Reminiscing

On paper, er, screen that is, 'Reminiscing' looks like a very oddly spelled word. ;)

Today while doing chores I popped a favorite Celtic CD in our cd player, and listened to the lilting, joyful sounding music. Well, that was how it was at first....

It all starts with nodding your head in time to the music, then it leads to humming with it, then a sister comes along, looks at you, grins and before you know you are both setting to the music in tandem!

Meg and I love nothing more than to think back of favorite dances, or not so favorite, that we've done together. :) 'The waterfall Waltz', 'Mary's Wedding', 'Boston Teaparty'. [sigh] Good memories all about it....

We stopped attending the weekly ECD (English Country Dance), mostly because of the distance, and it's always hard to do when there are little ones to keep busy.

I remember during a masquerade ball that we went to, Meg and I danced together for almost the whole thing. There was one dance in particular (can't remember the name) that was reeeaallyy slow; Meg and I don't do well together during slow dances (she likes to go fast). So we started goofing around, oh, we still did the dance perfectly, but we added those silly things one would only do with a sister or sibling. :) We made faces at each other as we passed or did 'two-hand turns', added extra goofy steps to the slower parts, etc... We actually started laughing out loud! People started watching us to see what we would do next and I think perhaps some of them wished to join in our silliness. ;D That dance is now in our "list of favorites" despite its slowness; because Meg and I had so much fun together doing it!

Doing a fast. crazy dance with my sister Megan is the absolute best!! We both get to laughing and then we forget what the next step is; but then, during the fast ones, most everyone forgets the next part! Meg and I like to twirl each other (I looove being twirled!) while dancing too.

In our little kitchen is where Meg and I always seem to end up dancing. We set together, do favorite moves from favorite dances and choreograph our own dances to go with our CD's. 'Tis fun. :)

Poor Emily, the age limit for dancing was 13, and she was 12 when we were attending! Alas, we had stopped about a month before her birthday, so she never got to go to a ball and very rarely got to dance during the weekly dances. :( Meg and I always include her in our 'spur-of-the-moment' dances, and she got to do enough dances that she can reminisce with us.

I think our favorite thing to do (usually at night when we're in bed) is to ask the question: "If you could do any dance, which would you choose?" That's always a hard one to answer. The Dingle dance was fun. But short. The Gothic dance is fun and fast! But it's best if there is at least 70 people. How about the Contra dance? Very fun, but also very long. The Waterfall Waltz, Whip-the-Willow, Say-I-Do.... Which one does one choose? Personally, I think I like ALL of them, but if I got to choose just one, I think I would choose the slow dance called "Enchanted Place". Each move mirrors a part from the story of 'Winnie the Pooh'! I love the slow, graceful, trickiness about it!

Meg says she would choose the fast and crazy 'Contra dance'.

And Emily would choose 'The Gothic dance'. Another fast and crazy one. :)

Good memories all about it...

~Caitlyn

Of Vintage Goodies

Yes! I am finally getting around to posting about this! A few days after Thanksgiving, while hunting around on Etsy, I found the most adorable vintage dress pattern fo sale. And who were we to resist such a temptation? ;) Sure enough, a week later, a peculiar package found its way to our front door....

Such is our newest treasure :

Sorry about the bad shot, can you guess who took it? (me)

In June, there is going to be a WWII themed ball (seems kind of funny to have that for a theme while doing english country dancing) , so we're thinking on going to it in this style dress. Emily is working on her dress already ('tis delightfully easy to sew!), Megan has her fabric and is preparing to start, and me? Well, I'm still dreaming about it. ;) Someday I'll get some fabric for it...

~Caitlyn

Wisdom of Jane Austen

"It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind; but when a beginning is made -- when the felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt -- it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more." ~ Jane Austen

"Felicities of rapid motion", I like that.... :)

~Caitlyn

The Masquerade ball....

It hath come and it hath went.... All that is left are memories.....

Okay, I don't know what that was all about; it just popped into my head and I typed it down. Very typical of me. ;D

But the masquerade ball did come and did "went". It was fun seeing everybody's costumes. Surprisingly, there were only around 80 people this time, maybe more, but definitely not as many as the Celtic ball. We did mostly slow dances this time, I'm not sure why, but, at least we got to do Mairi's Wedding at the end! Sorry, no video clips this time; but I do have a couple pictures! :D

Waiting to begin....

The most fearsome pirate that ever sailed the, um, er, dance floor?

Ach, more pirates a' waitin' to start jiggin'. ;D

Cheers!

Ahem, here is what appears to be my sister Megan.

Regency meets cowboy.... (sorry it's blurry!)

Dancing the 'Bonny Cuckoo'.

