Category Archives: life

twenties lawn party

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I have always loved to dress up. I relish any excuse for a costume, and almost as much as I love to wear it, I love to create it. The opportunities feel few and far between in my workaday life, so when my friend mentioned a weekend-long, 1920s-themed lawn party on a grand country estate, I was ecstatic!

My plans started out extravagant: I would need two complete ensembles (one for each day), to say nothing of period correct undergarments, and of course a three-piece suit for Ryan.

In the end our grand weekend excursion shrank to a single day trip, and I had to make certain concessions to practicality, but I think our outfits turned out rather smart regardless!

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I wore a thrifted slip, thrifted nude heels, a one-hour dress that I whipped up in a mere four and a half hours, and a thrifted hat that I unsuccessfully tried to reshape as a cloche and trimmed with bias tape to match my dress. I had been pretty unsatisfied with the one-hour dress, which I felt was too twee and boxy. But! I loved wearing it! There are definitely things I would change, construction-wise, but I was pleasantly surprised by how put-together and confident I managed to feel in such a rectangular garment.

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Ryan wore a thrifted suit–a real stroke of luck! I was just putting in the zipper on a pair of grey linen trousers for him, we had thrifted a gray vest, and had resigned ourselves to no jacket, but a last-minute trip to the thrift store turned up a wool three-piece suit in this lovely vintage-looking brown color. The suit itself probably dates from the 70s to judge by the cut, but passed quite well with the rest of the ensemble. I let out the pants and stitched in buttons for the suspenders, but otherwise the whole outfit was assembled by Ryan so I can’t really take credit there.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of pockets and a dying phone battery, I got almost no pictures of this event. Fortunately, our friend took this one of us that more than makes up for it.

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The estate the party took place at was on the ocean, and absolutely stunning. I will definitely be back next year for the party, and hopefully before then too for some wandering!

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may

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Spring has finally arrived–the sun sets later and later, the days are warmer, and the rain and sunshine have made the grey city lush and green. Lilacs are blooming everywhere.

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Yesterday I gathered a bag of dandelion heads, painstakingly pulled the leaves and stem off, and set the petals to steep in vodka. In a few weeks I’ll strain it, add sugar, and have a dandelion liqueur. When I left the house this morning, there were even more dandelions than yesterday. I’d like to pick some more and repeat the process sometime in the next couple of weeks before they all go to seed. I want to make dandelion wine eventually, but I have to start easy if I want to get anything done at all. Wine takes research, and possibly specialized equipment. All I had to buy for this project was a bottle of vodka.

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autumn

I’ve been living in Boston for over three months now. Fall is well and truly here, and it really is pretty in New England, if you can make it through the summer. Fall has always been my favorite season anyway; there’s no real pressure to do much of anything besides eat soup and go for walks. I’m still walking to work every day, and plan to continue doing so until the first blizzard. Every day I go over the Charles and it’s been quite pleasant watching the change of the sky and the foliage.

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I’m afraid there’s not much sewing going on around here these days, besides curtains. I vowed not to let myself start a new project until I’d figured out my sleeve fitting issues, but it’s nearly impossible without a friend to analyze back fit, so the whole process is stagnating. But there is a lot of cooking! I am making acorn flour and preserved lemons, and I finally got my hands on some sourdough starter so I have been experimenting with that! There’s a certain amount of math involved and of course I struggle there, but it turns out the hardest part is time management–when to take it out of the fridge, when to feed it, how long to let it rise. On my first batch I went with a 1-2-3 formula, where 1 is the starter weight, 2 is the water, and 3 the flour. Then it was too wet, so I had to add more flour, and I ended up accidentally making four loaves!

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In other news, there’s not much other news. I started my first Boston aerials class yesterday, and it’s very exciting to be back at it. I have lost some strength, but not nearly as much as I’d expected.

Other autumn highlights: going to a Renaissance Faire on a cold and rainy day, a brief jaunt to New York City back in September, playing board games as often as possible, and daydreaming about getting a cat. Also planning the costumes that I’d like to sew, eventually (rat queen, Rococo princess, a whole line of glamorous insects at a cocktail party). In the meantime, perhaps I should get started on my Yuletide present sewing…

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boston

Nearly two months ago, I packed up all (well, most of) my worldly goods, bid farewell to my beloved lush green PNW, and got on an train going just about as far as it possibly could go without ending up in the ocean. And here I am.

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a sunny day and a colorful dress

Although I was initially overjoyed to be reunited with my extensive wardrobe after winter break, I have quickly fallen back into the habit of wearing a few key items over and over again, and letting the others stagnate. This is partly due to laziness, partly due to weather, partly due to “saving” dresses for the right occasion (which is completely imaginary and does not exist in my life). In short, there are many reasons, and none of them are very good. But Saturday dawned sunny and warm and positively springy, and I had no obligations more taxing than a stroll around campus and some physics homework, the perfect opportunity for a new dress.

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It’s not actually new, but it has languished in my closet for what–six months? a year? and this is the first time I have worn it. It was given to me by my friend Jessica, the source of most of my vintage clothes. I think it’s from the 70s, but what do I know? It’s polyester, simultaneously both slightly fuzzy and slightly shiny, and quite warm, which is a plus since it’s not really spring yet however balmy it feels.

My roommate Sierra (who took these pictures) lent me a big pale-green flower pendant. It’s mother-of-pearl-y and amazing and goes very well with the dress’s crazy oversized pattern.

I wore it with white tights and my poor beat-up black mary-janes. I love these shoes to death but I’ve had them for nearly three years and they have been sorely abused in that time. The Lewis & Clark cobblestones do no favors for shoes, and nor does the rain…

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These photos are taken partly just to capture the beautiful Imbolc light quality before it completely disappears behind three more months of rain. Also, I live on the loveliest campus I ever have seen, which is the closest I come to having school pride or whatever.