Tag: fashion

Making Lace While The Sun Shines

In amongst writing the Christmas novella (Apples In Store – set just after An Imperfect Enjoyment, and featuring a beau, a baby, a little sister, and a case of mistaken identity) and making phenomenal quantities of cake, I have a shocking craving to make needle-lace.

I’ve tried bobbin lace and I found it hard work. What with the cats and all, they have a habit of undoing as fast as I’m doing, and it’s not exactly portable.

So this is the design.

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It’s quite big, so I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. Possibly make it into a collar or a (modern – well, modern-ish) jacket. One of the things I like about needle-lace is it has a very three dimensional, sculpted quality: it’s not as fluid as bobbin lace.

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So as you can see from the drawing on card, I’ve couched down the outline: this is the back, but I’ve pressed down hard with a pen to give a relief outline on the dark side, so the stitches stand out to the eye.

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I’m planning to make each petal separately, for an even more sculpted effect. Here’s a close-up:

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The things we do in the name of vanity!

Bosom Buddies

– or, let’s talk about tits.

As I have been banging on about of late, I’m upping my 17th century game and I’m doing marvellous things with my everyday wardrobe.

This morning I slipped on a lovely olive green and white print blouse and my first thought was – ooo, low-slung tits, girl, pull ’em up a few notches. How unflattering. How dowdy. How –

How right for the shape of the blouse and the design period?

Convo I often have with a mate who is similarly built, but why would I aspire to have two rock-solid semi-spheres clamped to my ribcage, unless I happen to be involved in 1770s re-enactment? What with – as one Regency fashion commentator described – the “disgusting fleshy shelf”?  See this lady here with her low-cut bodice – a lady of ample chest, by the look of her – is she rocking the teetering titties, or are they sensibly secured?

(c) Valence House Museum; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Occurs to me that the eye of the beholder is so wretchedly attuned to what we consider beautiful now, that anything that doesn’t conform to the right shape, regardless of size, looks wrong to us. We often see tavern-wench bodices, even when we should be working Lady Fanshawe’s discreetly low-cut charms, because we think up-and-at-’em is the look that women must have aspired to.

(Do we? Should we?)

This is me starting a revolution, right here, right now. The discreet charm of the boobs-goisie. Lower-cut and flatter. (Surely we’re not thinking that mature ladies might be represented as having aspirational mature figures, instead of fake porn-star tits?)

Have it!