If there had been a prize for the best costume, I think this guy should have won. he was "Mr. darth-cy"!

My family cracked up when they saw this shot. Almost everything in the picture is blurry except the guy with the paper bag mask. :D

A group photo.

Hmmm, I actually think that, that was a few more than "a couple pictures". ;D

Oh, and guess what! The gal who is in charge of the whole ECD thing took my suggestion for the next ball theme!! I am tickled pink! So the next ball will be held on July 11th and is going to be a Chronicles of Narnia ball ! Although, she gave the credit to some friends of mine for the idea.... Oh well, it will be fun no matter whose idea it was. :)

~Caitlyn

The Countdown Begins....

Only 5 days until the ball....

And Finally... Pictures!!

At long last I have pictures! Actually, it's only one, but never the less, a picture. :D Em and I spent quite some time outside taking pictures and this the only one that was... um, tolerably okay. But don't I just look ridiculous!? :P I don't remember what I was looking at, but it must have been funny. :P LOL.
The sash was made with some leftover brown linen fabric I found in Mom's sewing basket. The brown and the green gave a woodsy air to the whole dress (at least I think it does). :P

Here's Em's dress. We made it in a record three days! Isn't it lovely? She found a pretty, blue silk skirt at Goodwill and used that for the underlay. Saved us lots of time, it did. :P

See the dainty white lace she sewed at the waist. It looks simply smashing with the white cotton fabric she used for the overlay.

That's all for now!

~Megan

It's finished!! And I have pictures!!

I finished my costume!! Whahoo! Apart from the little problem that we ran into with the fabric being tucked up, it was a breeze to sew and I am so excited to start on another. :D


Here's a full view of my dress. See my sleeves? ;D At first, I wasn't planning on doing the sheer around the neckline, but I wasn't comfortable about how low the neckline was, so, with fear and trembling I tried adding some sheer. Amazingly, it worked! When I originally cut out the pattern, I raised the back of the neckline 3 inches and the front 2 inches, thinking that it would be high enough..... next time maybe I will try 5 inches in the back and 4 inches in the front.


A closer view of my sleeves.... I made a copy of the sleeve pattern so that I can do it again should I ever want to. I have a friend who wants to try doing these sleeves as well so I am making a copy for her.



And the dress is really comfortable. Perfect for a ball or a simple tea party....


Emily and Megan will be posting pictures of their regency dresses really soon too.

And tonight we are going to watch S&S again. ;D

~Caitlyn

Mission Accomplished

IT'S DONE!!!

What's done?

My regency dress! Whoohoo! I finished it last Monday but I keep forgetting to post about it. I would put some pictures of it on, but I haven't had the chance to have any pictures of it taken, so you'll have to forgive my forgettfulness and wait longer. :P

I have become much wiser in the way of making regency dresses since I first started this dress. For example; I learned that buttons would be a better choice than a drawstring and eye-hooks. Also, that skirt linings are very difficult to deal with. No more skirt linings for me, thank you very much!

Even though I haven't even had a chance to actually wear my dress, I'm already dreaming up other regency dresses for future projects. :P What can I say? I'm hooked on regency styles now. Maybe I shouldn't have watched all those Jane Austen movies. :P

~Megan

Almost Done

Hi everyone! Caity here to let y'all know that I am almost done with my regency costume!! Hurray! :D

I don't have any really good pics of my costume yet, so you'll have to be patient with me for a little while longer.

In all, I have finished the bodice, the skirt and the sleeves; I can't sew them together yet as I need a few more things from Jo-Anne's.... But hopefully I can get those tomorrow. I was really suprised at how easy the whole thing was to do. I'm doing view A, and we had been warned that it was a little trickier than View B, but for once in my life, I actually understood the directions! It seemed almost a little too easy, and I wondered if I had done something wrong (which I didn't). ;D

About the sleeves.... I decided to go free style and do them without a pattern, going by some not-too-great pictures online. While the sleeves were simple to create, they were very time consuming, it took me two and a half days to finish them. But it was worth it!!!! Both sleeves turned out better than I expected and are beautiful. I admit it, I'm proud of them. ;) I really did try to get some pictures of the sleeves, but since they are not sewn on to the bodice yet, they don't hold their shape very well.


As a slight change of subject.... Emily and I got to watch half of 'Sense and Sensibility' last night (we get to finish it later tonight). And I think we are both now officially addicted to regency era dresses. ;) We got lots of dress ideas for future costumes (only with higher necklines!!) and with luck, I am going to try making a regency jacket soon. It looks easier than my sleeves!

Well, I'm off to have snack, bed down the animals outside and get ready to finish our movie, I'm so excited to see how it ends!

