Für Elyse

Some of you already follow Elyse's fascinating blog Gillray's Printshop of Historical Absurdities and the rest of you has a very pleasant discovery to make.

The last updates have had a very Napoleonic theme to them, and I immediately thought of them when I rummaged through a drawer the other day.

I didn't find what I was looking for, but I found the Napoleon incense I bought in Krakow this summer!

That's right - Napoleon incense! Of course I couldn't pass it up.

So what does it smell like? Well, a great part of gun powder and Austerlitz, with a hint of Waterloo and Joesphine's unwashed body.

Or, to make a long story short:

"Such a blend can never be again."

Indeed not. We keep all our Very Important Papers in this drawer together with the incense sticks so they too smell like Napoleon. This amuses me a bit (in the pictures you also see a couple of miniature portraits of the late pope John Paul. He was born in a little village outside of Krakow so this is just the town for all your pope memorabilia needs. They had everything but T-shirts and ashtrays I believe).

Shoes, fabric and a cat

Three lovely things indeed: a pair of shoes, lengths of fabric and the cat in my life!


Me and the cat are all by ourselves tonight. My DH is out with a friend (they were actually going to see Pete Doherty, but I just got a text message informing me that the sweet boy never showed up. Surprise, surprise...) and my stepdaughter is acting as a hostess at a Christmas dinner in an 18th century building (in costume of course!) just like I did last year. Sniff! They grow up so quickly these days...

That means that I can do lots of sewing without getting bad conscience for being anti-social on a Friday night. I really am going to have the pet-en-l'air finished on Sunday!

Anyhow - in the picture above you see the shoes I recovered about 200 years ago. They now have buckles (modern buckles, alas) and will also be worn for the first time on Sunday. I do hope that the heels will carry me all night since they're glued on. Maybe I should bring a spare pair of shoes, just in case?

You also see a newly-bought fabric (actually curtains) that found at one Salvation Army thrift/charity store. I'm quite in love with it and there's lots of tit but I haven't the slightest idea what to do with it. There just isn't that Instant Image in my mind when I look at it, but time will tell. Ideas and inspiration always welcome, of course!

And last, but not least, sweet Börjesson. I love him but he eats shoes and that's the truth! Only my shoes, and only dressy shoes. I don't know what's up with that. I have to put shoes I care about on a shelf 2 meters above the floor if I want them to stay safe from him. He likes to chew on the corners of books too, especially fancy coffee-table books. Why it's better not too keep those kind of books on the coffee table any more.

I hope y'all will have a good weekend, I know I will! I had the day off today (Friay) and won't get back to work until Tuesday! Mini-vacation FTW!

I'll try to take some pictures on the Christmas dinner on Sunday, beause this place lacks pictures badly these days. XXX

Time for the rush

I knew something was wrong with my last finished project, the 1809 gown, that I finished more than one week before the event to which it would be worn. this was a most disturbing experience and I promised myself it would never happen again.

And I always try to keep my promises, so here I am, with less than a week left to finish the IKEA pet-en-l'air I have been hinting about so that it can make its première on the Christmas dinner.

For once, I have some progress pictures (with bonus views of our messy living room!)

Since I made myself a new pair of stays my dress dummy Glendora 2.0 no longer works as she is supposed to for fittings and mostly serves as a glorified clothes hanger. I can assure you that the pet-en-l'air looks much better on me.

OK, mostly the same picture, but you can see our messy living room better in this one.

What the ruching looks like, but I see that I could have done a better job in this spot. Will fix that.

I did add some more ruching to it after the pictures were taken, but this is pretty much how far I have gotten.

Left to do:

- Add hooks and eyes to one side of the stomacher (the other side is sewn to the bodice. I have no idea if this is anywhere near period correct but it saves my sanity. I can't pin stuff to save my life and that's why you never should walk around bare foot in our livingroom when I've been sewing).

- Add some kind of trim to the stomacher. I don't know what kind yet though.

- Add ruching to the sleeves and all way 'round the bottom edge of the pet-en-l'air.

