Felicity is helping me with the evil, awful ill-begotten silver stays. Well, ‘helping’ is stretching it a bit. She’s sitting on my lap, looking adorable and being cuddly and fluffy, while I try to sew seams over her without disturbing her.
Some time ago, I decided I needed another pair of stays, and started on a set. And they’ve been nothing but trouble since then. They are almost making #4 on the list of evil things. First there was the fabric. I bought a bunch of linen with a gilded finish in a fabric sale, because it was soooo pretty, and I’m a magpie. Linen is a great fabric for stays, right? And who doesn’t want a pair of gilded stays? Linen is not a great fabric for stays if it warps. And gilded linen is an even worse choice if the minute you iron it, the gilded finish comes off, leaving you with plain, boring, ecru linen. But I didn’t even get far enough into the stays to find these things out before it gave me problems, because it turns out that gilded linen is actually really, really hard to match for a lining. So I finally settled for black, because it was really the only thing I had that didn’t look hideous with it. …
The photographs from the dressing room from Saturday’s Grandeur & Frivolity talk demonstrate more than ever how indebted I am to all my friends for their wonderful help and support with these events. Sarah of Capital Adventures (e.g. Diana Villiers) was the official photographer and took the photos. Mrs C of the Hectic Eclectic did the amazing hairdos. And the poor sweetie wasn’t feeling well, so she didn’t even stay for the performance. Joie de Vivre and Shell were super wonderful and did a bunch of evil, evil handsewing, which I ended up not even using because my lovely mother in law and my sister, the Naiad, showed up in time with the backup dress. And then my mother in law sewed the last of the buttons on my 18th century men’s breeches. I owe those four majorly! Madame Ornata let me use both her pet en l’aire and her (barely!) finished polonaise, which she had to hem in the dressing room. Bianca the mezzo-soprano let me put her in a scratchy wig and stays …
