Eccentric – Page 119 – Deborah Makarios

November 15, 2014

Wardrobe Cheats: The Doily Cap

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that when you rely on a simple solution, you will find at the last moment it won’t work. Last weekend, I hosted a Pride and Prejudice marathon for a few friends – the BBC miniseries with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, naturally – and I thought I’d dress up a bit.

Not being the kind of wonder-woman who can whip up a full historical outfit in a day or two (while writing a best-selling self-help book and raising a tankful of orphaned cuttlefish), I decided to wear the Empire-est clothes in my regular wardrobe, and Regencify the accessories.

Being in possession of a bonnet, my thoughts naturally turned first to that – but no sensible Regency woman would wear a bonnet indoors, in her own home. What she would wear, especially if she was a respectable married woman such as myself, is a cap. White, lacy, frilly – you get the idea.

Actually, even unmarried ladies of A Certain Age would wear caps – going bareheaded was a sign of being in the market for a husband. And from the Regency point of view, I am a lady of A Certain Age already, having passed the grand old age of twenty-seven. Jane Austen herself took up wearing them at about that age, “and they save me a world of torment as to hairdressing,” she wrote in a letter.

The classic cap-cheat is, of course, to simply plop a large round doily on one’s head. Nothing could be easier! Until one reaches the charity shop and finds there are no large round doilies to be seen. Clearly, there has been a lot of dressing up going on in these parts lately.

Desperation drove me to purchase a large rectangular doily, rejecting the genre/gender-bending little-old-lady yarmulke look suggested by the small round doilies on offer. Like Lydia Bennet, I would have to tear it apart when I got home and see if I could make it up any better.

After one or two false starts, I found a simple, suitable solution. The moral of the story: do not be abashed by staring at your reflection with a doily over your head. You look a fool; it will pass.

I pinned the two short ends together and sewed it up into a tube which would fit over my head. Then I realized my mistake and unpicked nearly half the seam.
I then turned it right-way out and ran a ribbon (all right, a shoelace, but I’ve replaced it with a ribbon) through the doily at the end-of-seam line, pulled it tight and tied a bow.
Now I had a sort of lace beanie with an enormous frill hanging off the top – a frill nearly as large as the cap itself.
This I arranged over the cap, and voila! a lacy cap with two rows of scalloped edging, and a bit of ribbon dripping down the back.

It’s so soft and comfortable I find I keep putting it on – as Jane Austen noted in her letter, it’s just the thing for a bad hair day.

What are your secrets for wardrobe short-cuts? Please share!
And remember: dressing up is not just for fancy dress parties, Hallowe’en, or cosplaying at ComicCon. Dressing up is for eccentrics.

November 12, 2014

Quote: Regency Refashion

“Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any better… there were two or three much uglier in the shop; and when I have bought some prettier-coloured satin to trim it with fresh, I think it will be very tolerable.”
Lydia Bennet, from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

November 8, 2014

Death to the Common Cold! Three Things that Don't Help and Five that Do

Having had a sort-of-but-not-quite cold for the last, oh, three months, I am about ready to get out there with a flamethrower and start frying some viruses. Are you with me?

Ok, I’m not really planning to let loose with a flamethrower, nor with the weapon of my (literal) dreams: the flamooka. (Flamethrower + bazooka. Yes, this is the kind of thing my subconscious mind comes up with while I sleep.)

Here are some other things that don’t work:

1) Joining the wackos who advise drinking home-made bleach as a cure-all. For one thing, there’s the risk of chemicals exploding in your face; and for another, why drink something you’d hesitate to use on the kitchen floor? Yes, it’ll kill any germs it encounters, but so would a flamooka, and you don’t see me swallowing one of those, do you? No, you don’t.

2) Taking antibiotics. The common cold is a virus. Antibiotics are useless against viruses, and taking them will only wipe out the beneficial bacteria in your system, leaving you open to anything that might stroll in. Not to mention that unnecessary antibiotic-taking is a leading cause of antibiotic resistance, which is how we get lovely things like untreatable necrotizing fasciitis (do not click unless possessed of a strong stomach).

Don’t take the antibiotics – or me and my flamooka are coming after you. If you want the placebo effect, swallow a tic-tac and tell yourself it’s a cure-all. Or pour a little white meths on a sugar cube and swallow that. It might not help your cold, but rumour has it that it makes you unattractive to bugs, so you’ll at least have one less thing to worry about.

3) Buying a cute, cuddly little model of the cold virus (also comes in pillow size!) and sticking pins into it. A useful way to store your pins, perhaps even some relief to your feelings, but of no proven health benefit (alas).

So, instruments of destructive chaos and cuddliness aside, what’s the plan of attack? How shall we rise up and conquer?

1) Rest. Don’t rise up, and conquer. Rest is good for what ails you, whatever that may be. (Except bed-sores.) This is why people are put in induced comas, although this may be a bit of an overreaction to a common cold.

2) Liquids. Especially hot liquids. Especially hot lemon, honey and ginger. (Nothing like a hot ginger for medicinal purposes!) Chili is another excellent ingredient, I hear, although I am seldom desperate enough to overcome my wussiness in the face of burning tastebuds. Garlic is another healthy additive, but you may find it makes the drink taste odd. Remember there is always water, which is good for you and tastes just as good if you let it get cold.

3) Fresh fruit & vegetables. Preferably not genetically modified to grow legs and dance the tarantella, or whatever it is they get them to do these days; and not covered in any sort of -cide, because -cide means kill, and who needs a killer vegetable when they’re sick?

4) Fresh air. Preferably with rain, hail and mist not included – getting cold doesn’t give you a cold, but it certainly doesn’t help. Consider: all the air in here has been circulated through your lungs and is thus all germy and yuck. Get rid of it and get in some fresh stuff.

5) Exercise. Can be combined with the acquisition of fresh air, but don’t overdo it. I know, it looks like I’m contradicting #1, but trust me, there is a balance to be found. Obviously, this balance involves a nice big fat rest sitting as close as possible to the fulcrum while a brisk little walk hangs off the far end.

Coincidentally, all these things are good for you the rest of the time too, which will save you going to the trouble of making new habits when you in due course recover.
Of course, there is nothing new in all this: it’s all Just Like Mother Made (except the flamooka – unless you had a very exceptional mother).

What’s the ancestral wisdom relating to colds in your family? Let’s pool our knowledge – together let us make the cold uncommon!

Disclaimer: Ancestral wisdom is not always smiled upon by medical authorities. Seek medical advice when ill, and don’t request (or accept) antibiotics for a virus.