Obelix at Orfű

 It was one picture, but ended up a longer story...

There is a big historical festival, and its main point is the evening procession.

The foundation is there for many-many years by know, however, with more-or less visibility...

What do I mean by that? If the procession have huge roman legions at the beginning, a walking band of brass wind players, and you have fire jugglers before you yelling yelling "to infinity and beyond" every 50 meters, and small, child sized ponies behind you... with a smallish group (10-20 people) no matter what you wear, you are kind of invisible... 

And we arrived to wearing the turn of the century bathing suits one year (read its full story here).

And while we were originally talking about it, some of us tried to convince Norbert to wear one of those tank topped, stripy things much like these ones:

To which he just grumbled: 

"Right, and you know how woud I look like in that? Like Obelix..."

Our leader found it so funny, that she literally fell under the table laughing, and the idea stuck... 

That year, in our Xmas party, we did a little sceene, in which N. was Obelix (but messing up everything like having a beard, making Getafix (me) a women, etc... 

Of course, I made his dress for that... (don't even ask... I could not just use any blue/white striped material, the exact width and number of those effing stripes were... how sall I put it... 

Non-negotiable. 

I ended up sewing together stripes of white and blue fabric

(and let's not even get into how *I* ended up making the only more serious piece of costume).

Anyhow, we did the sceene, N overstepped his shadow appearing on the stage AND even talking, he was cute and all..

And then those stripy pants were packed up and forgotten... almost. 

Last year when we went to the Orfű festival (its kind of an alter-rock fest, one of our favorite), I started to nag N, how fun it would be if he would dress up like Obelix for a day... 

Of course, knowing him, his shyness, and all that I did not much hope I can get through him... 

But loo and behold... This year...

He did. 

The festivalgoers LOVED him. 

He had so many pictures taken, and, I think, he had fun. 

Now, I can retire those pants, knowing, they weren't only used ONCE... LOL.

Weekly SO

My weekly SO (Strong Opinion), is that I am ever so glad, that nowadays, the 1st of September (the traditional "end-of-summer" "school-is-starting" "new-season-is-starting" time, the kind of "real-start-of-the-year-time" has no meaning for me anymore.  I have been tied to it for the longest, my shcool years, my son's shcool years (with only a few years respite between those).

I remember the feeling, how I could NOT enjoy the August 20th celebrations, because they ment the end of teh summer, the thightness in my stomach, the feeling of "The End"....

But now my son is also well out of shcool, and absolutely NOTHING ties to that date, our reenactment season is still on, the weather is still warm...

Weekly patternmuster (knitting)

Which means a sign, that I am coming back... slowly, but surely.

My days are still hurried (like I have about two days to do about a week's worth of translation), I still need to wash up a bunch of clothes, and then pack them up, before we leave for Prague... But yes, I always say, life is beautiful, when (a lot of things) happening in it. 

In other words, a true Saggitarious way, I will sleep when I am dead. 

Anyhow, I am here, already drank my morning coffee  can of Coca Cola, had my caffeinated painkiller (formerly known as Algoflex Duo that unexplicably dissapeared from our pharmacies), now only brought in from either Austria or Germany by a totally different name - but it is still the only thing that can deal with my morningheadaches).

So, I was thinking for days how to come back, and since today is Monday, the Monday weekly patternmustern seemed to be innocent and easy enough. 

As for knitting, I am still waiting for the "pendulum" to move out the utterly boring, basic colors (i.e natural beiges and grays), and utterly boring shapes. To simplify things I opened up Ravelry to see, how many pages of patterns I have to look at to see something that makes my jaw drop. It took about 5-6 pages to see something I opened seperately thinking "okay, these are not bad" (but then again, NOT jawdropping). And it took me the 9th pages to see this one.

Now, this is really something. 

Jawdroppingly gorgeous. 

The Baltic Storm Sweater.

Wow, wow.

Would I knit this? Absolutely. It is special, it is colorful.

Will I actually knit this?  Maybe not in the near future, but that is only because the serious lack of time. 

