Hunting and Finding

My better half and I had an extremely busy holiday party schedule. The college where I work closed for winter break on December 20th. We had a party that evening, two parties on the 21st along with my traditional Yule vigil, dinner with friends on the 22nd, Festivus, dinner with Dav's dad on Christmas Eve, lunch with my family and dinner with Dav's mom on Christmas Day, there was even going to be another gathering on the 26th. By that point, I was was entirely worn out, and we realized we had not spent a single day at home together since the break started. Dav even took time off of work so we could have some days off together. They were just all full of parties and dinners and gatherings. All fun, don't get me wrong, but just the kind of stuff that saps me dry of energy. So, we stayed in the 26th and 27th and did the original Thursday thing on Saturday. We managed to accept three invitations for New Year's Eve, which ended up being quite a day. It all worked out great, we got to spend some time alone and some time with our friends and family. But parties is not really why I'm here. 

The first party on Saturday the 21st was Dav's work party. Hobnob with the coworkers and the company bigshots in nice evening attire. I've been to fancy company holiday parties before (and am quite grateful that my current employer is so very casual!), so I had an idea of how this one would go. While this was not my first evening attire party since I started veiling, it was the first where I would be surrounded by strangers and did not feel like exposing my hair. 

Ack! What to do?! I could not help but feel that my every-day choices of cotton tichels and flannel scarves would be inappropriate for the dress code of the evening and I was completely at a loss as to what I could do to cover my head in a more formal way. Like any good researcher, I hit the Internet! And hoped I could find something that I could do with my current collection of veils to make at least one of them appear more formal. 

And here is the result!

Waterfall Twist

I found this amazing blog, Wrapunzel, where the lovely Andrea posts about her daily coverings with pictures and video tutorials galore! Since then, my knocking about on the laptop days have consisted of multiple pages of her site open in my browser. I can't get enough; her wraps are beautiful and elegant and, as I tend to favor the more Jewish styles of covering, right up my alley. She called the one I used for the formal office party a Waterfall Twist, and it was so easy, and I was able to use a scarf I already had in my collection! Interestingly, it was a scarf that I rarely wear, I have no idea where it came from, it's thicker than I'm used to and longer than I generally wear. But I kept it in my box of veils anyway, because someday I might have a use for it. It has an inconsistent pattern of stripes and blocks in black and shades of gray with silver threads. It was perfect with my little black dress. I paired it all with a black and white shawl with bits of red and khaki for a little color. 

I talked about possibly making some videos to help those of you who might also find yourselves on a veiling journey as I did. I may still, but in the meantime, I strongly encourage you to check out Andrea's site. She has a Beginner's Guide, tons of pictures, so many video techniques, and even a store. I ordered a few things and I can't wait until they arrive! I was given six beautiful pashminas, which are more like really thick rectangular shawls, and had so much trouble trying to get them to work on my head. Wrapunzel has a solution for that too! Really, hit those links, click about on her site. It is a fantastic resource!

In other news, I think I've decided to grow out my bangs. Yes, I said I think, because I guess I really haven't decided anything. I love the Bettie Page look, I love that it adds some interest and frame to my face with the rest of my hair covered, but I'm quite tired of the upkeep. I don't go to the salon, so the only way to keep them trim is to do it myself, and I don't do that as often as I should. I miss the styles I used to do pre-bang, which is kind of funny that's even part of my thinking as I don't plan to stop veiling any time soon. Still, being happy with my hair underneath my veil is still important. And I still have the clip-in bang hair piece that convinced me to actually cut them into my hair in the first place. The part where the piece met my natural hair never looked right on its own, so I always wore it with a headband over that area, which is pretty much exactly what I do now only the rest of my hair is usually covered too. I might get tired of the in-between length that my bangs are getting to and chop them off again, but we'll see how this goes.