in sunshine & in shadow

What a lovely weekend!


I had such a good time with girliegirl32786. We giggled, sewed, ate, snarked, schemed and barely slept - it was a typical visit really. :> On Friday we went to tea at Pinkadilly with Mom and sadievale which was fun. The rest of the day (except for the Ikea-trip-that-never-was) was spent sewing. I finished up my Poe bertha (which would have never happened without Aubry's help - thanks Luv!) and Aubry worked on her stomacher. I made her take progress pics so you should see them soon on her LJ.

The next day sadievale came over at 9am and we spent the morning getting dressed together. I did everyone's hair so the girls helped me out by finishing off the lace on the bertha and steaming my ruffled petticoat. Teamwork is a good thing.

We made great time to Baltimore and met up with missphilomena, her Mom and a family friend, bauhausfrau, padawansguide and viennabelle. Tea was wonderful. The hotel's atmosphere was really lovely and the food was quite tasty. The sandwiches won a A++ in presentation - I only wished there were more!

After tea we went to the Poe celebration (nice and early this time). The program was, again, excellent. John Astin was amazing. He was a man in a three piece black suit on a stage with a table and chair reading selected works and letters. Yet as he read (with one of the nicest, sexist voices ever) I felt chills and even had tears running down my face at one point (I need to remember a hankie next time). The talent and power of his voice was amazing. His choice of selections and the way he wove them together was fabulous as well. You could tell he was really passionate about the subject, it really was magical. He read my two favorite Poe pieces too, The Raven and Search for El Dorado, which made me very happy.

The evening ended with the toast to Poe and a soprano singing Amazing Grace and Auld Lang Syne. It was a nice uplifting way to end the evening. Afterwards we hung out and took pics while we waited for John Astin's autograph line to die down. After getting our signatures and pics and saying our goodbyes to missphilomena, we headed to an Irish pub for a snack. More fun was had (Poe cake anyone?) as we continued to scheme about costume plans and events for the year.

We got back to Fredericksburg about 2:30am. What a day! For my pics follow the link...

http://www.jennylafleur.com/dressup/2009.0131/album/index.html