- Possibly add a flounce to the petticoat (that I thankfully finished months ago!) but this depends on whether I have the time and if I have fabric enough left.

Those plans I had on making a better pair of pocket hoops and a nicer under petticoat simply will have to wait.

I should easily make it if I only put some effort into it. Last week I tried to make some sewing every evening, even if it was only a couple of stitching, just to feel that I was going somewhere. It's not that I don't want to sew, because I do, but I'm usually very exhausted from work and to be honest, I haven't had much love for this pet-en-l'air for some reason (and sometimes it's also very tempting to play Age of Empires III over LAN with you husband and ignore everything else, including housework. We got a new computer not long ago, you see...)

When this business is finished, I have a brand new project of lovelyness waiting for me. But more about that later.

The resurrection of Madame Berg

Hello, internets, how do you do?

Our internet connection decided to die one day. I waited for about a day and then called our provider, who finally managed to realise that they, for no reason whatsoever, had disconnected our modem. They promised that we would be on-line within 24 hours. They lied. Now, one week later, we finally have the service we pay dearly (far too dearly) for back and working.

But. It wasn't the end of the world, just annoying. It's actually kind of good to see that you can live without being on-line 24/7 once in a while, and live well too!

I haven't been totally disconnected, though: I have sneaked into internet cafés (internet café? Sooo 1998!) once in a while to do some checking in and drive-by commenting on the forum and blogs. Still - I have a lot of catching up to do on all your blogs and I look forward to it more than you can imagine!

One could be led to believe that this internet abstinence would have resulted in a huge boost to my sewing, and in a better world, that would undoubtedly have been the case.

In my world, however, the population (=me) suffers from an awful lack of energy and motivation, and I take the easy way out and blame the 1) dark, 2) dark 3) dark 4) rain and 5) work.

What I've mostly been ignoring lately is a pet-en-l'air made from the smoking ashes of my IKEA francaise, that I ripped up seam by seam because it was awful and a complete waste of good fabric.

It's progressing ever so slowly but time has finally come for sleeves. And we all know what joy that is.

My plan was to have the pet-en-l'air and a petti in the same fabric ready for Gustaf Skål's Christmas dinner on December the 4th but I have my doubts. If I do make it - great! - but I'm not going to stress it. Que sera, sera and all that.

And now, I have some serious blog reading to do! See you later...

...and I'm not even surprised!

So while I was on my way home after work today, a question just popped up and demanded an answer:

"Hey! I wonder if someone has made the French Revolution with LEGO?"

Ten minutes later and a quick google search sufficed: Someone sure had!

As a matter of fact, there were several LEGO re-enactments of this event only on Youtube and I'm going to feature this one:



But, please, don't demand those 9:04 minutes of your life back from me if you watch it!

A post about shoes

I have been felling tired and stupid for the last few weeks and haven't done much sewing or anything of importance really.

But even a woman with half a brain can talk about shoes, so here it is: A post about shoes.

I bought these shoes at Lidl, of all places. Cheap and replaceable, I figured they'd make a good first re-covering project. I bought some black faux leather that I was going to use and started with one shoe but when I found the Red 80's Leather Jacket of Doom! on sale in a second hand store, I quickly changed my mind.

The jacket was absolutely grotesque and should probably have been burned or sent to the bottom of the sea in a sealed iron chest but it was a very nice and smooth leather, and very red, so as of now it' still in my home, slightly mutilated but still recognisable.

However, here's the result. They're RED (I read somewhere that red shoes were mostly worn by loose women. Is this true?)


I will have to work out something to hide the raw edges, and find some shoe buckles.

The flaws are plentiful, because I messed a few things up, but for once I won't point them out to you. I'm mostly done with them but hopefully learned a few things for my next project...


...which will be this pair.


I'm not too crazy about them so I don't care if they blow up. I will use scraps of grey silk taffeta that I have (actually a pair of half-finished mitts. That blew up).

Then I have these.

They will become my Sensible Shoes, for when a lot of walking and standing is to be expected. I want them to remain black so maybe I can use the faux leather for them.

