A Queen Looks at Princesses

Sweet Sally Melville, can you believe how long it’s been since the last post? I’m appalled. I intended to chirp immediately upon my return from Loop in Philadelphia (it was marvelous, thank you for asking) but on the way home a nasty little microbe or virus or microscopic protoplasmic sonofabitch slipped past my defenses and landed me on the sofa, huffing decongestant.

While the bug was in residence I felt it best to keep mum, for which you should be grateful. I’m not exactly a bouncy ball of fun when I’m well, and when I get sick I head straight for Act III of La Traviata.



Alfredo…is that…you? Everything…everything’s going black…

I am such an ill-tempered, ungrateful patient that if Florence Nightingale had been put in charge of me she’d have quit and become a bus driver. If you’re in the room and I feel myself going down, I’m taking you with me.

Catastrophic sniffles aside, I’ve got a surprising amount of knitting done. The trick, I discovered, is to hold one needle in each hand while you knock on death’s door with your forehead.

In our household, works-in-progress are usually referred to by color, i.e. The Pink Thing, The Green Thing, The Blue-and-Orange Thing. The Pink Thing is the one I can write about, and you’ve heard me mention it before–it’s Abigail’s Bespoke Pink Princess Poncho, now in Version 4.0 (beta).

I think I’ve probably done more research and development for this design than any other. Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, I was never a little girl and have never experienced the desire to be, or dress like, a princess. This puts me at risk for turning out a poncho more suited to a marchioness. Disaster.

So I’ve been digging into primary source material, the better to discern the essential characteristics of princess gear.

Here’s what all I’ve been able to figger so far.

1. Go pastel or go home. Princesses don't wear tweed.



2. Put a swag on it. At least one. Swags are good.



3. Put flowers on it. Flowers are even better than swags.



3. Put swags and flowers on it. Simplicity and moderation are for peasants.



4. Fringe is not an acceptable substitute for flowers or swags. A princess who wears fringe will tank at the box office.



5. Drama above the shoulders is key. If there’s not a crown, there’d better be a tiara. If there’s not a tiara, there’d better be a big floppy romantic hood from which to peer with your goo-goo-googly eyes.



6. It had better look good when you twirl. The typical princess will twirl 87.23 times on an average day.



On days when a ball is given, the average rises to 149.25.



The above list is incomplete, of course. Research continues. Meanwhile I'll show you little bit of The Pink Thing in a few days, when I come back from a place where princesses, so I hear, are very thick on the ground.

No, not a private school in Lincoln Park. Somewhere else. You'll never guess.