There was a ball!  And I wore something!  (well, of course, and thank goodness!)

After a week of dithering (oh dear – it’s not as as bad as say, snivelling, but it’s certainly best to be avoided) over the options  and working on all of them at the same time, I decided I liked the way the trim to Ninon was developing so much that I settled on it.  I even managed to get a last minute haircut and am 13″ lighter!  Also, my mum said I should wear that one, and one should always listen to one’s mother. 😉

I went with a small group, and three of us got ready at my house, to help with lacing and hair-curling and last minute stitching.

Oh, and I may not have worn them, but as you can see the Marmotte Masquerade Stays got finished and worn, because the Sewphist is enough shorter in the torso than she could wear them without offending general sensibilities, and she was willing to do the binding on them to make them fully wearable (hero!).

The Comtesse, who is French, decided to invert the theme of the ball by going as a Kiwi icon: the tui.  Isn’t her mask amazing!?!  (and she made the dress to wear to sing at Carnegie Hall, as you do)

Despite Wellington’s reputation for loving fancy dress most of the attendees were barely dressed up, but there was a bit of 18th c fancy dress, and the occasional fabulous outfit – some better historical stuff, particularly the menswear, a fantastic peacock (who, sadly, I never managed to compliment), a rather clever lady Musketeer, and some great high fashion.

But the four of us  were by far the best!  😉

And while my frock got compliments for being gorgeous, I don’t think many got who or what era I was.

The Sewphist got tons of attention because I did a rather spectacular job with her hair (if I say so myself!) and her outfit was  so charming.

She managed to do quite a bit of dancing despite the stays, and you haven’t quite lived until you’ve seen someone in full 18th century hair going full bore to ‘Single Ladies’ and ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’

 I got lots of teasing for my total inability to ‘put my hands in the air’ while dancing.  And I got puffed rather easily in that bodice! 😉

Oooh…and check out Madame O’s gorgeous blue Regency frock, finished the day of the dance (of course!).  We had a little photoshoot in the middle of the dance, and I was hoping to get photos with her, because the blue and yellow would look so beautiful together, but we had to cut it short to run and listen to the raffle drawing.

Madame O got to be the helpful innocent for the raffle, because she didn’t have a ticket, and is awesome.

She’s so awesome that she innocently drew my number (very innocently, she couldn’t see well enough in the dark to tell the colour of the ticket, much less the number!) for a basket of fancy delicacies.

Sadly she didn’t draw my ticket for the grand prize – tickets to New Caledonia (sad face!).  Napoleon won that instead!

Hopefully this island will agree better with him than the last.

There will be more images of the Marmotte Masquerade Stays and the trimming on the Ninon dress, but for now, a final photo from the night.

Madame O told me to do duckface during out quick photo session.  I showed her what I thought of that!