Feminine Fashion Week at The New BBC! :)

I am very pleased, very excited, and entirely charmed to announce The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick-Maker's Feminine Fashion Week! From now on you will hear this event referred to as Feminine Fashion Week at the New BBC. :) (Yes, if you think about it this blog's name can be acronym-ed as that. :)This blog event will kick off this Thursday and run for a week. Mark it down: Feminine Fashion Week at the New BBC is running Dec. 15-22, 2011!

 I am so excited to get into this week and to remind myself and all of us that dressing modestly and femininely does not have to mean potato-sacks and a beau-font ribbon in our hair. *smile*

We can have some style and some fashionable flair to our clothing and still be honoring the Lord and our brothers in Christ. We'll have interviews, posts on modest fashion, and each day during the event I will post a picture of my femininely fashionable outfit. ;) I am even thinking of having some surprises along the way, such as (and don't quote me on this...) a giveaway! So please advertise for this week by putting the picture on your side-bar and linking this BBC to it, and join me for a week of feminine fashion! :)

~Rachel

"Shake me up, Judy!" :)

All right everyone! At last I have the pictures up of the present for the friend I was hinting about. I made her a cookbook called "Shake Me Up, Judy!" The Purist's Guide to Dickensian Cookery. I scoured my copies of Dickens looking for mentions of food in the text, then pulled those quotes, rummaged up corresponding recipes, and generally knocked myself out making it into a lovely cook-book for her. I tea-stained paper (which I can do a tutorial of sometime if you'd like) and used that as the base, then sort of "Scrapped" it with other paper and original illustrations. Anyway, here is a peek at it! (There were many more pages, but I didn't want to bore you)

This is the page right before "Fezziwig Pie", which is a variation of Mince-meat pie.

Mrs. Cratchit's Christmas Pudding

From The Cricket on the Hearth...

Moving on from the Christmas Tales into Bleak House...

"You have four classes this afternoon--I would recommend a hasty sandwich " ~Mr. Turveydrop, the model of Deportment, and father of Prince.

Mrs. Joe Gargery's Pudding from Great Expectations...

A page from the Great Expectations section with a scene between Pip and Pocket. :)

I had fun with the decor on this one...

Nothin' like a good pen and some ink to set you up for success...

Here are some pictures of the little things my sisters loved that I made to add some flair to the pages...

♫"Brown paper packages tied up with string...."♫

A teeny pass-port...hee-hee. :)

If you look closely you will see that the letters are indeed addressed to Honoria Barbary, (eventually Lady Dedlock) and I took care to include the "Smells like ladies" quote on that page. :D

Love letters...

Anyway, that is just a peep at it! I hope you enjoyed seeing what I've been working on. I know I told you that you could make fabulous presents at home...I spent hours making this book, but guess how much money I spent on this gift?

Any guesses?

Come on now, guess!

Ready?

Okay....

Four Cents. Yep. That's all, and that was for ribbon to tie it with. Score! ;) What sorts of gifts have you made this year?

Just a bit of Love.

Do you ever get to that point in your personal Bible reading when there are just so many choices of where to read you get overwhelmed and end up reading a Psalm? :D Lately I have been doing that, but it was not entirely satisfying, so I did a sister-ish thing and asked Sarah to assign me a book to read.

 "Ummm....First John?" she answered, looking at me as if to be sure I was okay.

It was an off-the-cuff answer, but Sarah? I'm so glad you gave it to me! :D I hadn't read 1 John in awhile, but ever since I started reading I've been overwhelmed and delighted by the richness and tenderness of this book of God's word. Right from the start John gives the Gospel and tells us that he writes these things to us that our joy may be full.That, right there, is such a great reminder of what the Christian life must be. Full of joy and abundant in it.

Maybe it's because I'm a writer myself and I pay attention to little things like sentence structure, but I was also impressed by the very word choices John used. He piles words upon words in a way that leaves you feeling as if your arms were full to the brim with packages of God's love. There is no condemnation in the way John writes, only a desperate plea for us to recognize the love of Jesus for us. I love the first part of chapter 2:

"My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world."

Wham! The richness of the gift of grace is seen so clearly here, even by how we are addressed as "Little children." Not Dirty Little Sinners, not You People Out There, not Everyone in the World Who Needs a Savior, but as if Christ stooped down, gathered us in His strong, all-encompassing arms, and whispered, "Little Children, come to Me."

 Then in 1 John 2:22 he says, "Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also."

This verse is worded so flawlessly. It states the case of things with clarity and conciseness, without pointing fingers. It is so beautifully black and white and loving. Deny the Son and you won't have the Father either. But acknowledge the Son and you have both of Them. :)
In the end of Chapter Two there is a whole paragraph that strikes deep chords with me:

"These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him." (1 John 2:26-27)

I will admit that I struggle with loving the Prunes & Prisms variety of Christians--those who value propriety above a personal relationship with Jesus. We have all met these poor, constricted people who put on so many garments of "convictions" that they can scarcely breathe, they are so pressed on from all sides.

