Matching Monday – Avonlea Girls

As I confessed yesterday I’m highly influenced by the Anne of Green Gables mini series here. But anyway, I tried to stick to my own imagination, too. The outfits today are more like something I can imagine the characters would wear if they lived today, but still inspired by the 19th century.

So, let’s start with our heroine!

The outfit turned out completely different to what I had imagined before. But anyway, I like how it came out, except of one detail that could be better, but I wasn’t able to find the right thing, so I’m perfectly fine with what we have here. So, here are the parts of the coord:

Jumperskirt: The thing that bugs me, actually. Originally I wanted a pinafore or something similar, more in the direction of Natural Kei than Lolita, and definitely more country. But I ended up with this, and actually I like it. It’s Antique Books from Innocent world, one of the brands that I adore most. The motif is just perfect for dreamy Anne who always has her nose in a book – even when not reading!

Blouse: I wanted something more country-like, and the blouse reminded me extremely of Marilla’s clothes from the pictures. The colour also gives a hint of the lush meadows that surround Avonlea and even Green Gables itself.

Socks and Wristcuffs: The wristcuffs looked so lady-like and playful and romantic that I instantly thought them right for the outfit. The socks were the only pair that matched in colour, but if it was completely up to me I’d rather choose some knitted ones with an elaborate, fine pattern. But those do, as well. Just nothing too fragile, it wouldn’t match Anne’s country life with feeding chicken and milking cows and endless roamings in the woods of Prince Edward Island.

Necklace: Representing the string of pearls Anne receives as a gift from her adoptive father figure Matthew Cuthbert I chose something with a ribbon, not too refined but rather something a young girl would wear even if she lived not in a great mansion in the city but on a wonderful homestead in the country, rather not for opera but smaller society events in the hotel nearby (but still some miles away).

Hat: When we first encounter Anne she wears an old sailor straw hat. It’s replaced later by Marilla, but ever since then, Anne is connected to that hat in my mind. Well, anime and live action series might have done their share… I decided not to go for the usual and simple model but something that reminds one a little bit of a bonnet (actually I tried on one of this kind yesterday and I think I need a new straw hat anyway…) to recapture the “Victorian” feeling and add a more mature and with this somehow more modern touch to it.

Bag: I thought some kind of basket would be nice, to emphasize the country influence once again. This special bag strongly reminded me of a fishing basket I once hat (and which was only used for the transport of my rabbit and guinea pigs). Also, it resembles a school satchel a little bit, to get to the “nose in a book” thing once again. Plus, it’s green again!

Boots: Here it all comes together, the colours, the feeling, the flowers. I spied these boots and instantly fell in love. Anne is mentioned to wear heavy, dusty, old working boots, even with copper toes, so there was no way I could give this coord something fragile or fashionable, but the print adds such a wonderful, fairy-tale-like touch that I didn’t even hesitate. For me, these boots are the secret “stars” of the outfit.

As for the second outfit today we’ll have a look on Anne’s “bosom friend” Diana Barry. She’s described as a very refined and to some extend sophisticated young lady, sweet and amiable.

Here we go:

Dress: Another favourite brand of mine, Mary Magdalene. I wanted something more delicate for Diana, so I took something slightly tinted between beige and rosé. The design of the dress pretty much matches the time in which the story is set, and if I recall this correctly, Diana even wears a rose-coloured dress at her and Anne’s first ball in the TV series.

Bag: Again, it’s a satchel. I imagine it could be a lady’s handbag when it grows up, so I tought it quite fitting for Diana. It’s less country-esque than my choice for Anne but Diana never showed that devotion to nature like her friend did, so a pretty leather school bag (or something inspired by one) would be much better.

Jewelery: The velvet ribbon actually is a wristband, but I’d rather see it as a choker. The amethysts could also be in Anne’s coord if one recalls the plot around Marilla’s brooch, but they were so flattering for Diana. I always think of her smiling and radiant and somehow glowing from within, with red cheeks and dark eyes, and amethysts are very becoming for this kind of young lady.

Hats: I just couldn’t decide, so I took two. The first one is a mint-coloured bonnet by Innocent World, representing the younger Diana Barry. Bonnets always remind me of the countryside and the artwork of Holly Hobbie. The second hat is pretty much the same as Anne’s, only in another colourway, standing for the older Diana as it seems more toned down and less playful, but very lady-like.

