So I am finally revealing a couple of weird obsessions…everyone has them, you know. Just watch that “Sex and the City” episode where Carrie tries to date someone who is perfectly normal. It’s not possible. But anyway, I love — love! — costumes, and I’ve always wanted to make a medieval/renaissance costume, like this one, a village wenches dress (some versions are, of course, sexier than others). I’ve also found that saying “wench costume” induces strange behavior in men. But anyway, I once went to a Renaissance Fair in the DC area with Bert, our awesome but long-lost geek friend, and was suitably impressed (there was a “Catherine the Great” costume that looked like it cost in the thousands of dollars). I was irritable that the “Renaissance Fair” focused so much on medieval dress and such, but in looking through historical dates, it seems that the Italian Renaissance began in 1400 and the European Renaissance around 1600 (mas o menos) so I retract my mutterings about historical accuracy; history is viewed in the eyes of the historian and if we go by the Italian date, indeed England was still deeply entrenched in the medieval period (aka, no bathing). Even if we go by the European date, knights were still kicking around until the 1700s, when steel was discovered and those old suits of armor became relics, as they could be pierced with a steel blade (incidentally, steel was known in Asia far before this). But anyway. Back to the point.
Wench dress. I just like to say it. So I love costumes, possibly because I was not allowed to dress up for Halloween as a kid, and I love the Medieval period, and in doing some Harry Potter parties for the new book and for his birthday (July 30 — Happy Birthday Harry!) I ran into a lot of other obsessed people, including some members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and yes, I did have to look up the word anachronism.
So, I plan to hoof it over to JoAnn’s today and find a wench dress pattern, although Uncle Fergie and his minions did tell me a secret about bodice making that I won’t reveal here but employs the use of modern duct tape (oh, don’t you wish you knew!). On Saturday I will attend some kind of audition for a play in hopes they’ll want me to make more costumes (yeah!). Why am I blogging all of this, you may ask? Pure joy and finding 30,000 people as weird as I am, that’s all. And joy at bantering with a tall, red-haired Scotsman, of course, which I haven’t done since I was actually in Scotland in 1996 (no offense to Sande, my beloved Scots mentor, who doesn’t banter but only grins evilly from time to time). Now if I can just convince Marti that I need some cool medieval weaponry…
