"It's kind of like Louisiana . . . or Dagobah" (part two)

 If you were a member of a middle class family in 1850 in New Orleans, your bedroom might have looked like this:

And you might have had an owl statue in your courtyard to scare away the birds.

And you might have strolled down this street which is said to have been Walt Disney's inspiration for Orleans Place at Disneyland. 

Okay, not a great picture.  There's a car blocking the view.  And a guy with a dog.  It pretty much looks like this from the other direction.

You might have buried your perishable goods in the ground in order to keep them cool in giant ceramic urns that were originally used to import olives and olive oil.

However, you would most definitely have been entombed above ground, especially if you were Catholic.

This is the Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 in the Garden District.  Most people have seen this place at one time or another because this is the cemetery used to film every New Orleans cemetery scene in pretty much every movie ever made from Easy Rider to Double Jeopardy.  There's even a plot of land left empty so that film companies can build their own tomb.  Because using one that's already there would be sort of creepy.  And I'm sure the family wouldn't like it.  Anyway, they say the grave's a fine and private place, but I'm sure that's not when there's a large group of tourists is wandering up and down the aisles of the cemetery.

Our tour guide, Valentine, was a retired arbitrator from the Bay Area.  And you can't tell from this picture, but he's decked out head to toe in Santa Clara University wear.  It was kind of odd to run into a fellow Bronco this far away from the Alma Mater, but it appears that we are everywhere.  Oh, and there are 39 people entombed in the monument behind him.  Want to guess how they got them all in there?  No?  Well I'll tell you anyway.  First, you can only open a tomb by law every year and a day.  This gives the most recent resident and their untreated wood coffin time to sufficiently decompose.  After that time and when the next family member is ready to join their predescedents, the tomb is reopened, the most recent addition is bagged and tagged and moved to the side, and there is now plenty of room for the next inductee.  Oh, and the reason for the above-ground tombs?  Because of the high water table, there's more room above ground than under it. 

Despite the possibility that some people might find wandering around a graveyard a little, well, morbid and creepifying (to quote Joss Whedon), it was really very beautiful.  Here are some of my favorite pictures from the cemetery and the rest of our trip.

For the law geeks out there, this is the Ferguson from Plessy v. Ferguson (one of the worst decisions in Supreme Court history).  Plessy is buried in St. Louis No. 1.  We didn't make it to his grave, unfortunately.  I would have liked to have had a matched set.

This is the roof of the St. Charles streetcar line.  You can tell that I'm originally from San Francisco because I kept calling it a trolley. 

This was my attempt to get a picture of myself because Mr. flyskim does not take pictures.

Since we had just missed Mardi Gras, we had to see the Mardi Gras museum.

What do you want to bet that this was all done by hand?

I seriously dreamed about this guy last night.

The Mississippi River

Disney New Orleans!

This group was practicing for St. Patrick's Day.  I'm not kidding.

Anyway, that was our vacation.  We don't do that very often which is why I took over 150 pictures in four days.  We ate in many good places.  We drank many intoxicating beverages.  We only got sick of each other's company once or twice, so overall, I'd call it a success.

Progress on McCalls 5818 continues.  Both the lining and the fashion fabric are cut out and fitted.  All of the darts are sewn on the lining and only the front darts on the fashion fabric remain.  Then I can assemble the parts and adjust the fit.  I have a new invisible zipper foot on its way to me in the mail, so I may wait until I get that to insert the zipper.  Or I may just soldier on without it because I'm hoping to wear this to work next week. 

Sometimes Copying is Necessary

Like when you miss out on the most perfect winter scarf at Anthropologie because it's Christmas Eve, but you have tickets to A Christmas Carol, and the store is so crowded that there's no way you're going to be able to both buy the scarf and make the curtain.  Particularly since your mother has no interest in fighting the last-minute shopping crowd with you.  Luckily, a fellow Ravelry member, Meghan Fernandes, worked out the pattern to my coveted scarf, so I took needles in hand to make my own version.  Meghan's instructions can be found on her blog, Allergic To Wool.

The instructions were great.  Very clear and well-thought out.  I followed them as written except I added a full repeat to the cable pattern and I only did the broomstick crochet to 2 inches instead of 2.5 (I didn't feel comfortable using just a slip of paper for the edge, and I had a 2-inch bookmark just sitting there).  I think I did the single crochet around the edge of the ruffle too tightly, because it curls to one side, and if I make it again, I will correct that.  It's reversible, so the scarf looks great from both sides. 

 Scarf as still life.