TTFN, Ta, Ta, For, Now my readers! :D

~Caitlyn

Regency Dress Update

So far so good. I think. :D I've finished the bodice and I'm presently labouring at the skirt. I've got the skirt and lining sewn together, but I'm experiencing some 'technical difficulty' with the gathers. Can anyone tell me if the back of the skirt where it's gathered is supposed to puff or not? :D I've had to rip the gathering seams out twice (or more crucially, have Emily rip the seams out). Grrr!

If I don't have to do anymore seam-ripping, my next step is the skirt placket. Mom says it's fairly easy to do, so I'm trusting her judgment. :D

Here's some more pics of my sewing venture. :P

An amorphus lump of fabric. Hard to believe it'll ever become a dress (that is, if it ever becomes a dress) :P

Threading the drawstring through the neckline casing. lookin' good... I hope. ;P

TA DA!! The finished product! I was so proud of myself! But, then again, Em also helped sew a large portion of it. So I guess I have to share some of the glory. :P

The back of the bodice. Ooops! That pic was taken before I had the drawstring threaded. Oh well! :PThat's all for now! :P

~Megan

I really am still alive....

I'm sure all my readers are probably gasping in horror and mortification that I didn't post about anything yesterday.... Or today for that matter. ;D

I really am still alive over here; I have just gotten very busy of the late.

I'm slowly but steadily working on my costume for the upcoming masquerade ball in May. At first I was planning on making a renaissance era costume, the kind with the loooooong sleeves, but, my grand total for all that fabric would have been around 40 or 50 dollars!! Ouch.

Plan B.

I am now making a regency style costume. If you scroll down to Megan's post about her dress, you'll be able to see the two different styles. Meg is doing view B (the green long-sleeved one), and I am working on view A. My color for the overlay (the white fabric in the pic) is an extremely pale green, that almost looks gold in some lights, made of a medium weight cotton. The underlay color is a light, cream, made of flannel backed satin. I know, I know, I am totally going to die with part of my costume having flannel on it, but, it was soooo pretty, and it went so nicely with my green fabric. ;D I told my sisters that at least I will die happy!

One thing that I am doing differently is the sleeves.... I've been skulking around countless blogs and websites, gleaning ideas for my costume. I found one fantastic idea for the sleeves; but I have nothing to go by except the pictures. Regardless of that, I bit the bullet and so far so good! When I finish the sleeves I'll post some pictures and show y'all.

In fact, I really should be sewing right now instead of typing away on here.... I am a procrastinator by nature and have a tendancy to leave things 'till the last minute (oops).... Okay, here I go. :)

Maybe I'll catch a chance to do some more posting tomorrow....

I really am going this time!!

~Caitlyn ;)

My first regency dress!

Yesterday I began my first regency dress. Whoohoo! I'm really excited about it. :D Several people I know have told me regency dresses are really quite easy to make, but I still had my doubts. I mean, the biggest thing I'd ever sewn was an a-frame skirt. So of course I was a little intimidated by all the bewildering pattern pieces and complex instructions.

Now I've changed my mind. I started actually sewing the dress today and, boy, it's like a walk in the park (okay, so that might be a little bit of an exaggeration) :P Here are some pics of the dress-making process.

This is the pattern I chose. The left is dress A and the right is dress B. I decided to do dress B, but with the short sleeves. (By the way, sorry about the bad pictures) :P

-Sighs- All those pesky little circles have to be penciled in on the fabric. Very tedious work, but those little circles sure are helpful!

Ah yes, gathering the bodice. I'm no expert at gathering seams, as I always break the strings, so I get my little sister, Emily, to do it. :P

Sewing steadily away. -sings- "Cinderelly, Cinderelly! We can help our Cinderelly! We'll make her dress so pretty! There's nothing to it really!"

And then when your sewing machine breaks down from too much use, ya' have to call a mechanic. I've found this guy to be the most reliable.

"Hmmm. Your problem seems to be starting with the spool of thread. Let me just take that off and have a look at it." Or maybe there was a more sinister plot behind all his helpfulness. :P

Thats all for now! I'll try to keep you updated!

~Megan

The Dashing White Sergeant

Here's one more clip of the Celtic Ball for y'all. :D This is my second favorite dance: The Dashing White Sergeant. Normally we do it to a CD and the dance is faster, but the musicians played it a little bit slower; which turned out fine because they played it a lot longer than the CD version!

~Caitlyn

Found 'em!

Haha! Sweet victory! I found the pictures that dad took of the celtic ball! They were buried deep amongst the files, tucked away in a inconspicous spot. :D

So without further ado....


My costume! I did tell you that is was simple didn't I? You probably can't see it, but my skirt has celtic knots all over it. Sewing it was challenging because I had to treat it like plaid. And I found the blouse at the 'New To You' thrift store for I think $5.



