I'm back!

After a whirlwind 18 day tour of Paris, England, and London, I'm trying to keep the memories from blurring so I can write it all up in a totally separate blog from my costume one. I did write a daily journal with some details to remind me, and I took over 1300 photos! I didn't get to any costume sites :( but did see some at the V & A, and took photos of those. I even saw a few things there that surprised me. Finding antique shops was a joke. Unless you're extremely wealthy and like lots of jewelry, these places weren't what I was looking for. And their antiques are ancient to what we have here. Well, duh. The flea market I went to in Paris was dicey, as I was warned, but again too pricey. We didn't get into London early enough to go to Portobello Rd for their antique flea market but on recommendation, we did go to Camden Town's underground stables flea market, and that should be a tourist site in itself. However, that said, I did manage to find a couple things to bring home: a mourning bracelet, a skirt lifter, an ornate belt buckle, a straw boater, an Edwardian parasol and some old feathers.

 

I've been working on uploading my photos to my online album, and starting to fill in more details for my new blog. As soon as those are done, I'll post a link to them here.
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In the costuming news, on this Saturday many of our guild members are attending the grand opening of the new Central San Diego Library where we will reprise our characters from books but this time expanding to any books, not just English authors as we did at Balboa Park. I had planned on doing Mrs Lincoln and her Dressmaker, but my Mrs Keckley ended up not being able to do it, so I am going back to Miss Matty from Cranford in my 1830s gown. Since I have to take the trolley down there, I think this will be much easier to wear on it than a hoop. And I have my new corded petticoat to wear under it this time.