Weekly SO

 My strong opinion this week, that I absolutely hate the fact that when one is looking for a place for an event, s/he cannot find ANY price (online or otherwise). Not even preliminary prices or ballbark figures or estimated prices, just to know, if it is worth to think about the given place further.

The ALL want you to write for an estimate, but with that they might be wasting their time as well as mine.  (Also, it is generally said, if you have to ask an "estimate" for the price, you cannot afford it).

Small spencer

There are a number of ways, you can make a regency outfit different. We could see that with my first white dress and the overdress...

For this simple white dress, to elevate it to an evening dress, or even a ball-gown, I only needed to add a small sleeveless spencer.

The fabric is a small piece of embroidered taffeta. I knew that one of the fabric-shops had a small piee, that was highly discounted, literally for years, because there were lines of sun-fading on it, when I went there, they used the piece for decorating a mannequine in the shop-window.

However, for this spencer I only needed small bits of pieces, so literally begged them to take it off and sell it to me (it didn't even had a pice anymore, they just blurted out a number, and I said okay, thats fine.

(Pattern was draped by me).

Photos: Norbert Varga @Bodeszphoto.
 

Weekly patternmuster (sewing) ... and a dilemma

 A few weeks ago, my computer totally crashed me, that meant, that all of the couple hundred open windows, some of them showing patterns I wanted to put into this "column" was lost.

And now, when I am looking, and putting words into search engine, so many things come up I like, but most of them makes me wonder, if they are bad AI patterns. 

For one, I want to collect patterns I like, maybe for later use. 

But then, I do NOT want to support anything AI related.

I have no way to check if those patterns work or not, even if they are made by AI or not. 

I said it enough, that most of the time, I only use patterns as a starting point, and do make mock ups, so not perfectly made patterns are no problems for me. 

So, what do I do now? 

For example, here is THIS pattern.

I like how it looks, I do love assymetric, foldover things, I would consider making it. 

BUT, it is supiciously cheap, and I suspect it is one of those not-good AI patterns. 

I know, I could make it work, but should I suggest it to others? 

What do you think? 

Napoleon and his time

 The Napoleonic (Regency) era is popular in most of the world, but we don't see much of it in Hungary. Yes, people know Jane Austen (ahh, the period/costumes they use in Jane Austen movies), and nowadays Bridgerton even more, but not much of either the history, nor its fashion. 

For men, there are some groups that reenact the Napoleonic wars, but for civilan life... it is close to nonexistent. 

Our group did dresses back in 2018, when there was that ball... upps, I have not written about that ball...

But there are pictures of those dresses (a plain white one and a blue oversress from saree-silk) in THIS post. When I made it, I had no pattern, and not much help with fitting. As much as I loved them, in every combinations, there were probems (the overdress was too wide, it kept falling off my shoulder)... To top of it all, I lost enough weigth that those things would've fallen off, even if they fitted me well in the first place. 

Last fall, when we went to the Palmanova Napoleonic event, I scratched the itch I had ever since I saw a video on Instagram about a size adjustable event, and made THIS dress. And then I made THIS spencer to go with it.

But this year, I wanted a "traditional" white muslin, regency dress, the one I started with many years ago, but much better. 

I was trying to find some pictures of the making, but (as usual? or as the typical ADHD way?) there is none, most probably, I made the thing in a hurry.

Interestingly enough, when I first saw the video of Amber showing the wrap around dress, I was completely enchanted by it, even asked her if she had a pattern for it (no, unfortnately she did not, though I would've bought it at once). However, I forgot about it, but Instagram somehow threw it before me, just as I was thinking about making this new dress. (Amber's insta reel is HERE)

As usual, I dug through my fabric collection, knowing that I have light, white fabric for at least 3-4 regency dress, and found a swiss dot one, I bought years ago (like in around 2017-2018) in I Love Textile.

I started out with a Black Snail pattern, but I modified that pattern so much, that its mother (umm, original designer) would not recognise it. 

I did make a video of the closure, but Blogger would not let me upload it (it says, the file is too big). 

I will try to make a reel out of it on Instagram, and link it here, somehow. 

But then, I also put the two picture (one of the old dress and one of this new one) to be able to see the difference. 

When I started making historical clothes in 2017 I was sewing for many decades by then. I thought, I knew everything, if not everything, but enough to... By now, I know I was brave and full of myself, and I had so much to learn. 

But that is also a lesson. No matter what are you doing, and how long you are doing it. There are always things to learn, and it is not a shame to redo things, to do things again, (and again, and again), just to be able to do it better. 

Fabric: I LOve Textil

Photos: Bodeszphoto

Time for socks....

So, we are back from Prague (too), and though we still have an international event to go, it is much closer, and shorter, than the Italianor the Czech trip was.

I am trying to get back to a more regular rutine, which also means, more regular posting...

Also the time is here, when I start to change my short, cotton socks to handknitted ones. 

Yes, I wear my socks. I wear my handknitted socks from the end of September, until about April, continiously. (and yes, I do wash them, in fact, I wash them in the washing machine. That is the only handknitted item I put in the machine, everything else gets washed by hand.

Anyhow... new socks. I started them earlier this year (much earlier, like in january, or maybe even last year???), because short, modern socks are things I can knit in the car, even in the dark (yes, I knit the historical stockings in the car as well, but during the daytime, as they need to be shaped, so looked at, at least once every round- though I did become much better of that too - meaning, keeping track of the zig-zag -and the connected decreases- in the dark, but then, that is a topic for another post). 

While we stayed in Prague, I got to the point with the (historic) stockings I am working on, where it needs light, and attention (turning the heel and picking up the stitches for the feet), and I was too tired on the way home, so I dug out the modern socks I stopped working on months ago. It seemed less of an efford to pick up the stitches and trying to figure out where I was with them, than turn the heel of the historic stockings. (Also, I am running out of the DPN's I am using for socks and stockings, I needed to free up some). 

I could see the advantages of having a system for knitting these simple socks a standard way of doig them, so I could easily find my way back, even after months of neglect.

Thus happened, that two pairs of short-ish socks, the ones that go into my fall shoes, and shorter boots, got finished. 

Actually nothing special abot them, both of them were made from leftover yarns I keep picking up in the second hand shop, they are not simmetric, as the Yarn Harlot says, they are fraternal twins.

Both have their toes, heels and cuffs from a different, solid color, I found going well with the colorscheme of the base-yarn. 

Yarn: random, unidentified sockyarn.

Needles: 2,25 Knit Pro.

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...