Another pair of Sensible Shoes that I don't know what do do with yet, I just bought them.



These are the shoes I have used until now.

They're exactly as when I bought them and I don't think I will do anything about them. They're not really very pretty (or accurate...) but they will have to do until I've made something shiney. They're uncomfortable to boot (bad pun intended) which is another reason for not bothering with them.

But finally: the completely unworn 70's(?) beauties that I will save for later, when I've learnt to master the art of shoe re-covering.
There will be silk involved, that's all I know for now.

Well, that was a post about shoes all right. What shoes do you wear yourself when in costume? Pics and links please!

Illustrations from poetry book

Swedish 18th century poetry isn't my cup of tea, with a few exceptions.

One of them is Anna Maria Lenngren, a female poet who lived 1754-1817.



She was married to Carl Petter Lenngren who was an editor of the Stockholm newspaper Stockholms Posten which became an outlet for Anna Maria's works. She also translated poetry and theatrical plays.

She was widely read and liked in her own time, and has continued to be so because her poems has aged so remarkably well. Her style was witty, satirical and humorous and one of her subjects was not seldom the overly proud and ridiculous nobleman or -woman, why I sometimes amuse myself with thinking that Anna Maria and Jane Austen would have liked each other, had they ever met...

But to the point: Anna Maria's poems weren't published in book form until 1819, after her death, but it has been re-printed again and again ever since, and I have the great joy of owning one copy published in 1890.

Besides the pretty cover, it also contains many illustrations by none other than Swedish artist Carl Larsson. The illustrations are late 19th century interpretations of 18th and early 19th century and, I think, quite lovely in their own right.

I left the poem here so you can see the lovely font! The girl has fainted upon learning that her parrot has been killed by a cat, who's being kicked out in the top left corner.

The subject of this poem was the "mutton dressed as lamb" thing...

This poem was written in the memory of Kellgren, a fellow poet and friend of Anna Maria, who passed in 1795. It is he who receives an embrace from the young woman (he did love the fair sex) and Gustaf III, who had died three years before, watches with some amusement from the background.

An old, right honourable and proud couple. But not even the finest pedigree will save them from the reaper...

A proposal scene. But is the young lady so virtuous and innocent as she looks? unfortunately, the man won't find out until after the wedding...

"My late wife"...

Mademoiselle Lisa is quite accomplished. She makes tolerable bobbin lace and no less than four heels on each stocking!

Young Lise marries a count! But all is vanity - in the end, she only becomes the subject of a poem!

"To my dear daughter, if I had one". This poem is still disputed among critics. Anna Maria tells her "daughter" to stay away from the pen and look to her household duties instead. But was it meant satirically or not? The debate goes on.


Is it Lady Catherine and Anne de Burgh? No, but it almost could be! Juliana is raised to think herself above most other people (in "the old ruins of the manor") but eventually marries below her birth, to her family's horror.

"Every age has its customs"... The young lady is told to care a little less about her respectability - it will come with age anyway!

His grace is fast asleep and won't get up for at least another hour, much to the dismay of his creditors who are waiting upon him.

"The Old Woman"

The countess and her daughter honour the vicar with a visit. His wife and daughter kiss the countess' skirt hem (a custom that wasn't abolished until 1809) and soon turn the house upside-down in an effort to make the visit agreeable to the honourable guests, who still remain rather unimpressed... Again I feel an Austen reference. Anyone else?

***

I just learned that Anna Maria Lenngren's poems have been translated into English by a man called Philip K. Nelson and published in 1984. One of his translations are available on the Swedish Anna Maria Lenngren wikipedia page, and I think it works very well compared to the original:

The Man's Last Wish

My dear wife, listen now

And promise while you tarry,

That when I die you'll vow

That you and Per won't marry.

My last wish you'll obey now, won't you?

For otherwise I'll come and haunt you.

The wife:

Dear husband, die in peace.

This promise I am making.

Your worrying can cease.

This vow I'm never breaking.

I swear that Per and I won't wed,

For I have promised Sven instead.

A little info about the book on Google books (it's not available there, though).