I would like to share a quiz I took, sort of for fun.
I normally don't take such quizes, or even bother to really think through my answers, but this time I did, and I was interested to see that my result is what I thought it would be.


Are you a normal person an indigo, crystal or Rainbw child ?

My Results:

You're more likely a Crystal Child !

Crystal children did start coming earlier than most websites say.You’re very sensitive, affective, forgiving and caring, you believe in the most unbelievable things and some people think you’re too naive while you’re mostly right. You have a very light and bright colored aura wich means you’re highly motivated  and you enjoy all types of music, art and most things that involves pretending and seeks very much creativity. You you’re smart and mostly seen as the idea guy who comes up with the most weird ideas but it always works! You enjoy working in a group as much as doing things on you’re own, you tend to be very shy and you don’t easily go toward others. You’re mosly quet and don’t talk untill spoken to. You’re a very talented daydreamer and oftely get lost in your world. Highly spiritual, you have a deep connection to nature and animals and you have strong ESP and intuation, you’ve maybe already seen ghosts and you experienced deja vu very oftenly due to you’re psychic abilities.




Hope you go check it out yourselves! Enjoy!! May your dreams guide you to that free and joyful place which exists within us all!

Fallen into tumblr

I have been very bad, and have been ignoring this blog for the benefit of tumblr. Gasp. I have been one of those who didn't think she will make a tumblog... then it happened for a project... It is too easy to just upload, pictures and whatnot, so easy, without having to feel that you want to add in lengthy explanations... bad girl, "badly done indeed" (who else always associates these words with Austen's Emma?). xD
I shall try to focus my attentions here.
But if anyone is interested, this is my tumblog.

Also, let us not forget! It is Spring Equinox today!!!

The two corsets

I realised I never posted pictures of my corsets, so I thought it would be time.

The purple corset was made in June, the cream in December.

The difference between them is that the purple has boning cases that are hidden (using bias binding), and the cream has boning cases showing. The cream, I was going for a tea-stained look, has two layers of cotton coutil, whereas the purple only has one and is not even a real cotton coutil, we just chose the strongest cotton blend they had at the store.

More of the cream (I left the purple at home when coming back to Edinburgh).

Both had this problem of sticking out at the abdomen which is due to fact that the pattern is an original from Corsets and Crinolines, so they would have worn skirts with it, and this would probably just help shape their fall.

The same pattern was used for both, unfortunately I am not very skilled with lacing myself into them yet, and it must be noted that they were both made last year when I was considerably lighter than I am now (after eating more and not being able to do exercises due to my operation, I did try running, but for now I can only allow myself a bit of dancing). I should probably wear a corset all day and get myself into a tightlacing program... to tell the truth I just want to be able to heal up and get back to my minor sport endeavours (yoga and dance, both which qualify as means of meditation in my world).
This is a first lacing photo with Photo Boot (hence the bad quality) I will probably give more tugs at it in a few minutes after my body settles into it a bit more.

Anyway, end of rant, back to my calendar making.

Today's find for daffodils

I am making a gift for a lady who helped me out with an operation I recently had, it's a calendar that I am illustrating (a small one), It will be historical, naturally.
*:P*
(that's me sticking my tongue out at education, or my school...whichever, and whoever, is so against the historical. Don't get me wrong, I see why it must be contemporary, they want it to be creative.)

Anyway, I was looking for some daffodil print I could use for the month of March, according to some it is the flower of the moth. I don't have too much time to finish it,  unfortunately, I can't keep one day for one illustration, so I might have to draw the print down or something similar.

"Daffodil textile, 1883–1900

Associated Artists (New York City, 1883–1907)

Printed cotton velvet

32 1/2 x 37 in. (82.6 x 94 cm)
Gift of Mrs. Boudinot Keith, 1928 (28.70.25)

Associated Artists designed a number of patterns to be printed on cotton velvets and velveteens. The use of a pile fabric as the ground for a printed pattern was relatively innovative at the time. On fabrics such as these, the three-dimensional texture and the light reflecting from the surface of the pile contribute to the decorative effect of the design. This pattern of daffodils, depicted with sinuous curving stems and leaves, is one of the firm's designs closest in spirit to the Art Nouveau style. A sense of rapid movement pervades the boldly drawn, naturalistic blossoms twisting and turning in all directions, as if caught on a windy spring day."