 I want to caution us all to only put on the convictions God hands us, not ones that Men, fallible Men tell us to put on. There are times when God may use Men to convict us, but listen for the Shepherd's voice and listen only to Him. As he says, we do not need to be taught by Men, for the Holy Spirit and God's word will teach us all things, as it has already taught us.
Did we need people to tell us taking a cookie from the jar was wrong as a child? No, we knew it was wrong because the Holy Spirit was teaching us. Do we need people to tell us to do or not to do something? No. Ask Jesus about it and He will show you His stand on the point. He will answer, and after that don't mind what Men say--you've got the approval of the Most High Lord.
 Anyway, I think I've succeeded in taking you for a hopeless ramble again, but I just thought I'd share some of the things the Lord had been teaching me recently. I hope it encourages one of you!

And so the Christmasing Begins... :)

Christmas has always been one of my favorite times of the year. :) So many of my childhood memories are linked to our traditions and the simple joys of this season...each ornament on our tree is so much more than a decoration--it links the present with the past and takes me back to feeling like a little girl. [Though I am no so very ancient now.]
From this point on to Christmas I am always busy making gifts for family and friends--at first through necessity from having no money at all, and now by habit and preference, though this year money is an issue. I love the challenge of making something amazing without spending a red cent. I have a huge [relatively] present in the works for a dear friend of mine, and I will post pictures of it tomorrow night or Saturday morning--after I've given it to her. I am proud to say that I will have spend all of about...10 cents (if that) on this present, but if I was selling it I'd go for....a whole lot more. I ought to patent the idea and make millions. ;)
But back to Christmas--In recent years my satisfaction as far as gifts go has gone far more into making them than into receiving them, though I love to get gifts as well. There is a supreme happiness and rightness in spending hours on a gift for another person. I could make the same exact gift for myself but there would be little contentment in that--why would I want to keep it when I know it will make that person so happy? :)
As this post is already disjointed and rambling and doesn't know Where It's Going, I will kick off two more random points.
Point One: I am loving Michael Buble's Christmas music this year...his voice is just so classic and vintage and perfect for all my beloved carols!

Michael Buble "White Christmas" 

(One of my favorites! Gotta listen to it! :)

Point Two: Click here to read Mr. Woodhouse's opinion on what a lover should give his beloved for the 12th day of Christmas! :D (Thanks to Miss Georgiana Darcy for pointing me to it!)

Entirely Swoon-worthy ;)

If I had all the time in the world, and nothing else on my plate, I'd turn Seamstress in a heartbeat. :) But that wouldn't fit too well with the whole "BBC" thing...there aren't any nursery rhymes about historical dress-makers, are there? ;) Here are some of my inspirations when I do follow the sewing bug...
The Story of a Seamstress - Atlanta's projects never cease to elicit admiring, envious, altogether-drooling sighs from me. This is historical sewing at it's prime.


A Needle Pulling Thread-- Because an afternoon in my dear friend Joanna's company is delightful, even when ripping seams. :)

Sewing in the Past-- Rebecca is just simply adorable, and she sews costumes for theaters and plays all that amazing jazz. :)

Interview with The Young Victoria costume designer, Sandy Powell --since I was all agog over the costumes in this movie, I was hopelessly enamored with this website.

This is a hilarious website, devoted to spying out "recycled" movie costumes! Gotta love it. :)

And my absolute favorite.... Cosprop! This is the Costume Warehouse in London where the BBC gets so many of its costumes for period dramas--in the gallery you can click around and see up-close photos of all the swoon-worthy costumes, including trims and embroideries, fabrics, and more!

Ahhhh....I am seriously thinking about making something elaborate as soon as I gather together enough money to buy material and trims and things.... :) I'd like to do a combination dress of these two:

The Rose and Gold gown from The Young Victoria....

And Belle's gown from Beauty and the Beast....I would just need to decide once and for all if I look good in yellow/gold, and then decide how to fix the dilemma of it's being off-the-shoulder....but aren't they lovely? :) What sewing projects are you working on?

Ah, yes, I could easily morph from baker to seamstress. ;) 

Of Ice-cream, Smithfield, and Friends :)

My big brother, Daniel, turned 21 last weekend! :) We had a huge surprise party for him and then went ice-skating. But it was also an ulterior motive...ahem... ;) Because we share many of the same friends, the Taylor family was invited, and since the Taylor family was invited, that meant that I would get to spend a chunk of time with Abigail, one of my dearest friends. I felt like it was my birthday. *smile*
Monday, I passenger-seat-drove her to downtown Historic Smithfield. No matter that most of the shops are closed on Mondays--we were determined to have a blast.

We began by discovering that small, historic towns don't wake up till at least 10 a.m. So we wandered down through a lumpy maze of "beautification projects" [another word for road-work] to Smithfield Station, and it was there I fixed the flash settings on my sister's camera and stopped looking like a ghost. 

