Friday, August 21, 2009

St. Stephan's day

If you remember from last year. August 20th is the biggest national celebration of Hungary. It is the birthday of the first king of the county, and later many other things were tied with the day, like the constitution, or the first bread from the new wheat. It is partly sad, because it signs the end of the summer, but all the festivities, manly the big fireworks (that were the best ever this year) and the big Festival of Folk Arts almost makes it worthwile.
It is my yearly pilgrimage... I dream about it for months before, and for months afterwards...
This year I managed to get there at the very first day. At the gate there was a huge line to stand in for the tickets, but the wait was eased by a cute guy playing the harp...

Inside there was the usual miscallenous craft stuff... like pottery:

Also in colors:

Corn husk dolls... just look at those details:

Ceramic figurines... not your usual ones:

I guess this is one place where cuties are all around... this one was making corn hust figures:

Someone was selling carved walking sticks:

Of course there were candles (Jenny, thiy pic is for you ;-) :

And though we our country is in a dire need of widening the wool and yarn selection available, but one thing we have in aboundance... Beads... lots of them:

More cuties... this one playing some strange instrument... but the music coming out...was gorgeous.

The usual array of interesting outfits:

I just had to take a picture of this orange set:

Once again I determined that one craft I don't care for is the traditional way of making lace:

No matter how enchanted I am with some of the results:

Supposedly the theme for this year was cane-weaving, but I've seen little of that.
But there was plenty of weaving:

Even by a man:

And some of the most gorgeous weaved stoles (orange again... I wonder if you can see a trend there LOL):

It seems that if knitting has not felting finally reached the country. I found wonderful gloves:

Hats:

In detail:

More hats:

Felted this and that:

And my favourite dragon (it was there last year too... It is not for sale):

But one thing that was really lovely that this year I didn't only saw spinning
wheels:

But there was someone spinning with a spindle:

There were wools around (though most of them intended for felting):

And mostly in rather strong primarly colors:

Even some yarn:

And there was a spinning wheel that wasn't only adecoration, but actually working:

The lady even showed me how to use it:

And she even let me try it :-) :

This was my very first time at a spinning wheel. Thank you Piroska, I will never forget it.

There was an air-parade, the air race, and the best fire works to day, but this is what I remember the most.

This got a bit long, but if you looked at through and didn't got bored... thank you.

5 comments:

Brussels Chronicles said...

Not boring at all ! Wonderful ! I'm glad you had such a great time !

jennybms said...

What gorgeous pictures - I almost feel as if I had been there with you. (If only...) Yes, those candels - they were the ones with the beautiful translucent wax that melts like honey. :-)

Anonymous said...

*WONDERFUL* pictures!! Thank you SO much for doing this again! :D I'm really surprised there isn't more handdyed/handspun yarns there yet. How did you like the wheel??

peony said...

Oh, I loved the wheel... I mean back when I first learned sewing in elementary school i did on a pedalled machine, so that movement was familiar and I already have some experience at drafting... they said I was quite good (LOL)... but I see that it needs some attention, to tension, twist and what not to keep the yarn from jumping off, from breaking, from...

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the wonderful pictures!I am an Hungarian-American and so enjoy these glimpses of my mother's home - one day I will visit.

Katalin
A Raveler