I love mail.

There is no better feeling than reaching in your mailbox and pulling out a package that you've been waiting on. In this case, I had two, and they were shoe buckles!

It's a leetle hard to see the detail here, sorry, my camera was not really cooperating! And then the less fancy buckles came also and they have a really neat kind of antique finish on them already. I love that they're not pristine-ly shiny.

Tada! Also, before I took the pictures I noticed that my Georgies had grass stains on them...so I took a damp cloth and wiped them and amazingly the grass stains came right off and the dye did not...I am really impressed by the power of Scotchgard.

Still waiting on the rhinestone buckles, but I think I probably won't show those off until I get the leather paints and can decorate the Devvies.

Buckles and Bows

Today, after being bored out of my wits by the pink anglaise's never-ending hem (I like hand sewing but am feeling impatient lately) and not feeling like finishing my other mitt (the first one turned out nice...but one mitt isn't much good), I started looking seriously at my Georgiana silk and Devonshire leather shoes from American Duchess. These have been the most sizable investment I've made in my 18th century wardrobe by far, but so comfortable and worth it! I ordered the Angelus leather paint supplies for the Devonshires today and while they didn't have a nice cream or ivory color, I will attempt to mix mustard and white. To the best of my knowledge, there aren't any extant leather shoes with designs painted on them, but because I foolishly scotch-guarded my silk Georgies in a hurry to have them ready for an event and now (as far as I know) can't re-dye or paint on them again, I would love to have some shoes with a design on them. I may do a very subtle vine-like design on the leather Devvies to make up for this, and use the matte finish so they're not so obviously shiny leather.

But because the Angelus paints won't get here for some time, I got antsy and started looking at buckles. To date I have tied my Georgies with ribbon and it's pretty, but I want OPTIONS...."Accessories" is my middle name. Aren't these GORGEOUS (European, ca. 1770, V&A Museum).

So I did a little shopping around.....

A nice fall day

I went to a benefit event for the Fort in my blue jacket, new maize petticoat and sky-blue Georgies (from American Duchess) and it ended up being the nicest event I have done yet, because it was smallish reenactor-wise (compared to the hundreds at summer Rendezvous) and a number of the people who had bought tickets to attend were very curious about the reenactors and what they were doing. I was asked numerous times about my outfit, what I was sewing (a haversack), what I knew about the Fort and the area's history, etc. I think it was a great deal more enjoyable to go by myself (usually I'm with a very, well, shall we say extra-talkative gentleman-friend) because it made me a little more approachable and I got the chance to share some of what I do and know and I really loved being informative instead of just decorative. Hopefully I'll get to do this a lot more often!

Alright, enough of the text stuff...time for a few pictures...