A Frilly Weekend (Pt.1); Afternoon Tea at the Pinecone Cottage Tea House

Every year, the Chicago Lolita Community (Chigothloli) hosts a "Midwest Mega Meet", a meet and greet event open to lolitas all over the Midwest, however, we've had people visit as far as Canada stop by to say hi. I actually live a few hours south of Chicago land and so I rarely go up there for meetups in spite of being quite integrated in the online community, but I always try to make it up there for conventions and the annual meetup; they're the only few times I can see my (frilly) friends up north. This year, I took my friends Lauren and Hailee from my local comm and we stayed over the night at my friend Helen who lives out in the suburbs; because we had to travel a ways to the meet, we decided to keep it casual and save our fancier coordinates for the mega meet. There was also a tea party meet up happening on Saturday at A Baker's Tale in Chicago, but there was a limited seating capacity, and so we decided to stay out in the suburbs and have tea together at The Pinecone Cottage Tea House in Downer's Grove. I was actually invited to a meetup there a while ago, but couldn't make it, and I'm so glad that I've finally gotten around it!

A Baker's Tale will just have to be on my laundry list of places to visit until then.

Pinecone Cottage is adorable as it sounds. The tea room is a corner building with ivy grown over the brick walls. The place is quite small, but charming with its shabby chic decor and antique books and wicker chairs. Everyone gets a unique mix-matching tea set (cup, saucer, and pots and plates), and our meal came as a four part course which changes every month according to what's in season and theme (in this case, it was a "Paddlewheel and Calliope Afternoon Tea, which was inspired by the owner's trip on the Mississippi; I'm assuming it was a Mark Twain inspired meal). They had a wide variety of teas to try - greens, white teas, herbal blends, and blacks, each ranging from floral to sweet and fruity and with caffeinated/decaf options.  I wish I could sample every one of them because they sounded delicious! Every month there are two featured teas which for August was Summer Apricot-Watermelon and Marigold-Almond Iced Tea,

Maybe it's because I'm a classic lolita at heart, but I chose the "Lady Grey Royale", a lovely blend of Darjeeling, Ceylon, Cap Keenum Moafen black teas, lavender flowers and citrus. I usually dislike floral blends, but this wasn't so bad, in fact, it was pretty mellow. If I recall correctly, I could smell the lavender first and then got a hint of citrus aftertaste.  After tea was served, we started our four course meal with potato salad and honey cornbread.

Puns

The salad was pretty, but I wish that the potatoes were boiled a little longer. Following our salad were our sandwiches which included BBQ pork in mini croissants, cucumber and nasturtium sandwiches, and heirloom tomato flatbread stacks -  the veggies, according to our server, came from the tea room owner's garden!

Peach shortcake scones with pineapple sage Devon creme and damson plum jam was next. They were served fresh out of the oven and even though we couldn't remember whether to take the cream or the jam first, they were warm, fluffy, and delicious (and I really want some right now). I'm sorry that I don't have any photos of the scones. I guess they were just too good looking and smelled so wonderful that we went right in!

We ended our tea with two kinds of cakes: "Huckleberry Tuxedo Cake" and "Tarragon Cantelope Tea Bread". To be honest, I wasn't as big a fan of the cake and bread as I was for the scones, but like everything else, I finished my plate, and I think I'd like to go back again some other time. We were approached by some Red Hat Society ladies who were having tea across of us and Helen joked after they left about how she might join them when she "graduates" lolita.

Our lovely little group

Helen was pretty tired from having to work that day and so she went home with her boyfriend Jason, who joined us for tea, and the rest of us went to do some shopping at the Woodfield Mall. I met a girl at Sephora from Hong Kong who loved what we wore and I shared her a few links about the fashion and lolita communities. Even though the Forever 21 there was pretty big, I was disappointed that there weren't a whole lot of accessories, makeup, and miscellaneous items to pick up.

We made it a point to hit up Lush where Hailee and Lauren picked out some bath bombs while I got myself a bar of Jungle hair conditioner, and where we were bombarded by salespeople trying to get us to try every little thing in the store. I tried the hair conditioner when I came home, but I have mixed feelings for it because of the strong herbal scent. I should have asked for a sample. I'm bummed that I didn't take a photo of it, but some of you "alt-lolitas" might appreciate that one of the sales associate's sleeve tattoo of Peter Rabbit and his family! We also make it a point to check the Disney store since the ones at our local malls have long closed. We didn't get anything, but found a bunch of adorable tsum-tsums.

 The weather is getting cooler and I wanted to start up a new wardrobe with a bunch of fall and winter basics at H&M, but I was sorely disappointed in how I couldn't find any basic dress shirts for women without something to nitpick at - in this case, I fell in love with these polka dotted dress shirts in navy and grey, but the buttons don't go all the way up (it has a v-neck). I can't wait for Uniqlo to finally open up its flagship in Chicago. I can't stand how difficult it is to find quality basic pieces in the women's section; they're all boxy instead of fitted and don't have any practical aspects like functional pockets (I have a pair of dress pants from Maurice's that are ironically in their "I am Smart" line and it's sewn with fake pockets), and usually there are some dumb things sewn on like pre-cuffed 3/4 sleeves and studs (I hate the studs trend with a blinding fury). I think we spent the most time at Ragstock. I didn't get anything, but I found some sweet t-shirts featuring cats, and Lauren found a fluffy pink coat that you could pet for hours. We stopped at Jewel after leaving the mall to buy some food for the potluck and Lauren found a phone connecting piece in her coat!

As much as we love wearing lolita, we were looking forward to changing into comfy pjs, and passing out, but not without watching Kamikaze Girls first!

Welcome to my Blog!

Hello internet!

My name is Lily and welcome to my blog. If you haven't figured out already, the title of the blog is a play on the idiom, "Rose tinted glasses" in which refers to the idea of looking at the world (or situation) in a pleasant light and ignoring the darker realities. This blog is inspired by conversations with other fans of lolita fashion about the concept of a lifestyle lolita. I don't think I can consider myself a "lifestyle lolita", but I do like many of the (philosophical) aspects of it and enjoy pleasantries and "old fashioned" hobbies from time to time. And I've been feeling pretty nostalgic lately - longing for EGL's hay day, hunting down for old-school lolita pieces, and scrounging for defunct blog bits from people who wrote romantic views on life to feel closer to lolita fashion when it wasn't as readily available as it is now (Think Princess Portal).

In this blog, you'll expect plenty of the usual lolita fashion related posts such as recent purchases, meetup reports, outfit-of-the-day posts, and thoughts on new releases (I'm a bit old school, so you'll probably not see too many of these, to be honest). You'll also see romantic/lifestyle lolita inspired posts such as my visits to antique shops and (possibly) tea reviews, and I do plan on writing on a more philosophical level (while other posts are more tongue-in-cheek).

 I took some acting classes as part of my theatre studies degree (I studied management) and the biggest lesson I've taken away from it was to "be in the moment", and although I don't believe I have any professional authority on the topic, I'd like to share my thoughts that I hope will be useful for anyone - lolita or otherwise. It's a terribly difficult thing to do, especially in this day and age with the distraction of the screen (tv, phone, computer, etc.) and the way the world is - we're constantly concerned with what could happen next, and with how quickly technology is improving, we're also finding ourselves longing for the "good old days" when we weren't so dependent on them.

I invite you to join me in stopping to smell the roses  lilies (until I start getting lazy about posting stuff).