Shoes: Same here, I couldn’t leave out one pair. The light-green, flat mary janes are perfect to go with the bonnet, the brown granny boots are a great addition to the straw cap and let it seem even more mature and refined. Too late by the way I noticed that this coord lacked stockings, so please just try to imagine some pretty knitted ones, maybe with the same fine pattern as Anne’s. They’re probably off-white.

And here I leave you for today, this time without any further advice than to read those books and watch the series. Good night!

Porcelain Sunday – Anne of Green Gables

“I feel… as if… somebody… had handed me… the moon.. and I didn’t know… exactly… what to do… with it.”

The bad thing with weekly features is that one can’t just write what comes to mind, or I’d tell you the next fairytale of my stroll at the riverbanks instantly. But as we omitted the features last week, we can’t do this again! And so I’ll give you the Porcelain Sunday I’d planned for two weeks ago.

As at the end of march finally my books arrived, I had to make this Porcelain Sunday all about Anne of Green Gables!

 

My beloved and well-worn copy of the first volume.

I ordered Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island and Anne of Windy Poplars back in February, and they arrived exactly in turned order.

Aren't these copies pretty?

 

For those of you who don’t know Anne Shirley yet, here’s a little summary of the story:

Anne is a very imaginative orphan who – after being “handed down” several times – gets to live with Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, elderly siblings who own Green Gables, a house with some farmland on Prince Edward Island, Canada. We accompany her when she gets to know her best friend Diana Barra and encounters a nemesis in form of Gilbert Blythe (well, at first, that is) and later get to see her becoming a teacher, authoress and by no means less spirited young woman of the late 19th century than she was a girl.

I loved Anne from the very first moment when I discovered the mini TV series about her. I had seen the book before on a sunny afternoon I had spent in the library of the school where my father teaches, when I had finished the tea the wonderful librarian had given me, but when I took more interest in the book I had to go, sadly.
Actually this is one of the few books of which I first saw an adaption before reading the book, but I wasn’t disappointed at all when I finally got my hands on the original text.

But I dare say, after reading Anne of Avonlea I was rather disappointed. All that talk about A.V.I.S. was so utterly boring and definitely had no scope for imagination! And Davy – who in my opinion is nothing but an overly spoiled brat -,well I was glad they left him out of the TV adaption (and I’ve got some pity for his twin Dora, she’ll have such mental issues later when she’ll come to know that everybody just loved her good-for-nothing brother and didn’t like her! It’s completely irresponsible and not very nice and pretty unfair of Anne to repeat every now and then that she likes Davy better. We read it when she said it first, so no need to rub it in! Excuse my language.). But Anne made up for it a little bit with her acquaintance with Miss Lavendar Lewis and the dreaming of Hester Gray. After all the second book left me with a weird feeling and had not the incredible magic of the first one. But:

“[...] isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

I really was looking forward for Anne of the Island where she attends Redmond College – maybe her imagination and spirit would come back. It did, and at the moment I’m reading Anne of Windy Poplars with great pleasure (albeit I think that the change to an epistolary novel was quite unnecessary). But now – for the inspiration – I’ll concentrate on my much-beloved Anne of Green Gables.

The book is so full of inspiration that I don’t even quite know where to start! I guess the most important message is the “scope for imagination” that Anne embraces constantly, and to imagine. Just like Princess Sara who pretends to be a princess, Anne spices up her everyday life – sometimes up to a unhealty extend, as we learn from the haunted wood episode – and even gets herself a second persona, not so different from a roleplay character: Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald.

“There’s such a lot of different Annes in me. I think that is why I’m such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn’t be half so interesting.”

Not even to mentions that she renames nearly every place and thing that she comes to love to make it sound more like a fairy tale. We definitely should take her as a role model in this concern because wouldn’t it be nicer to live at a wonderful place like the Lake of Shining Waters than plain old Barry’s Pond? And that’s only one example.

