Thread by @lainasparetime

Well, since I can't focus on anything today, let's do an Anne thread. #LainaReadsAnne

#LainaReadsAnne This also is mostly a filler chapter, honestly.

We do get some really great details about how Anne's room and how it's changed. Let's actually recap how it was four years ago - I went back to the first chapter it was described in for this, even.

#LainaReadsAnne Described are painfully bare whitewashed walls, a high, old-fashioned bed, a three-cornered table with a pincushion and a small mirror over it. Between the bed and table is the window, with an "icy white muslin frill" and opposite the bed, a washstand.

#LainaReadsAnne Now. There's a "pretty matting" on the floor and softly fluttering "pale green art muslin".

Here we pause for a fabric detour because it's interesting. Now, muslin is tightly woven cotton. If you've ever seen Project Runway, you've seen plain white muslin.

#LainaReadsAnne Art muslin doesn't seem to be a term really used anymore. I had to do some digging to get an idea of it. Juding by the old newspaper articles I found, it was very thin, maybe even translucent, used for summer curtains. They dyed it in very soft tones, pastels.

#LainaReadsAnne It seems like it was a bit more expensive than other materials you'd use for window coverings.

The walls now have a "dainty apple-blossom paper" and a few pictures, including one of Miss Stacy that Anne keeps fresh flowers under.

#LainaReadsAnne There's now a white bookshelf filled with books, a wicker rocker, and a "toilet table befrilled with white muslin". Also shout out to the "quaint, gilt-framed mirror with chubby pink cupids and purple grapes pained over its arched top".

#LainaReadsAnne That sounds HIDEOUSLY TACKY, but apparently it used to hang in the spare room. Which honestly points to be being Marilla doing. Matthew wouldn't go in the spare room unless to repair something.

There's also now a "low white bed".

#LainaReadsAnne There is going to be a concert tonight at the White Sands Hotel to raise money for the Charlottetown hospital and Anne is one of only two people from Avonlea to perform, if I'm reading this correctly. Not just among the students.

#LainaReadsAnne Shocker, Matthew is super proud of her and Marilla is trying not to show how proud she is. Did you expect anything else from them? XD

#LainaReadsAnne Diana has developed very good taste in clothing, so much that others have begun to come to her for advice, and she tells Anne to wear her "white organdie" dress.

I wanna talk about this for a minute. Organdy is cotton, but it's a very soft, even sheer fabric.

#LainaReadsAnne I found two pictures I think would be pretty close, this left one which I can't find a source for and the right from this site raleighvintage.com/products/edwar…

I think Anne's dress would be somewhere between the two. The right is a bit later in time, the left a bit early.

#LainaReadsAnne There would be several layers of undergarments of course, slips and stuff, but the fabric would have been so soft and flowy. Diana says it "seems as if it grew on her" and I imagine she would be a real sight. Redheads often look so amazing in white.

#LainaReadsAnne There's even a frill and a sash.

Anne's hair, also, is done in "two thick braids" and tied "half-way up with two big white bows" and Diana tucks a small white rose behind Anne's ear.

Note that she saved it from her flowers for Anne specially.

#LainaReadsAnne Anne also has a new string of pearl beads, a gift from Matthew, that she wears.

Diana remarks on Anne's figure and Anne says she loves Diana's dimples, like "dents in cream".

#LainaReadsAnne They ask Marilla, who has a "much softer face" now, what she thinks and she puts up bit of a grumbly front. She says she likes how they've fixed Anne's hair and that Anne looks "clean and proper".

#LainaReadsAnne She fusses about the dress being too thin, and organdy being "unserviceable" and tells Anne to wear her warm jacket. As she goes downstairs, though, she thinks about she regrets she could not go to the concert "to hear her girl recite".

I got sniffly there.

#LainaReadsAnne Apparently Matthew no longer cares what Marilla says about Anne's clothing, and the shopkeepers just have to tell him something is pretty and fashionable and he'll buy it for Anne.

That is hilarious and adorable.

#LainaReadsAnne Anne is a month away from leaving for town (and school) and Diana says it makes her so miserable they must not think about it.

#LainaReadsAnne Anne gets on the stage and gets a little bit of stage fright. She starts to feel inadequate, espcially when a "professional elocutionist" goes on stage before her.

Poor thing's never had stage fright like this, but she's also never recited to so many strangers.

#LainaReadsAnne Know what snaps her out of it? Get this.

Towards the back of the room she sees Gilbert Blythe, "bending forward with a smile on his face". Of course, she's convinceed he's laughing at her stage fright.

#LainaReadsAnne Don't get Gilbert wrong here, though. He's enjoying the night greatly, and especially enjoys seeing Anne on the stage.

(Meanwhile, Josie Pye, who he's there with, kinda is laughing at Anne, but who cares about Josie Pye's opinion.)

#LainaReadsAnne Honestly, I have many opinions on Gilbert Blythe and how he should be depicted... Luci can attest to this XD

#LainaReadsAnne Anne is well and truly determined never to fail in front of Gilbert and gets past her stage fright out of pure spite to give a wonderful recitation.

She even gets an encore.

#LainaReadsAnne Bit of an eyeroll towards Anne talking about none of the girls she's with or herself wanting to be the "pink lady, kind and nice as she was, so stout and short that you'd really no figure at all."

#LainaReadsAnne She's married to an American millionaire, Anne. I think her figure's doing just fine.

#LainaReadsAnne Anyways, there was also an American sitting behind Jane and Diana, who had coal-black hair and eyes. (Remember the fortune teller at the Exhibition?) He was apparently a well-respected artist.

#LainaReadsAnne When he saw Anne, he said, "Who was that girl on the platform with the splendid Titan hair? She has a face I should like to paint."

Cute.

#LainaReadsAnne We close the chapter with Anne reflecting on all the interesting people she met, and how glad she is to be herself, Anne of Green Gables.

We're getting close to the end here! Five more threads.