An 18th century day at Suomenlinna, 2017

When it comes to historical events and travelling, the past three years have been busier for me than any of my previous years in the hobby before. It has been absolutely wonderful but it also meant that when I've been at home, I have been frantically preparing for a trip on my time off, which lead to the complete neglect of this blog. With the limited free time and energy available, I've chosen sewing over updating the blog. Also, in the past three years I've found, like so many of you, that Instagram has been a more convenient place for me to share my work and photos of events. However, I never wanted to give up on this blog either because I feel like having a more permanent place for my photos and I still want to write posts about my costumes every once in a while.

This post is about an event back in July 2017. I didn't plan to go to it because I found out about it just a couple of weeks before it took place. However, it was too fun an event to pass up, so I made a bit of an impromptu trip to Helsinki for a weekend.

The neat thing about this day was that we got to travel to Suomenlinna islands in proper 18th century style on an 18th century reproduction cannon sloop Diana! 

It may have been July but the weather made it seem more like September.

Some members of the Olde Militia of Helsinki and Nylands Karoliner.

The whole passenger group captured upon arrival to Suomenlinna. 

Once we got to Suomenlinna, we set up a picnic and played some pall-mall, as per usual. 

We also visited the commandant's house aka the Ehrensvärd museum, named after the founder of Suomenlinna sea fortress, Augustin Ehrensvärd, whose official residence the house was. The house was built in the 1750s and the interiors of the museum are furnished in 18th century style.

I had quickly sewn two new garments for the trip the week before; a red petticoat and a 1780s apron with ruffles.





However, Ehrensvärd actually didn't live in the house as he lived in a cottage (that no longer exists on the islands).

Augustin Ehrensvärd (1710-1772), c. 1770, presumably after J. H. Scheffel.

Ehrensvärd was the first to have a tiled oven in Helsinki. Sadly the first oven from mid 1750s was destroyed in a bombing during the Crimean war in 1855 so the ones that are in the museum today are not original to the building.

Augustin Ehrensvärd was not only a military officer and architect but also an artist. There are several of Ehrensvärd's ink drawings on display at the museum.

We also got to see a minuet dance performance and enjoy some harp music while we were in the museum.  

This was the first time Mia invited her sister to join us to an event. Aren't they adorable? :)

Portrait of Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt (1757-1814).

Afterwards we had lunch at the Café Piper. The weather had suddenly turned all summery so we played cards in the garden before heading home.