I love how this turned out.  I used three skeins of Malabrigo Worsted in Velvet Grape purchased at The Yarn Garden on Hawthorne.  Not only was I able to add the scarf that I thought had gotten away to my wardrobe, I was able to upgrade the materials (the original was acrylic) and personalize the color.  The original was an ivory which is actually a little more in my comfort zone for scarves, but it was cold on the day I bought the yarn, so I went with a color that made me feel warm.  And I still have enough for a matching hat.

On the sewing front, the fashion fabric for McCalls 5818 is cut out and marked.  I'll cut and mark the lining and start the sewing over the next week.  I hope to have this finished by next weekend.  I'm planning on using a new-to-me* of putting in the lining, so I can't start the sewing until the lining is cut and ready to sew as well.  I'm really excited about this dress.  It's going to be a dark gray suiting with a subtle tweed to it, and I think it will be a great winter into spring transition piece.  Now that I've said that, watch this be a wadder.


*I've only ever lined one dress before, and I just followed the instructions in the pattern, so any other method of lining is new to me.

"It's kinda like Louisiana . . . Or Dagobah" (part one)

Or exactly like Louisiana, because that's where Mr. flyskim and I have been for the past week.  The idea for this trip came about during a dinner last summer with sister-in-law V-Star and her husband, G-Man, who, after one too many Manhattans (or maybe just enough), suggested that we all go to New Orleans in the spring.  I promptly forgot that G-Man tends to talk a good game when under the influence of bourbon, and Mr. flyskim and I researched and booked a hotel.  Well, our traveling companions begged out fairly early (like right after we told them about making reservations), but since we hadn't been on a vacation that didn't involve family stuff in several years, the husband and I decided to go anyway.  We stayed at Le Pavillon in the Central Business District, and I thought the hotel was fine.  Good location, just a few blocks outside of the French Quarter.  Since we were on a main street, I was thrilled that our room was at the back of the hotel.  Here is the view from our window (I take this same picture every time we travel).  What a neat little rooftop garden on the building across the parking lot.

Since we'd never been to New Orleans before, our trip was chock full of all of the stuff that tourists do in the Big Easy including spending too much time in the French Quarter, drinking cocktails that came out of a slushee machine, wandering around cemeteries, buying beignet mix and coffee with chicory, hanging out in the swamp and tours, tours, tours.  For me, the most interesting part of the trip (other than being told by a very happy doorman outside of the "Barely Legal" club on Bourbon Street that his establishment was fun for the whole family so long as the whole family "was over 21 and liked boobies") was how the city grew outwards from the French Quarter and how many different nationalities of immigrants created the city and its culture, architecture and food.  We took several walking tours, one of the French Quarterwith the Friends of the Cabildo  and another of the riverfront with the national parks service.  We now know quite a bit about this one very small part of New Orleans.  While I liked this area, I also understand why locals don't really go there that often as it is very tourist-oriented, and I started wanting less commercialism by the end of the week.  Here are some of my favorite pictures from our trip.

 Breakfast our first morning.  Everyone needs to eat a beignet at Café du Monde when they're in New Orleans.

 Napoleon House.  Good food, reasonable prices and smaller portions.  Also, reading all of the articles on the walls about the owners was fascinating.

This historic house had two front stairways, one for men and one for women.  The women's stairway was wider than the men's to allow for the size of their skirts.

We also took an airboat tour of a swamp and bayou.  Our guide was Captain Carl, as he called himself.  He says that he's lived on homesteaded family land in a swamp all of his life and told us stories about growing up there.

Carl seems to have had a very interesting life.  He is a trained ship's navigator and has been through the Panama Canal multiple times and spent 15 months navigating a ship on the Black Sea which he says was a miserable experience.  He has also operated airboats as a part of the filming of several movies and television shows that were shot on the swamp we visited.  And, not that I didn't already know this, but he says that in all of his life, he has never seen anyone living in the swamp as it was depicted in Deliverance.  I only mention this because we did she the remains of a shack, but Carl said that this was one of the sets from the Adam Sandler movie The Waterboy that wasn't removed when the crew left.

Obligatory picture of a gator.

I'm going to end this here because the number of pictures are getting out of control.  I still have cemetery photos and pictures from the Mardi Gras exhibit (had to go since we weren't there during Mardi Gras itself) that I want to share.  I've also finished knitting an Anthropologie inspired scarf and will be posting the details later.  And now that I'm back, I can start sewing again.  Next up, the dress from McCalls 5818.

And I would also like to say welcome to my first follower, Sewtellme.  I'm very excited that you're here, and I'll try my best to be informative and entertaining.