green_martha (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
green_martha) wrote2009-08-24 10:43 pm
green_martha) wrote2009-08-24 10:43 pm
Grenoble, August 2009 - the full write-up
To sum it up : I had one of the best times of my life. It was a blast, we totally need to do that again.
The long version :
The ophtalmologist appointment on Thursday ate all my morning time, when I came home my parents were already there and I left before them to go pick![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
heileen up at the train station. Thursday's weather : no sign of the predicted rain, it was so hot in the station I feared I'd faint if I stayed in the hall.
We spent Thursday evening geeking out on fashion pictures.heileen brought me some GORGEOUS fashion plates I need to scan and upload. Early 1870's even, perfect inspiration for the Cradle Dress (or should I call it the dress of Mighty Red Chwanana ?). We proved to the Home Geek that costume geeks are no better than regular computer nerds when it's time to take care of the cooking while admiring some new gadget/fashion magazine. Oops, sticky rice...
Friday started off with some grovery shopping : sugar, eggs and ground almonds to make... macarons ! Yes, we baked our own, and although they did not look exactly like professional ones, they were close enough and sure tasted yummy. See ? The flaming green salted butter caramel cream was particularly good. It must be said, though, that we were very close to NOT having macarons. Said green cream did not want to turn into caramel, the biscuits didn't bake correctly... but after a long fight, we were victorious, andlady_darkstone came just right to make the coffee buttercream. The second half of the day we spent finishing our outfits, draping the plonaise on heileen's dress, handsewing (yes ! I did it !) the hem and various bits and bobs on the casaque. and making a cap for lady_darkstone. When said Lady arrived it was already evening, we still had to eat something and bake the tart, so I gave up on the shoes and just packed the china and glassware for the picnic.
We got up early on Saturday, ironed what needed to be ironed, tamed our hair, got into our costumes. I decided on a whim to add bows to rococo-ify my back-up shoes (hence the icon). A little before noon we were in the car and headed to the museum, where we set our table in the picnic area.
We were lucky that the temperature, although it was by far higher than what Miss Meteo had promised, did not rise too quickly, so that we were able to actually enjoy our meal and take a nice stroll through the park before retreating into the museum. We took pictures with varying degrees of goofiness (too bad we only got one of the ninka-zodiac knights-rococo-posture-fight), discovered hedges are slimming... errr... make me look less wide, as long as I'm not seen from the side, almost fell into a pond or a fountain (all three of us, though neither on the same spot nor at the same time), took many pretyt pictures of our costumes, and finally retreated into the air-conditionned museum for some rest and culture.
All my pictures of the outing are here, as well as a good part ofheileen's, and some of lady_darkstone's will go there as well, when I take the time to edit and upload them all. The museum people were just adorable (we gave them some of our macarons that wouldn't have survived an afternoon in the car), we almost had our private visit with one of the wards. It's an adorable place, they salvaged some of the original 17th century frescos, and otherwise reproduced some of the rooms as they were in the second half of the 19th century. It's a really wonderful place, I always wonder there are so few people visiting it, especially as it's free.
When we got out of the museum by 4PM, it was 37°C outside (that's 98,6°F, in case you wonder), so we just fled back home, changed out of our costumes and enjoyed a cold shower. And then crashed between fashion magazines and the couch...
Sunday was sleeping in, more fashion history geek stuff, crochet and knitting, pictures editing, and ended with a grill party with the Darkstones and another friend, and Heimlich freaking the hell out of both my fellow costumer friends because OMG ! There's an alien in that belly ! I was clearly over the verge of exhaustion by the end of the week-end but it was soooooooo good ! I was sad to leaveheileen at the train station this morning, even knowing she has pictures of loads and loads of patterns for crochet lace to keep her busy.
On a side note, it was supposed to rain on Thursday and be around 27°C max all week-end. It was 10 degrees hotter and we eventually saw some humidity falling down from the sky this evening. Being outside with petticoats and corset when it's THAT hot is a bit too much, honestly.
Owie, I think I covered it all, although I barely scraped the surface of all the fun we had. *pouts* I'm missing you already !
