Plaid Petticoats: In Which I Lose Spectacularly at Croquet

Yesterday was gloriously perfect, so it was fate that we were already planning to have our first historical picnic of season. We never go super accurate for these, as its a casual for fun outing, but I think this summer I want to make a couple of new pieces for my picnic wardrobe. In the meantime, we broke out my croquet set and looked quite pretty...but man, I can barely hold my own against people who actually know how to play. It was a good game anyway though, because we were equally good-natured and vicious, so the revenge battles were frequent. (Especially from Julia, who is evil. And has good aim. Drat.)

The whole party

I went for an asymmetrical pouf a la the early 1900s for this. It was a little less defined than I wanted, but the shapes worked pretty well. I ended up not using any of my actual rats (they're big) and just padding my (teased) hair out with a couple of home-made rats from my real hair. It's what they would have done in period, but tends to gross people out. Sorry--it's really not as weird as you're thinking.

terrible picture of my hair..the back is a giant pile of curls

side puffs...sorry, terrible cell-phone pictures!

As I wasn't wearing anything new (or anything I particularly care about), I took it as an opportunity to practice my photography skills. I'm learning a lot, but I'm not very good at putting the lessons into practice yet...the bright bright sun versus dark shade kind of threw me. But it was fun! And the garden was full of interesting people and things to practice on. Hooray!

Quinn caught me in the act (thanks for sharing, Quinn!)

picnic hats and stories (I was taking this when Quinn took the picture above)

All in all, it really was a lovely day. It had been a while since I got to hang out with my friends, and I really needed it. Even if I do suck at croquet.

our picnic spot

Luckily for me, Antonia is really patient...and sometimes all that practice pays off! I was really happy with this portrait.

BABY DUCKIES!! A whole family of duckies, in fact! Just like Make Way for Ducklings, one the most darling children's books ever.

watching the baby ducks

attempting to be picturesque on a bench. I need better blouses, but man I love that hat.

Quinn overlooking the pond

the swans are nesting--which means soon there will be baby swans!! Also, the swans/swan boats thing never gets old.

I love when people match their pets. This pair had fantastic great danes, and each guy sort of matched is dog--it was really cute. Also, in further adventures of the Awkward Photographer, they saw me (it might have been the hat), so I blurted "those are beautiful dogs!"

and it turns out, they are also really well trained. And better at posing than I am.

See? I have a limited range of poses (but aren't those flowers cool? they remind me of Dr Seuss!)

luckily, there were other interesting subjects to try. Like Washington here, who was showing some Bruins pride in a custom jersey

I wish the artist had been around, because these were all lovely

the roses were in bloom

after our picture walk we were tired from the sun, so we took a break to play cards

and then we rallied for croquet! (I'm saving the rest of the croquet pictures for another post)

Our croquet actually gathered quite a crowd. It was an interesting taste of what it might be like to have a reality show...and I think it's an experience I can live without. On the other hand, the Early Music Festival was this past week, and we met some really nice 18th century dancers who were visiting to attend. Sometimes being visible means you get to meet fun interesting people.