Meg asked me to do something to her hair so that she could put silk roses in it... This was what I invented...



Hmmmm... A scottish Lass with a scary cloak and a sword? Nothing good can come of that... ;D


The Lads wait paitently for the lilting tunes to begin.

Here's dad dancing with me and Meg! This dance was called 'Broom the bonnie, bonnie broom'.

Three of our friends with Megan tucked in there. :)

"Yes sir, the dance floor is straight ahead, walk ten feet in a straight line and you will find it."

That's all for now!!!

~Caity

another dance video

Here's another dance video for y'all. Although I can't remember what the name was.....Irish Lamentations perhaps?

~Caity

You never know who's watching

I'm feeling more in a writing mood now than I did earlier so, I shall do some more blogging!

My title bears more truth then one may think at first; You really do never know who is watching you. Yesterday, our church had a "game night" at another local church which had a good sized gym in it and everyone had fun playing basketball and volleyball in there (except me, I helped mom with the babies :D). After everything was over and people began to leave (or, at least we thought they were leaving) I noticed that the gym was now empty. Perfect! So I ran and grabbed Emily so we could do a bit of dancing while no one was looking. She was really upset that she didn't get to go to the ball, so together she and I did Mary's Wedding alone. After maybe 3 to 5 minutes of dancing in perfect harmony, we ended with a curtsey to each other; following our curtseys we suddenly heard loud clapping coming from behind us. We spun around only to find that almost everbody had been watching us!!

As we walked out towards the door we got a lot of compliments on our dancing and questions about it as well. You really never do know who's watching you I guess. But maybe from now on, Emily and I will check twice before we begin dancing again. :D

~Caity

The Celtic ball

It's been two days since the ball..... And I still have one of the songs stuck in my head. :D

The ball was held at Grand Haven Elementary school in McMinnville, the grand ballroom was too small so the ball had to be hosted in the school gym. When I first walked into the gym a flood of color met my eyes. It was like stepping back in time seeing everbody's costumes. There was around 140 people there. 140 people in ONE room. I will admit it, when I saw all the people, I froze in terror. Believe it or not, I am claustrophobic around large groups of people. ;) But there was no time to be timid! The first dance was about to begin! The ball started at 7 p.m. and ended at 11:30 p.m. 4 1/2 hours of bliss! (Well, except for the large, scary group of people.)

My two favorite dances that we did were 'The Dashing White Sergeant' and 'Mary's Wedding' both are very fast and FUN!! I always feel bad for the guys during the Dashing White Sergeant because they never get a rest, they're constantly on the move! But they somehow manage to keep going. :D

I even got to dance with dad! Actually, I think he did three dances in all (ECD is highly addicting). Even more surprising is that my big brother, Chris, danced twice!!!!! I thought for sure I was seeing things when he asked one of my friends to dance. He did really well though. And both dad and Chris are coming with us to dance this Thursday! Hurray!

As you have probably noticed, there are no pictures on this post.....Not one so far. Sorry! But we were to busy dancing to take pictures. Dad however, got a lot of videos, so without further ado.....

This clip is Mary's Wedding; and the song that is playing during the dance is the one that is stuck in my head. Even during church it was ringing faintly! The dance only lasts about 3 minutes, but dad had the camera and was goofing around after it ended so that is why it has such a weird ending. :D The intro is pretty long but you can see that most of the dancers are tapping (or stomping) their feet to the beat.

And I really, truly am sorry if you have dial-up and my videos are making your computer as slow as molasses in January!! (am I the only person who has heard of that phrase?)

Okay, so this is the only clip right now because it took me an hour and a half to upload it. Maybe I'll try another tomorrow....

~Caity

Time is fleeting...

Only 24 hours till the Celtic Ball.....

How will Meg and I ever manage to wait that long?

~Caity

Just four more days.....

Megan and I have begun the countdown until the Celtic ball....

Everything is ready....

We pass each other when walking through the house and grin, knowing what the other is thinking of...

Megan has given glimpes of her costume....

But mine shall remain a secret...

It's simple, but I think it will work for a first...

Just four more days....

~Caity

Celtic Costume in Progress

So far so good! I finally found a blouse to go with my skirt. Nothing too fancy, but it serves it's purpose. After some thinking and planning I decided to make a few changes to the aforesaid blouse. First I tackled the sleeves. Observe:

Before.

After.

The lace was tricky to sew on, but the time it took was worth it. I won't tell you how long it took me to sew those buttons on. :D

I'm not overly fond of the ruffles that run down the middle, but the blouse would look very... Plain, shall I say, without them. :) Now all I need to do is see if there's anything else I want to add to it.

~Megan