"What a splendid day! ... I pity people who aren't born yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course, but they can never have this one."
We read the books over and over again - Mom read them aloud to us, then we read them silently to ourselves a dozen times. Needless to say - we loved them! :)
In fact, we loved them so much that we refused to watch the movies, for fear it would dash the image we had in our minds from reading the books - "After all," we said, "Anne is all about imagination!" and so we bore stares of disbelief from all our friends when they would talk about the movies, and we'd have to admit, that in our late teens, we still hadn't seen the movies.
Mrs. Linhart was one who insisted that we HAD to watch them. She tried to get us to do it for years actually, because she liked them that much. She loves the movies as much as we love the books! Which makes her a kindred spirit, because, either way, movie or book, it means that we both LOVE Anne to death. :)
A little over a year ago, another friend, Christie, gave Kathryn the DVD of the 1st Anne of Green Gables for her birthday, along with an invite up to her in-laws house where they have an in-house theater, to watch it for the first time.
And....we just couldn't resist any longer.
And guess what. We liked it. A lot. :)
I still hold on that the books are better, but the movie is pretty great too, especially in an age where it's next to impossible to find innocent, clean movies.
Actually, we liked it so well that we rented the second movie from the library the next week and watched that too - we figured we may as well go in all the way! :)
So that's my Anne of Green Gables confession. Now onto what this post is really about - Mrs. Linhart's Anne of Green Gables tea party, and my outfit. :)
As Mrs. Linhart's birthday was coming up, Emily, Kathryn, and I knew that the most meaningful party we could give her would be an Anne of Green Gables tea party, so we had planning sessions of what to make for it, Emily came over and we watched the movies to "get inspiration", and it was all around a fantastic party!! Time spent with kindred spirits is always good.
"Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world."
We had to make Plum Puffs... and they were SO GOOD!!! :)
My sister wrote out Anne quotes and put them around the table.
Yep, that's Raspberry Cordial (the non-alcohlic type)
To the right are little chicken salad cups, cucumber sandwiches and carrot cake. We decided on the chicken salad because of the quote:
"I just wish I was a rich American and could spend my summer at a hotel and wear jewels and low-necked dresses and have ice-cream and chicken salad every blessed day." (said by Jane Andrews in the book)
We put doilies across the ceiling - it was just a whimsical flair to the day, and after the fact we remembered Diana talking about how many doilies she wanted to have when she got married, so it fit the theme too! :)
A green table cloth, with a lace one over it, swirled napkins to resemble the seaside shells, white flowers for "The White Way of Delight", homemade chalkboard place cards, and of course, the slate with the famous "Ann(e) Shirley has a very bad temper" written on it. :) We were going to crack the slate, but decided not to... there was no head to crack it over anyway. :)
One of my dearest friends, Emily! We look like Anne and Diana here!
"I believe I could be a model child if I were just invited out to tea every day."
And here's my outfit....
The skirt is made from Simplicity #9723, which is the same thing I used for the petticoat. I ditched the V insert on the skirt, and instead cut the pattern down the side back, to have 5 seams total on the skirt rather than the 3 it originally had. And then I did pleats instead of gathers, and buttons/buttonholes instead of the zipper. I had to make a placket for that, and finally I added the tucks.
The blouse is a combination of Simplicity #9723, Butterick #3992 and rectangles, and tweaks and my imagination. Honestly, I don't totally remember what I did to get to this point, other than make mock-ups, stare at movie screen caps, and make lots of mistakes. :)
The front has 3 tiny pleats across the seam. It's made of white muslin and has a lace overlay.
"A flattering looking glass is a promoter of amiability."
The skirt is made of cotton sateen, and I will make you all jealous when you hear that I got it for a whopping $2.70 a yard..... :)
Since the skirt is flared, putting tucks in the skirt would have been a nightmare, so I did strips of fabric and then hand stitched them on, so they look like tucks.
The back buttons...
.... and so does the skirt
The sleeve also has 4 tucks in it.
We did a dramatic reading of "The Lady of Shallot" for the party - reciting poetry is becoming such a lost art... but after reading poems, you can see why... they are terribly depressing. :)
A true statement....
"Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?"