Me attempting to look confident while trying to fix the said flash settings...

There are some stinkin' gorgeous homes in Smithfield, and if it were not for the fact that on the way down there all the pictures turned out phantom-like and eerie from the lighting, you would see more than these two:

An acquaintance of ours used to live in this doozy. :) I am vicariously rich, apparently.

The Mansion on Main B&B...

After spending all that time down at the Station we wended our way back to the main street. I had to teach Abigail what maracas were since she isn't the niece of a talented percussionist, but after I taught her, she was jammin'. ;) 

We wandered, therefore, for much of the morning, in and out of antique stores, up to doorsteps only to find the shops closed, into a pricey art gallery, into the Christmas Store, down back alleys...into old courthouses... ;) We stopped into the side-garden of the Olde World Tea Company and took some photos...

 

I have inherited the talent of not knowing what to do with my hands in pictures...

A Harriet Smith in the making. All I need is a Grecian dress and an ancient jar to hold.

She makes me laugh. :)

There was something incredibly dead and stiff laying on a bench, but I revived it by pulling it over to the Ice-cream Parlor. ;)

Soon it was very perky indeed, and ate a BLT with Great Relish. ;)

Afterward we got ice-cream and collapsed on a sunny bench, feeling the after-effects of the ice-skating and the morning's walk keenly. 

Sunny benches are also almost always sleepy benches. We had to squish to take a self-portrait. :P

I went for the double-scoop, this being the first time I wasn't broke and depending on Daniel to buy me ice-cream. It was chocolate and strawberry cheesecake. :) 

She stuck with Muddy Sneakers. :)

We talked about everything under the sun (literally, since we were sitting in a puddle of warm autumn sunlight) and we giggled over being asked where was a good place to buy pantyhose, and we ate our ice-cream, and made faces at chihuahuas who were raging mad, but stuck in a car. 

Abigail tried to woo Ben Franklin....

But I won him. ;) 

The sunshine was very bright, thus my scrunchy face, and Abigail's tolerating smile. 

A rather interesting picture of me kissing a toad and hoping he'd turn into something handsomer...but it didn't work out so well, because the owner of the shop came upstairs after us and stood there, and suddenly it didn't seem like such a great idea to be kissing her bejewelled amphibians in case she got it into her head that we ought to buy them. ;) 

Yes, be impressed at my attempt at artistic photography...and thank Abigail for crossing her ankles so sweetly. ;) It was my own effort at being like Sarah. But since I can't be a photographer and a writer and a butcher and a baker and a candlestick maker, that was my Swan-Song. ;)

Thanks for the loan of your camera, Sarah, and thanks Abigail for the great times we have together! :) 

        ~Rach

Older Sister Syndrome

"But really ma'am, I think it must be hard on younger sisters not to have their share of the fun just because the older sisters have not the means or inclination to be married."

So says Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, and so say I. I have always been the oldest sister of six in my family, and the oldest girl in my extended family. I only have one group of cousins, and the first girl in the Walker family is only 12 at present. So I unashamedly admit to not knowing how it is to have an older sister. I get vexed at my younger sisters for not listening to me over things, but how would it be to have someone always above you, always having the final say, always getting to do things you aren't getting to do?....Hmm...frankly, I don't think I'd like it very well. We must be patient with the younger girls, not knowing how it is to see a sister you love and admire off doing things, having experience and opportunities you aren't at the age to have yet. We get peeved when the younger girls complain over something we get to do yet again, but I don't think we grasp the idea of how hard it must be to wait.
This brings up a point: As older sisters, it is then our responsibility and our privilege to set our younger siblings up for success. One of my dearest friends is a younger sister, and she'll say with a half-smile and perfect good-humor, "Rebekah's in one of her Oldest-Sister moods!" And it makes me laugh, ashamedly, and squirm just a little, because I know I have those moments where the only thing on my mind is the mission at hand and everything else goes by the wayside. I don't think they happen frequently, {Thank you, God!}but all the same,  I'd hate to be reviewed like a book, and hear it said, "Rachel was a pretty good older sister...she bossed us a around a bit, and was always rather superior, and she was always too busy to do such-and-such..."
My my! Heaven forbid that would be my rating! [And just to calm you, I don't think any of my dear girls would say that of me.] God has placed us older sisters in our positions--we don't need to try to forsake that place, but let's use it kindly. We do have more opportunities than the younger girls--and that's okay. But I guess I would just caution us to not fall into condescension, like miniature Lady Catherines, and we must be careful not to be patronizing either. Our younger sisters are not our subjects, or our minions. I know from experience with my own blood-cronies that they are perfect candidates for the best of friends. Older sisters have a lot of say. We have clout, we have privileges, we have the blessing of more experience, hopefully more wisdom, and more years than the younger girls. But let's face it--we are all flawed, and we need to hurry and climb off our pedestals and just enjoy our sisters. :) ~Rach