Miss Philomena

I went pearl shopping the other day, hoping to get my jewelry sorted out and size the pearls for the bodice, and was mostly successful. I got 12mm glass pearls for my necklace. I plan to string them on some narrow bright blue silk ribbon I have, I just need to find it. I also found some teardrop glass pearls for my earrings, but they aren't as large as I'd like, and they weigh a ton. I found this site, which has large, lightweight earrings, so I might order from them at some point. And lastly, I picked sizes for the decorative pearls, and I'll be ordering those from Fire Mountain Gems once I can figure out how many 16" strands I need, which won't be for a long while.

the bodice pearls, on head pins to get an idea of sizing.	the current earrings and the necklace pearls, waiting to be properly strung.

And on a slightly different note, I found a great book in the FIT library last week that I had to immediately buy my own copy. At the Court of Versailles: Eye-Witness Reports from the Reign of Louis XIV, by Gilette Ziegler. It's one of those books that almost all contemporary gossip, and validates Wikipedia's claim that Charlotte was in fact one of Louis' mistresses. I know there are a few others doing French ladies, so it's definitely a book I'd recommend. It's out of print (published in 1966), but Amazon had over 2000 listings for it.