Expect another post about pending projects, and a separate post just to show you the details of the casaque outfit - thanks to my wonderful photographerheileen. But for now, I'm going to bed. I'm even giving up on getting more patterns saved before the CoPA stops being free, I'm just waaaaaaay too tired.
The long version :
The ophtalmologist appointment on Thursday ate all my morning time, when I came home my parents were already there and I left before them to go pick
heileen up at the train station. Thursday's weather : no sign of the predicted rain, it was so hot in the station I feared I'd faint if I stayed in the hall.We spent Thursday evening geeking out on fashion pictures.
heileen brought me some GORGEOUS fashion plates I need to scan and upload. Early 1870's even, perfect inspiration for the Cradle Dress (or should I call it the dress of Mighty Red Chwanana ?). We proved to the Home Geek that costume geeks are no better than regular computer nerds when it's time to take care of the cooking while admiring some new gadget/fashion magazine. Oops, sticky rice...Friday started off with some grovery shopping : sugar, eggs and ground almonds to make... macarons ! Yes, we baked our own, and although they did not look exactly like professional ones, they were close enough and sure tasted yummy. See ? The flaming green salted butter caramel cream was particularly good. It must be said, though, that we were very close to NOT having macarons. Said green cream did not want to turn into caramel, the biscuits didn't bake correctly... but after a long fight, we were victorious, and
lady_darkstone came just right to make the coffee buttercream. The second half of the day we spent finishing our outfits, draping the plonaise on heileen's dress, handsewing (yes ! I did it !) the hem and various bits and bobs on the casaque. and making a cap for lady_darkstone. When said Lady arrived it was already evening, we still had to eat something and bake the tart, so I gave up on the shoes and just packed the china and glassware for the picnic.
We got up early on Saturday, ironed what needed to be ironed, tamed our hair, got into our costumes. I decided on a whim to add bows to rococo-ify my back-up shoes (hence the icon). A little before noon we were in the car and headed to the museum, where we set our table in the picnic area.
We were lucky that the temperature, although it was by far higher than what Miss Meteo had promised, did not rise too quickly, so that we were able to actually enjoy our meal and take a nice stroll through the park before retreating into the museum. We took pictures with varying degrees of goofiness (too bad we only got one of the ninka-zodiac knights-rococo-posture-fight), discovered hedges are slimming... errr... make me look less wide, as long as I'm not seen from the side, almost fell into a pond or a fountain (all three of us, though neither on the same spot nor at the same time), took many pretyt pictures of our costumes, and finally retreated into the air-conditionned museum for some rest and culture.
All my pictures of the outing are here, as well as a good part of
heileen's, and some of lady_darkstone's will go there as well, when I take the time to edit and upload them all. The museum people were just adorable (we gave them some of our macarons that wouldn't have survived an afternoon in the car), we almost had our private visit with one of the wards. It's an adorable place, they salvaged some of the original 17th century frescos, and otherwise reproduced some of the rooms as they were in the second half of the 19th century. It's a really wonderful place, I always wonder there are so few people visiting it, especially as it's free.When we got out of the museum by 4PM, it was 37°C outside (that's 98,6°F, in case you wonder), so we just fled back home, changed out of our costumes and enjoyed a cold shower. And then crashed between fashion magazines and the couch...
Sunday was sleeping in, more fashion history geek stuff, crochet and knitting, pictures editing, and ended with a grill party with the Darkstones and another friend, and Heimlich freaking the hell out of both my fellow costumer friends because OMG ! There's an alien in that belly ! I was clearly over the verge of exhaustion by the end of the week-end but it was soooooooo good ! I was sad to leave
heileen at the train station this morning, even knowing she has pictures of loads and loads of patterns for crochet lace to keep her busy.On a side note, it was supposed to rain on Thursday and be around 27°C max all week-end. It was 10 degrees hotter and we eventually saw some humidity falling down from the sky this evening. Being outside with petticoats and corset when it's THAT hot is a bit too much, honestly.
Owie, I think I covered it all, although I barely scraped the surface of all the fun we had. *pouts* I'm missing you already !
Expect another post about pending projects, and a separate post just to show you the details of the casaque outfit - thanks to my wonderful photographer
heileen. But for now, I'm going to bed. I'm even giving up on getting more patterns saved before the CoPA stops being free, I'm just waaaaaaay too tired.