While I would not say I cannot do Intarsia (and I suspect, this one does have a serious amount of it), I am not as proficient in it as in other colorwork techniques. 

However, reading the description, it is a top-down sweater, with a round yoke and there is more than 70 projects of it on Ravelry. So, I am not saying never. It IS certainly something I would attempt one day. 

It ain't over yet

The last few months were incredibly busy, incredibly tiring, but also pretty satisfying, from many points. Of course, there were mishaps, problems, and all that, but looking back, I think, wow, I cannot believe, we did all that. 

And just as the title of this posts say, it is not over yet. Not the events, not the work, nor the summer. 

I do have to say out loud, that I am ever so glad, that the 1st of september does not effect me anymore, not even through my son, it (or these last days of august) does not fill me with dread, the feeling of everything is over, and the feeling of hate school and school-season.

And while I am trying to wrap up things, I think about coming back to the blog, with full intensity.

I do have many things to tell you about, many things to show you (though, some of you could catch a glance of some things on FB or Instagram), and now I am wondering, what order should I put them...

Timewise? The oldest first and catch up? Start with the least impressive things and go to the ones I am most proud about? Or just random? 

What do you think? 

Also... What are you most curious about? Events? Travels? What I was making? 

Weekly patternmuster (sewing)

 Still looking for the perfect pair of barrel leg...

№1109

 

Weekly SO

 My strong opinion this week, that the new Coca Cola Zero design is highly misleading.

One cannot see at the first glance if it is regular or zero. Yes, you have to read, and the black wave is there, but still... 

I do not drink anything with artificial sweetener, for me it tastes bitter and have a nasty aftertaste

In the last couple of weeks, I've reached for my regular drink out of some fridge (in stores) only to find, that it is NOT my regular drink, but a zero. 

(And let's not get into the fact that in many places they only put zero into the fridge, so you are kind of pushed drinking that shit.)

Pink ruffles

Since I have been told that some of you indeed wants to see 6 meters of pink ruffles, so there you go :-) :

I was also asked how I made them...

No pictures of the making, but: I measured and drew up 8 of 12 cm wide stropes across the fabric. (Remember, that the warp thread usually stronger than the weft thread, so if you are cutting straight ruffles, cut them-if possible) across the grainline). I cut them with my scallope-cutting scissors. They are much like the zig-zag scissors most crafters are familiar with, but the scallops it cuts are ointing to one side, so those lines had to be cut twice. I mean if I wanted to be the two sides simmetric. 

Then sewed the pieces together at their shorter ends, so I got an about 10-11 cm wide, 12 meters long strip.

Changed the bobbin in my sewing machine to a fresh one (nothing like running out of the bobbin-thread at the middle of a stitchline, you are planning to pull to ruffle up something).

Turned the machine to its longest stitch, and loosened the bobbin-thread a little (it does not really matter, if you are loosening the needle-thread or the bobbin-thread, it is just easier to pull the one that was thighter).

Run two stitchline in the middle of the ruffle, approximately 0,5 cm apart (for me that is the width of the machine-s foot - I am sewing with an old industrial straight-stitch machine). The bobbin had about 10 cms of thread after I finished :-) Yeah, I won the bobbinthread-chicken game!!!)

I treated the two line as one, I held the two bobbin thread together while pulling.

Then I pulled the thread that was left thighter in the sewing machine (in my case it was the bobbin-thread). 

I did not try to ruffle up all of it at once, but did it in 150 cm pieces, To do that, in the places the ruffles were sewin together, I pushed a thicker knitting needle under the stitch and carefully pulled the loop up until I could grab it with my fingers. I pulled each piece from both ends, while I kept checking its length. I kept pulling and pushing the ruffles until the 150 cm piece became about 75 cm and the ruffles were more or less even, then did the next piece. The threads that were pulled out were tied together very carefully. 

After that, I left my hadns to rest for a day and then I pinned the ruffles on. 

They were sewn on by hands, but that is another story.