A Victorian enigma.

Image: Freefoto.com

Can you discover the answer to this riddle?  It is an "enigma" from Godey's Lady's Book from July 1855.

Enigma 25. 
TAKE a cross letter, and two-thirds of the sea,
Unite them together; the product will be
What some people say gives to scandal a zest,
And oft is found worst where they say it is best;
A traitor’s its doom—for ‘tis quartered away,
And for such execution too dearly we pay;
Yet ‘tis treated still worse, for, by royal desire,
In the palace ‘tis “drawn” through hot water and fire. 

The clue to the answer is in the photo above!

Picnic recipes from Godey's of July 1855.

Lemon balm at History Park,
San Jose, Ca.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach.

Wow, the weather is really starting to heat up around here!  June is usually not a really warm month in this area, but I think we'll be breaking some heat records in the next few days or so ... This is when we should air out the house and get outside in the cool mornings and evenings, and then shut ourselves away from the heat in the afternoon with something cold and refreshing to drink.  To get a break from sodas, make some iced tea or tisane (you can make it by the pitcher and just keep it in the fridge all the time) or some lemonade, which are not only good for hot weather, but for the sick and invalids, as recommended by Godey's Lady's Book in 1855:

New costume plan: a sheer dress from the 1840s!

Image from Wikipedia.

Well, I've settled on the 1840s as one of my favorite fashion eras, and now that I've made a nice wool gown from 1848-ish, I need a sheer gown for summer, right?  Of course.  My costume guild's upcoming Victorian Picnic in the garden of the Fallon House in San Jose gives me the perfect excuse reason to make what the Victorians called a "clear muslin gown".

Celebrate the Queen's Jubilee with a special afternoon tea

Cherries Jubilee, Wikimedia Commons.

 Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria are the longest-reigning monarchs in the history of the U.K. -- amazing that they beat out all the men!  There are a lot of events and festivities scheduled for this weekend in the U.K., the Commonwealth nations, and in households where Brits, Canadians, and their friends live, including the Sunday Lunch (tomorrow).  Red, white and blue bunting, ribbons, and flags are used to decorate homes, businesses, and even cakes this year!  Many people are decorating regular cakes with the Union flag in fondant, or red and blue sprinkles, but why not adapt a recipe or two invented for Queen Victoria's Jubilee back in 1897 and bring some history into it?

Tutorial: Steampunk-friendly millinery flowers

Japanese hana kanzashi flowers turned into
Steampunk-friendly millinery flowers!

I've taken a bit of a detour from my Victorian and 1912 day dresses and started to flesh out an idea I had for a Steampunk hat trim.  I usually don't make my own hat trims -- heck, I have trouble using pre-made trim and silk flowers on my hats -- because I just don't have the right kind of imagination to come up with something that looks good.  A few years ago I was at Costume Academy -- a one-day costume conference put on by the Greater Bay Area Costumer's Guild -- and ended up taking a class on hana kanzashi, or the delicate, elaborate flower-bedecked hairpins and headdresses that Japanese geishas wear. Making them involves doing origami with tweezers and 1/2 inch squares of hand-painted China silk ribbon to make the individual flower petals, and is very time-consuming and fiddly.  I didn't really know how I would ever use the information, but because I was getting ready to help with the costumes for a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado, I thought it might come in handy for making headdresses for the women in the cast.  While I didn't end up making any headdresses at that time, I did start thinking about how to alter the design and production for theater costume purposes.  I ended up with cool Steampunk propeller-flowers for my hat (which I don't have yet, but that's another story)!

Golden Gate National Cemetery, So. San Francisco, CA.

While the main conflicts of the Civil War occurred far away from San Jose, California did participate in the fighting, with local skirmishes between Union and Confederate sympathizers.  California was split between North and South in its sympathies, with more Confederate sympathy in southern California, and more Union sympathy in the North.  Since the gold fields were in Northern California, the Union received large donations of California gold, which greatly supported the war effort.  California’s brand-new state legislature also sent multiple companies of men to serve in the Union army, most ending up replacing more experienced soldiers stationed at army forts in the Midwest, but several seeing action on the front lines by joining up with Massachusetts and other Northern states’ militias.  The conflict split the nation in more ways than one, and the scars from those wounds are still sore in some areas of the U.S.!

Titanic Survivors' Reunion Picnic and Commemoration

"Wild Blue Yonder" rose

We had a lovely time at the Rose Garden on Saturday.  A small group of us gathered at a shady picnic table and enjoyed a menu inspired by the "Last Dinner on the Titanic" menu, as well as some recipes from Mrs. Rorer's cookbook from 1912.  Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the table or the food, but you can imagine from the menu:

Ginger Ale and Tea Punch
Iced Black Tea

Cucumber, Mint and Cream Cheese Sandwiches

view of the Rose Garden

Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Sandwiches
Creole Sandwiches (cream cheese, cheddar, tomato, and sweet pepper)
Stone-ground Wheat Crackers (standing in for the Cabin Biscuits from the Titanic menu)

Fresh Strawberries
Fresh Cherries
Coconut Cake
Coconut Lemon Sandwich Cookies

I wore my partially-restored antique lingerie blouse, with my walking skirt made from Sense & Sensibility's Beatrix Potter pattern.  It actually has a higher waistline, more in line with 1912 fashions, but because of the drape of the blouse, and the fact that my ribbon belt slid down to my natural waist, you can't tell from the photos.  I'll have to put it on again and take better photos of the line of the skirt.

"Europeana" roses

My friend Sara also wore a vintage dress; she actually took a vintage nightgown, made a slip out of vintage fabric to wear underneath, and wore it as a summer day dress with a vintage hat and parasol!  When I get the photos from the other ladies who were present, I'll post them.

It was extra fun because Saturday was Senior Prom for the local high schools, and there were a bunch of young ladies and gentlemen in evening dress, taking photos in the garden!