An old favourite

I must share an old favourite of mine: Recycled Costumes
To say the least, you can get lost on it for hours. Happy browsing!


The best thing is you can find lots of new costume movies, clips to watch, a complete winner I must say.

I wish I could find this (Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings), it looks hilarious. The first thing you notice though is they used the same set as the new BBC Emma (2009)

Marie-Antoinette...

Why is it that I feel that this title for the post is enough...?

I am sure we all laugh, and nod, this queen's name rings a bell to all of us. She lived in an era that is a favourite to many. So, you must excuse my overload of the 18th century, I am going through some old links I saved to be "read later", and I have been coming across this time period.

I must confess that at the moment I am not sure what time period is my favourite, which saddens me. I used to be a great Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and Regency era fanatic... so for now I just say Regency, if someone asks. I guess I am at a great change in my life as a whole, so everything, and literally everything (be it historical era, musician, type of music/band, author, poet, book, painting style, artistic era, oh my, even painting I think!), seems to be changing. I feel quiet lost, not having a comfortable distinct favourite and style... but I am sure it will establish itself, I just need to give myself, and Life some time to brighten up.

I am babbling on, so excuse me, but from now on I shall allow myself the pleasure to do so. I am just pulling away from the college work into the private here, as I said earlier on. And I needed to get my worries about favourites and style out.

Not to worry, I am getting to the point, and I will always try to make my paragraphs so it is obvious where the more interesting non-personal things start. (I won't start to defy my own sentence by trying to prove that, in fact, even these dresses are personal... personal preferences.... and such)

I want to share a link, a blog article:

18th century court costume and Marie-Antoinette

"I saw the Court Pomp and Royal Ceremony exhibition at Versailles on its closing day last June and would have hated to miss it. My expectations were very high, and yet I could not help being somewhat disappointed, not by the quality of the objects on display, which were magnificent, but by their scarcity. I should have known better, of course: how many 18th century court costumes could have survived till the 21st century?

Interestingly, the few that did have been preserved in the royal collections of northern Europe, for instance the coronation gown (below) of Queen Sofia Magdelena of Sweden. It was made in Paris of silver cloth, and consists, like all French court gowns, in three separate pieces: bodice, skirt and train. Indeed in the course of the 18th century all European courts had adopted the Versailles court costume. Note the width of the panniers: 3 meters (12 feet!) The depth is no more than 2 feet, which gives the gown the shape of a very elongated oval.

The back view of the same gown gives an idea of the length of the train:

The shape of the 18th century court costume, for men and women, originated at Versailles during the last decades of the reign of Louis XIV, and remained unchanged until the Revolution. It does not mean that court attire was immune to the dictates of fashion: fabrics, colors, ribbons and other decorative elements varied over time. But the cut of the garments was immutable.

Court costume was highly codified. Wearing a court gown was a privilege reserved for the Queen, the princesses of the royal blood and “presented” ladies. I have written a prior post on the preparations of dressing for Court. Wearing a court gown was mandatory for all ladies entitled to it, even for the Queen herself, on every formal occasion. The only acceptable excuse was an advanced pregnancy, obviously incompatible with the close-fitting shape of the bodice and the underlying grand corps (a special corset) that covered the entire abdomen.

Marie-Antoinette once apologized to the Venetian ambassador, who had come to Versailles to present his letters of accreditation, for not wearing a court gown on account of her pregnancy. If she had not done so, her wearing “regular” clothes on such an occasion would have been construed as a grave slight, and created a diplomatic incident. Court dress was no simple fashion matter.

