Gentle Musings: Rendezvous 2021

Generally the Rendezvous at Fort de Chartres is held in June, but because of the pandemic it got pushed back to September. I was so ready to have a nice outdoor event and while the weekend temperature was still pretty toasty in the mid to upper 80s (F), the humidity wasn't as oppressive as it usually is at the June event.

Thanks to the old 'pandemic pounds' (and the nagging feeling of boredom with my past lower-class wardrobe) I found myself eager to make a couple of looser, no-frills cotton jackets with fabric from my stash.

Cotton was a fairly frequently named fabric in local inventories, particularly in women's gowns of indienne, vibrantly floral-printed. As New Orleans stood just a jaunt down the Mississippi River, which was regularly sailed by the trappers and merchants of the area to sell furs and grain, nice new goods also made their way back up to the Kaskaskia/Prairie du Rocher/Cahokia corridor.

Neither of the prints I used are historical reproductions to my knowledge, but they seemed semi-plausible based on many sample books and resources I've looked at, including the fascinating extra photos from the London Foundling Hospital that Angela of Burnley & Trowbridge was able to show us only during an in-person powerpoint at Costume College...so many small prints and geometric patterns that we wouldn't think of as being common in the 18thc.

I chose an indigo floral and geometric print for the first one, and assembled it from the trusty J.P. Ryan 'jacket pack' (what a gift that keeps on giving, lol).

You can see it's fairly basic -- although I wore stays with it, I wasn't intending it to be anything more exciting than a working-woman's nicest jacket.

I paired it with a basic cap, B&T handkerchief, a bibbed apron (common for French women, not so much for an English/American impression), and my new American Duchess Sophie mules. My set of household keys and pincushion are hanging a bit too low for practicality but I had just climbed out of the back of my friend's van where she had shut and locked her keys in the front, hence the bow for MY keys had come untied in the mad scramble, haha.

All rumpled up in back from Operation Key Rescue, but having a whale of a time! My apron probably should be a bit shorter than my petticoats, but I wasn't about to last-minute hem it, BECAUSE...

....I was last-minute hemming my new cranberry linen petticoat for Day 2 😂 Despite the key-rescue incident, Kim and I had a lovely time under the shade of the fly, just chatting and pretending not to notice the photographers (although Erica, a lovely local lady, caught us grinning at her here).

My second jacket was a two-yard piece that I had bought to supplement a Regency gown I felt wasn't full enough in the skirts....but lo and behold when it arrived, it was a white ground rather than ivory! Feeling foolish, I stowed it in the stash for a good while, and pulled it out to make something light. 2 yards is not enough for the view I had chosen from the 'jacket pack' so I knew there would be some piecing, and I enjoyed turning the pattern paper this way and that to figure out where it would be the least intrusive.

I ended up piecing in at the shoulders, which makes sense because many gowns have this piece to assist in setting sleeves:

...and at the back where the jacket's 'skirts' begin:

It's not a very meticulous piecing job, in fact I had no choice but to have one of those back skirt pieces with the print running slightly on the diagonal because I was down to scraps, but I guarantee unless I pointed it out and mentioned it to someone, most people wouldn't notice.

On Day 2, I was extremely glad to be wearing a light color because we walked around a lot and it got up to 86F. The folks running the Fort's fashion show were kind enough to draft me, and there was much interest in my American Duchess Kensington shoes, which I had painted a favorite local French shade of blue.

behold mine saucy ankles

.....and nobody noticed my pieced back, and I wasn't going to mention it either 😁

To continue to stay as cool as possible, I also wore a sheer cap, made from the J.P. Ryan Dormeuse pattern (so cute, even if it looks like a face-eating jellyfish and my husband was aghast at the floof) and a cross-over sheer white cotton handkerchief.

Naps were taken mid-day in the shade, particularly by my husband, whose tolerance of walking the market tents only extends so far and once he's hit the food tents, it's over.

Some bottles were drained, and bread was....very much not eaten...because that loaf is approximately 4 years old. When I went looking through my re-enactment bins for candlesticks, there it was, from the LAST event we had set up a tent at, as pristine as could be but absolutely hard as a rock. People visiting the tent got such a kick out of my petrified pain (French for bread). I really could have caused a 'pain' with it if I'd thrown it at someone.

We were all glad when night fell and the temperature cooled off. I always feel like evening is when the real magic happens -- sneaky modern conveniences are painted over by darkness, hundreds of tents are lit up with not an electric light in sight, people walk to and from camps with lanterns. I was very excited my new iphone did a good job taking night photos.

It was a bit too breezy for the chandelier -- I need to look for glass shades for the candles, I guess! But as I tried to protect my card game from dripping wax, my mother-in-law caught this photo where the candle-light gives everything a painterly glow.

When the wind proved too much for candelabras to stay lit (look at that wax drip!), we wandered on up to the fort to watch the dancing, which is always amusing and looks like chaos until folks learn the motions. The usual caller couldn't make it last-minute, so my poor friend Martin was left to do the cat-herding this time. My husband and I have had a few lessons but decided to stay out of the mess this time. It made for great pictures though!