Coming out...

Of some kind of closet... LOL.

If someone tells me a year ago (or even this spring) that I will not only try bobbin lace, but grew to like it... I would have laughed at them... and laughed and laughed, as it was one fiber art I could pass without my fingers itching ("I wanna try" - No, NOT). - in fact I thought one has to be a certified lunatic to do it... However, never underestimate pride, as I started a course out of pure competitiveness (In our group I am the one who does - and pretty good at- several fibery crafts, I knit, crochet, spin, weave, sew and embroider)... when my young friend wanted to try lace, I just could not allow a green young chick to know something I don't, now can I? Accordingly, I struggled with bobbins... I planned to learn teh basics, so I could say, I know how to do it, but not really interested... yeah, right. Until I found the early Italian plaited / braided laces, and I fell in love with them. Hello, my name is Anett, and I am a lace addict. Here are bits of my progress from the first tapes...

Yet another pair of...

17th century socks for reenactment.

Yes, I know, these posts are gettingfew and far between, but sometimes life just shifts around and emphasis falls on different this... However I am still knitting, even if less than usual, and as I am getting increasingly involved with reenactment, I am making stuff for that old-new hobby, and friends involved.

Dóri, who is the leader of the foundation, and the historical dance group, asked me for a pair of socks, "Warm ones, like Judit has" ... "but could you make them red please?"

So red they are.
Pattern is like the one before, out of my head. Based on existing stockings.

According to their new owner they served her well in Groelle... where the weather was... as usual, wet an cold.

Yarn: Lana Grossa
Needles: 2.25 mm

What is above the corded petticoat?

If I want to write just a short post I would say another petticoat.

But since my posts are rather rare these days I will not try to get away with that little but I will show you the whole thing.

The truth is this was only another trial piece, with some faults. The fabric came from a store that sells cheap leftovers and factory rejects, and I got it specifically to test and try early victorian patterns.

 The dress, despite of its faults, ended up used in the Savaria Historical Festival (with the full under clothing)...

And here it is in live... (for non Hungarian speakers, we are arguing about what style of dress the girl should wear in her first ball, a traditional Hungarian or a modern western style--- fashion at those time could be rather political).

As I said I am not, by far satisfied with the end result, but luckily I have enough fabric to make at least two to for the skirt... and this is only the test fabric. So... to be continued.

Random sewing post out of the blue: Cords, cords, round and round

By now I am not apologizing, not promising anything, just let's see what comes, shall we?
I was fully prepared to put up a post (or more posts) about our London trip, but still haven't got around to download a bunch of pictures from the camera, so that should wait.
On the other hand my adventures, in the world of historical clothes continue, and there was a set of early renessaince worker woman's clothing made (pictures later), and now I would need to do an early baroque worker woman's outfit by this weekend... thus it is the perfectly logical decision to start an early 19th century corded petticoat, right? I like to live dangerously.
Anyway, you've seen my 1860 ballgown, and the crinolin underneath. But before crinolins came into fashion in the mid 1850's... following the the sleek lines of regency dresses at the beginning of the century, in the 1820's the skirts started to get wider, and wider, and more and more petticoats were put underneath, and they used several trick to keep them as wide as possible, like quilted and ruffled petticoats. Cords were also used to stiffen clothing (even in stays). Here are a couple of examples:
 
(pictures from Pinterest)

I will need an early victorian ensemble at the end of August, and these clothes are better built from the inside out, from the foundation, which is very important, I started with the petticoat.

I took the plainest white sifon, which is available in 240 cm width, and a ball of the thickest tie/rope/cord I could find in the gardening store (made from hemp).

Cut the fabrick to the length of twice the length I wanted my skirt plus about 10 cm for the amount takn up by the cord casings (95x2 = 190 cm). Folded it lengthwise and sewed the finished selvege (left about 15-20 cm open at  both end, for the slit). Ironed the seam apart, and folded the tube in half crosswise, so I got a double valled tube, half as long.
Then, pushing the rope to the edge, I started to sew it around.

and around..

and around... Sometimes I sew a round empty, leaving out the rope.

and around, and around.
Finally, I pinned the open slits together, and sewed, then pulled in the waist line, and added a waitsband.

And voilá...The whole petticoat is about 85 cm long.

And by the way... This much, that I have left of the big ball of rope...

Spinning, what else?

God, I just realized that there was about two whole month of radio silence, and sorry for that. I always want to be a really good girl and write this blog more frequently, but... well, not getting into explaining myself (as I've been told I have a tendency to do). There were some crafty things happening, including some sewing, but what is I turn to when I do not kno wwhat to do, or what to post about?  I will show you some spinning instead...
This is a long standing debt of mine, I promised this in exchange for a bag of DROPS yarn a friend of mine could not use, as she thought they are to prickly...(how can that be still eludes me, but the sake of avoiding hurting people or cause controversy, lets just say I accapet the fact that there are people who think (khmm feel) that certain yarns are prickly...)
Anyway, she thew a bag of yarn at me, and though it took me a long while, here is what she gets in exchange...

