively simple but rarely done ragtime variations. It warmed my little heart to see people trying them out at the ball that night! Now, after all that I have no pictures of the dance workshop. Boo! But I do have pictures of the tea that afternoon at the Hawthorne Hotel. It was really lovely, and I had the best time talking to really nice people. Plus, I got to show off a new tea dress!

I don't do group photos if I can avoid it, but everyone else looks so nice!

After tea we did a little story telling. I love Saki!

The room was lovely. It is a shame the carpet stops us from dancing!

A pretty new dress for Julia!

With a pretty sash! And a lovely hairstyle too.

The Pugliese Girls, in matching ragtime tea dresses. They are all basically based of a lovely original Mother owns. It is so simple and yet really pretty.

Posing in a window. I love windows.

Ruffles!

The tie is a vintage Harvard tie, so Adrian said he was Widener! Which was funny except that Widener died on the Titanic (which is why his mother donated tons of money to build Widener library, which is the reason we know him at all).

Events Attended: Titanic Steerage Ball

The grand Titanic weekend, sponsored by the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers, opened on Friday night with a steerage ball. What this meant was a little ambiguous, so we got a wonderful array of outfits. It was a cheerful, slightly casual night. And of course, the music (with members of our own wonderful Ad Hoc Quadrille Band backing up Ian Whitcomb, who we brought out from California!) was great.

I personally wore an old thrown-together ballgown. But I added a fun choker to make it more interesting! Does it say Mary Crawley to you?

Also, I have a lovely looking family, don't you think?