See for exemple the wedding clothes (left) of the Crown Prince of Sweden, future King Gustaf III: gold cloth embroidered in gold, blue and red thread.The male court costume may have been more comfortable, but it was no less elaborate than its female counterpart. The King, princes of the royal blood and courtiers wore a three-part costume (breeches, waistcoat, coat) of embroidered fabrics, enriched with diamond buttons, decorations and trim.

The Swedish Ambassador to France, Count Creutz, had been entrusted with checking the latest fashions and ordering the best money could buy in Paris. The Ambassador gravely reported to Stockholm that velvet, after being all the rage the previous spring, was now hopelessly passé. In any case, judging by the quality of the result, Count Creutz acquitted himself very well of his delicate mission.

Indeed for State occasions, European sovereigns ordered all ceremonial clothes from France. Such attire was so ruinous that King Frederic III of Denmark had to levy a special tax, known as the “Princesses’ Tax” to pay for his daughters’ Parisian wedding clothes.

One of the most beautiful pieces on display at Versailles was this shimmering wedding dress (below) of Edwige Elisabeth Charlotte, Princess of Holstein-Gottorp, who married into the Swedish royal family.

The fineness of the silver lace on silver cloth creates a garment of ethereal beauty in spite of its bulk. Note the extreme thinness of the waist. The sleeves, which would have been made of rows of matching lace, are unfortunately missing. I can only guess they were reused by another Swedish princess.

This makes the comparison between these 18th century court gowns, in their pristine, unadulterated condition, with the famous “Marie-Antoinette” dress from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto (below) all the more striking. Here the skirt was altered to fit a round 19th century crinoline, and the plain ivory silk of the bodice does not match the exquisite embroidery work of the skirt and train. It should be noted that the Toronto gown was simply presented as “attributed to Rose Bertin” without any mention of prior ownership by Marie-Antoinette. I can only assume that such claim was not established to the satisfaction of the show’s curators.

After visiting the show, I purchased the (very highly recommended) Connaissance des Arts special issue dedicated to it, and read therein an interview of Pascale Gorguet Ballesteros, Chief Curator of the Musee Galliera, and co-curator of the exhibition.

When asked whether Marie-Antoinette’s taste in fashions was copied at Court and beyond, Ms. Gorguet Ballesteros explained that the Queen was the the “number one fashion model” in France and greatly contributed to the success of the fashions she liked. But Marie-Antoinette did not “invent” any distinct style of dress. She launched nothing, she simply adopted some of the fashions available at the time.

Especially as a young woman, the Queen loved clothes, and other ladies tended to follow her taste. It was the Duchesse d’Orléans, then Duchesse de Chartres, who introduced her to the famous dressmaker Rose Bertin in 1774, as, incidentally, she also introduced her to Madame Vigée-Lebrun. “Marie-Antoinette,” says Ms. Gorguet Ballesteros, “sits at the border of two worlds, the sclerotic world of the Court and the world of fashion, where one is led to believe that one is going to express one’s individuality. But she has the misfortune of being of being the Queen.” When she sat for Madame Vigée-Lebrun “en gaulle,” in a simple white muslin dress, she created a scandal.

Marie-Antoinette was never forgiven for abandoning the traditional court costume in what may now be the most famous of her portraits.

See also Court costume: the male side."

Quoted from Catherine Delors, Versailles and More.

And they rolled themselves around...

That was my first thought upon seeing this 18th century iron framed hoop-skirt. It must be fun, imagine "Darling, I am too tired to walk, push me." The roller-skate sneakers of 1750!

However; to my dismay, they are not rollerblade crinolines (which I'm sure I wouldn't be the first to come up with); they are iron-framed and wooden dress forms. Indeed, tools, for the dressmaker... they are from Coup d'Etat, and are a Pair of 18th Century Iron Frame Wood Dress Forms/ Mannequin


More information: France, Circa 1750. The paper clad bust top of later date, circa 1940; beautiful feminine wood dress forms; on iron frame terminating to wood wheels at base