It started out as a 100 gramm braid of merino and silk combed top

Which I dyed to a long color repeat

From a darker beige, through the color of sand, passing into the blues of the sea, and the beach sky.

 Ended up with 510 meter two ply softness, and as I was turning our conversation back, after making up the skein and measuring the length,  I saw that my friend originally said she'd like about 500 meters of yarn for a particular shawl project... Mission accompished.

weekly spinning

 I decided that weekly spinning will mean, not that I show some spinning every week (though it may come to that... or it may not), but rather whatever I spun/ finished or just decided that I would show that given week.
Accordingly, here is a hank of yarn I spun for somebody's request.
This yarn is not "me", nor in terms of its colors, nor it being a kind of "art yarn", however, or maybe for this reason, I enjoyed spinning it.

About 100 gramms of fine, 18 micron merino, about 260-280 meters.

Hole in the... fabric of time and life...

Yes, I know. April was a month where I seemed to dissapear. I keep saying this... so I will just trying to stop figure out where the month of April went, and show you something I made...
This time it is weaving...
I told you, weaving is something mystic for me, it is like whenever I sit down to a loom,, time, and space dissapears... Like I am in a totally different dimension...or universe...It is a strange feeling of being at two places, I am here, I think, I even talk, make a conversation, and at the same time I am sowhere else. It feels like it is not my feet that steps on the pedals, not my hands that throw the shuttles, but when I stand up, I do feel, that they were indeed my hands and foot.  I just see as the threads cross each other, and make order of things... Monotoniously repeated movements, step on the right foot, throw the shuttle from right to left, catch the shuttle with the left, step off the right foot, beat in, step on the left foot, throw the shuttle from left to right, catch the shuttle with the right handm step off the left foot, beat in, and start again. Even if I do not do any patterning, and/or stripes, as I put in the weft, one by one, it reminds me of life, day by day, it repeats certain elements, there is morning, there is daytime, there is night, without fail, No two days are alike, and no two weft is perfectly the same, even if we use commercial yarn, we use our hands, sometimes, I beat a lit stronger, sometimes I leave a slightly bigger triangle... I do strive to be as uniformly even as possible...but as with life...it will even out at the end. This is increasingly true when I use handddyed,  handspun yarn, when every weft I throw in makes me amazed, and wonder, because it is even less alike, and the end fabric is still relatively even... and when I have something to do? a pattern, or stripe, or just a line of silvery thread to break up the monotony? Like Sundays or holidays... when the days are just different... some life is totally irregular, and some patterns are just as irregular, like mine.. and sometimes I wish for more simple, more organized life, like in there scarf I wove last week, they are appearing at pretty regular intervalls... just like Sundays.

The shawls were made in Judit's workshop,
Yarn: 100% silk, from India, and some silver thread.
Photos: Judit Lukács

Hole in the wall

No much rather in the fabric of time, where about twenty days of April dissapeared... I can't say, without a trace, as I still have dye under my fingernails, and braids of wool, hanks of yarn lying around to prove that there was a Day of wool, and I did prepare for it, and I did work about nonstop for two weeks afterwards to make up for the time...no, not lost, because I do not think those times spent with the perparation for the Ball, the Ball itself, the preparation for the Day of Wool, or the Day itself is anything but spent in the best possible way... creating and enjoying.

However, I will have bills to pay in the next month, my son will want to eat (me? not as much, I have so much weight to loose), so work needed to be caught up with, and by the time I looked up and out of the window, expecting birdsongs and springflowers, I saw this...

Yes, thick, twirling snowfall... yikes. I hate winter, and cold, my stomach churns at the sight of snow even in wintertime....but in April? You do not want to hear, what I think.

Just to make myself (and maybe whoever reads this blog) feel slightly better, here is a video of one of my favorite regency dances... which is called, fittingly... Hole in the Wall. Enjoy. Tomorrow is the monthly historical dance club... there is light at the end of the tunnel.

The morning after

In which I am not talking much, but show you the  first few pictures, that came off my phone...
Hopefully there will be more, and in more details, until then:

Victorian underwear, or why it is good for you to go to Irish dancing

There is two days until the ball, and the appropriate panic settles in, as in we won't be ready with everythin in time, with whom I am going to dance, what if I forget wich figure is which in a certain quadrille....
In the meanwhile we are working on a full set of victorian underwear, including the open bloomers, and chemise...
I will let some pictures do the talking while I am trying to get over the  fact that in the middle of working on the underpants the electricity went off around 8 PM on sunday, causing me to nearly get a heart attack and a nervous breakdown, having absolutely no idea where to turn for help, when I remembered that one of the guys in the Irish dancing club is doing some home repair works and does housecalls.... and he was nice enough to drop everything for us and fix the problem,

Of course everything is done twice, with some differences (mine has a bit more lace for example) but Zsófi is much better shape to show off underwear.