As for appearance, Anne desires nothing more than to have a rose-leaf complexion, velvety violet eyes and raven-black hair and to wear puff sleeves. Sometimes her dresses are described, but the real beauty of this heroine lies in her dreamy eyes and interesting face, so there are no real significant looks that originate from the book itself. The movie in exchange provides us with simple yet most beautiful dresses from the end of the 19th century datable through the mentioning of Queen Victoria still being alive somewhere in the first book and the fact that all of her sons are old enough to go to war in 1914 with her being married in her early to mid-twenties.

Instead of plastering this post with screenshots from the mini series of Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Green Gables – The Sequel, I’d rather recommend to watch it yourself to get acquainted to the look. There may also be some editions of the books with illustrations, but I personally think that the movies couldn’t have cast better with the actors than they did, and the whole surroundings are utterly perfect (I only advise against watching Anne of Green Gables – The Continuing Story as it has nothing to do with anything ever written my L. M. Montgomery). They made a new series lately, but I admit that I’ve only seen screen caps of it by now. There’s an anime series, as well, which is quite nice, too, at least as far as I’ve seen it. But in my opinion, the most inspiring is the 1985 version.

And with that opinion of mine I’ll leave you for today to go to bed – tomorrow will be my first day at university since last summer! I’m really excited and think it’ll be a splendid adventure.

Good night!

A Visit Southern

Well, as you could read from the Peacock Queen post, I visited Lilibeth last week. She lives near Heidelberg with her parents, her younger brother and her dog in a quiet village that’s  not too far from a Rhine island where we took a walk on Sunday.

Their house is full of self made clay things, dragons and gnomes, spheres and pyramids and they have a garden so tidy and neat that I’m sure I’ll never see such a thing so perfectly done again. The first notice I got about the garden was that I was offered lovely sweet cherry tomatoes when I stepped though the door. But one thing that is really impressive is the bed full of hibiscus plants, all fully abloom.

But I think the thing I liked most was the pond with a school of gold-fish and koi. They came to nibble at my fingers with their toothless mouths whenever I put my hand in the cool green water. And they’re so incredibly cute, too!

Lilibeth’s bedchamber lies right under the roof and is really lovely with a great ceiling fan lamp and a comfortable bed where I was kindly allowed to rest in, too, during my stay.

A wonderful habit of Lilibeth’s family is to have breakfast all together at the patio with fresh rolls and delicious cheese and cold meat from the Italian grocery.

The arbour/ veranda, completely covered in wine and grapes.

I arrived on Friday by train. There’s one that goes all the way from Marburg to Heidelberg in two hours that I took, and Lilibeth picked me up with her mother’s car at the station. We spent the rest of the day on the veranda where we had mozzarella-and-tomato salad for dinner and then went upstairs to watch Anne of Green Gables – The Sequel, but we didn’t even get through the first DVD. We planned to watch the rest on Saturday or Sunday, but it wasn’t to happen so I left the film at Lilibeth’s for her to watch. I know it by heart, anyway. ^^

Saturday went by with preparations for the party and the party itself and I found it quite admirable how much effort Lilibeth and her parents put into it. But it was worth it, definitely.

On sunday we took a short walk at Lilibeth’s kingdom – the Rhine island – together with Cedric the German Shepherd Dog. They had adorable wild pigs and I would have stayed at their enclosure much longer, but Cedric didn’t get along well with them.

Sadly we had not so much time as I had to catch a train but maybe there’ll be a sequel of this visit with more time to wander about and a little more sightseeing, too.

Daisychains and Petticoats

A week has passed now since Lilibeth had been here for a visit so I think it’s pretty much time to write about it.

My dear guest arrived on Friday afternoon and soon vanished for a couple of hours again to visit another friend of hers who lives in Marburg, too. In the evening we watched Stardust (I love Captain Shakespeare! And it’s such a wonderful film!) after a typical spaghetti-con-pesto student dinner. Before we started the movie, Lilibeth taught me nålebinding (aka. knotless netting), an ancient needlework that she’s been doing for a while, matching her reenactment hobby. She also left a ball of great yellow-orange, fiery wool with me to practise, but it’s been to hot during the last week to touch wool, anyway (plus, I’ve got to whittle a needle for myself yet, too).

On Saturday I showed her my favourite places in my city of stairs, and this is the point where I’m going to show you pictures instead of showering you with text (but, of course, with several notes). As I’ve got PS since last weekend, too, I tried to let the pictures look like illustrations from an older children’s book or older photographs like the ones of my mother and her brother that my grandmother keeps in her boudoir.

