Jane Austen Convention - Part 2

Well, the first day of the convention had come!! We woke up early - 5:30 am, got dressed in our costumes, unrolled our rag curls and jumped into the pickup for the hour drive into downtown Ft. Worth. The traffic was pretty heavy, so we got there a few minutes later than the 8 am opening time for the Emporium rooms.

There were already customers in the booth waiting to purchase items, so we were rushed in right away to a flurry to shop-keeping and meeting new people! That whole day we had a pretty steady stream of lovely people coming through the booth, and were very pleased with our shrinking inventory list at the end of the day. :)

The adorable Rebecca in ringlets....

At the back of our Emporium room, there was a fantastic vintage book booth. You can imagine that any spare time I had was spent there! During one time as I was deep in a book, a fellow came up and told me that I looked 'just like a picture out of another century'. By his accent I could tell he was from the UK, and it turns out he was part of a crew from the BBC that had come over to do some filming at the JASNA convention! Rebecca and I were so excited to have met someone from 'across the pond'. That same day I also met a lady from Edinburgh, and several from Canada, and even Australia.

We though it was quite exciting!

How I wish these were on my self at home! A 3-volum set of leatherbound Scott novels from 1850!

Godey's Lady's books from various 19th c. years.....

We didn't have time to experiment with hairstyles as we had planned, so these were what we cam up with at 5 am! It felt very strange at first to be wearing Regency clothing and hairstyles for a whole day together!

The hotel was so elegant! This double stairway is what we saw when we first came through the door. Very impressive!

After a very busy day we went home exhausted, but our work wasn't over yet. We had some minor alterations to do on several dresses that had sold that day. (shortening the hems and such) So we worked up in Rebecca's charming upstairs sewing room until late, while watching/making fun of the most recent film version of Jane Eyre. Went to bed at 1 am for a few hours of precious sleep, ready to begin anew for the second day of the convention.......

 (to be continued)