Vintage Dresses and Naked Bakers

I just wanted to alert you all to one of my new favorite blogs, Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing. She's working her way through Vogue's Book for Better Sewing (hence the name of her blog) and she has all kinds of beautiful photos of dresses like this
and this.


It's enough to make me want to sew. And I haven't sewn anything but a button since 8th grade when I made a gym bag that fell apart and a mallard that bore questionable resemblance to water fowl. But somehow Gertie makes me think I can do it. We'll see. ;)

So, while I'm querying my steampunk book, I'm working on a new one, and I think I mentioned that it's snowy. It also involves baking... many hundreds of years ago, and I thought I'd leave you with this little factoid from my research.

In Paris of 1521, as punishment for some baking related faux pax, the authorities made three men run the streets of Paris naked and with shaved heads. They had to carry lit candles and cry out "Mercy from God, the Virgin Mary, and the King for the wrong we have done in baking." A mob applauded the whole way.

Fortunately, it makes my own little baking issues pale in comparison. ;)