This was my outfit for saturday, featuring my Ugly Duckling dress, some lace, Danish Duckfeet shoes and a petticoat, necklace and parasol Lilibeth kindly lend to me.

Lilibeth’s outfit contained a self-made skirt and lace collar, an Emilie Autumn t-shirt, brown leather heels and my brass-coloured birdcage necklace as it matched too well! She bought some black tea flavoured bonbons at the tea store that were really refreshing on our way up to the higher parts of the town.

We went for ice cream at the best parlour in town and then headed for the castle garden to pick some flowers and make daisy chains.

Lilibeth with her daisy chain crown

Another close shot, I couldn't decide which picture to use.

My daisy chain

The chains ended up as street art, mine on a lantern, Lilibeth’s on the wall of the Historian’s house.

The institute for Religious Studies, again ^^

We had lovely shoots at the park and at the institute, so here are some impressions.

Sadly, there are more pictures of me than of Lilibeth. Oh, those hobby photographers... :)

I've got to admit that I really, really like this one...

Well, the evening came we went to the park and took the laptop with us to watch Anne of Green Gables. We only got through part one, but I’ll the second one with me on my visit at her house next month.

I’ll show you the pictures of Sunday tomorrow, I think that’s enough pictures for one day. ^^

Great Expectations

No, not the book. This weekend somebody who is really special to me will come to visit me. It’s my pen friend Lilibeth. This is by the way the beautiful last letter that she wrote to me plus a wonderful gift she sent me:

It will be the first time that we meet each other in person.

We had a nice (and long!) phone conversation some weeks ago and I think she is truly a kindred spirit. ^^ Our correspondence so far has been a very pleasant one since we met at the Natron & Soda bulletin board via the Lolita thread last year.

She’ll arrive here at about 8 PM on Friday and will stay during the weekend at which I’ll show her my favourite places here in Marburg. We will be a little creative, too, but just like her I don’t want to spoil you with information and rather show you the results.

Maybe I’ll finally get the chance to wear my Ugly Duckling dress! Reminds me of the fact that I lack matching accessories…

I am pretty excited and got to admit that I’m a little bit nervous, too. Maybe Lilibeth is the bosom friend I’ve waited for my entire life… Yes, our relationship is pretty affected by Anne of Green Gables (we’re planning to watch the mini series together, as well ^^).

And now I’ll go and bake a cake for the role-playing evening we’ll have today. Be prepared for some more nerdy character stuff tomorrow! :)

Present Growing

Top o’ the morning to you!

Remember that I mentioned to post a teaser about Jules’ birthday present sometimes? Well, as he is coming to visit us this weekend, here it is.

I dare say I like the way the picture came out.

Plus, I hope that I’ll get it ready until Friday! My to-do list is enormous like always but I’d be rather confused and helpless if I had nothing to do on the contrary.

Thanks to Lilibeth I’m pretty much hooked up on this Anne of Green Gables video. I love the song and the video every time reminds me of the fact that my darling pen pal is going to visit me, too, at the beginning of June! I’m really looking forward to that.

But now I’ve got to go and check off some of the to-do points.

Bye then!

Kittens and Catkins

I’ve been absent again, due to my assignment (which is finished, I’ve got my life back, eventually) and the fact that I’ve got no aethernet at my mother’s castle in the marshlands and in the time between the hand-in and my departure I was way too busy with celebrating the end of the term, cooking with and for friends and looking into blue eyes with golden coronas in them.

When I came home at my mother’s on Friday she told me that our neighbor’s cat had kittens, one black and one like a wildcat. They’re absolutely cute and fluffy. The black one has got a new home already when he will be parted from his mother in about two weeks, and the wildcat – well, I don’t want to talk about it too much, but Bambi wanted a cat anyway…

I also took a long walk though the glens with my mother and got some plants for the garden and – maybe the most important thing of all – had a long, hot bath while watching Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Green Gables – The Sequel (the DVDs arrived just in time shortly before the hand-in).

Spring is really coming now and spring fever is likely to break out as I’m definitely not  getting that big, glad, radiant smile off my face. :)