Here’s a trailer for a crazy documentary about tightrope phenomenon Philippe Petit and his successful 1974 attempt to cross the span between WTC 1 & 2 on a wire. The film is streaming on Netflix!
SS United States Conservancy…
Keep up with the efforts to “save” the SS United States at the SSUS Conservancy blog:
http://www.ssunitedstatesconservancy.org
Their main site:
http://www.ssunitedstatesconservancy.org/SSUS/Home.html
Save our national flagship!
*ABJECT PANIC!*
The Big U is for sale. The Big U is for sale. The Big U is for sale.
🙁
http://www.planphilly.com/node/8106
I guess NCL has done all they can realistically do, but crap.
Now watch; the QE2 hotel plans will fall through, too, and now she and the United States can go have a picnic at Alang Beach with the ghost of Norway/France. >:{
Cindy’s Birthday Tea
This past weekend, I went back down to OC for my friend Cindy’s birthday. It was a wonderful few days! For her party, a group of us went to the Tea House on Los Rios in San Juan Capistrano, the same place Cindy and I went back on November 1. Here are a couple of photos from the event…


Cindy wore a mid-Edwardian dress she made herself. I wore my 1912 tea/luncheon gown (made by Tracie) and the 1911ish “Lunardi revival” hat I’d put together for the GBACG “My Fair Lady” event last August.
Fun in OC: My new 1880 gown
A new gown! Or is it? Actually, it’s a new variation on an old theme of mine: Winona Ryder’s Newport archery ensemble from Martin Scorsese’s 1993 Age of Innocence adaptation.

The ensemble is fiercely cute, with little faux pannier-looking things radiating out over the hips from a shirred panel on the skirtfront and layers of eyelet ruffles cascading down the skirt. It’s a little reminiscent of the gown on the left in this French fashion plate from the early 1880s:

My friend Tracie Arnold of Past & Present Creations made the fresh iteration of my original, beloved version of this gorgeous natural-form era ivy dress. The first dress – constructed by Victoria Riddenour, hand-embroidered by me, and photographed beautifully by Lani Teshima – had become too small to even THINK about wearing.
I wore the new ensemble to San Juan Capistrano on Halloween weekend, where my pal Cindy and I had tea and generally caroused around the old town area. Cindy wore a beautiful, embroidered black velvet ball gown that she’d made for Bat’s Day.


Outfit notes: The straw skimmer is a Victoria Riddenour original. My corset is Denise Nadine‘s late Victorian “Nettie” style. I made the combination undergarment (which you can’t see) from Truly Victorian’s 1876 combination pattern (TV105). My garnet earrings are from Lacis.
For Austenprose: Regency costuming in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey adaptations
As part of her “Go Gothic!” tribute to Northanger Abbey, my friend Laurel Ann invited me to do a light look at the costuming in the 1986 and 2007 television adaptations of the novel.
Anyway, I hope people enjoy it.