Hair

As most woman, I have a tendency to do something drastic, when something is bothering her soul... Okay, I am capable of doing drastic things anway, I had almost waist length hair cut to really short one, just because I made a wow (right befor our first trip to the USA)... Growing out my grays was pretty drastic, even if not fast...now as I have some sorting out to do in my mind and soul, something was bound to happen to my hair as well...

 Yep, after nearly four years, I bought haircolor.
Those who follow me on FB or know me in RL know how much I always adored colorful, rainbow, unicorn, elven hair... though historical reenactment is not really compatible with that color shceme... However, during my increasingly long walks, an idea climbed out from the midst of my thoughts... Tünde my hairdresser realized it better than I ever imagined.
The first time in my life I sat down in the hairdresser's chair, that ANYTHING can be done with my hair (as long as it length stays)... literally any color can be used, we can ut in weaves, it can be braided... it took me nearly four years... look, how it happened:
Igen, közel négy év után először hajfestéket vettem :-)

Foundations

Just in about three weeks, we are going to have a ball. A georgian ball at that, with the dresscode between 1750 and 1820, which includes the late rococo, georgian and the regency style dresses. Since - though I did all the dance practices and learned all the dances- did not went to the Jane Austen ball two years ago (which is still a sore point), and partly because I rather like regency clothes and because every joke is new for a newborn, I decided to go for the regency style this year. I am not overly fond of the overly decorated rococo style to start with. There ARE certain pieces and styles I like (the english roundgown for example), but I also have to consider the time I have to do this the ease of shipping (the ball will be in Keszthely- another city- I will either catch a ride with somebody, or take a train--will see that. But neither would be favorable for too big or too much packages.

As for the clothes, with every historical dress, you have to start at the foundation. No dress will fit and look as it "just dropped through a split in the fabric of time" if one does not wear the proper underclothes, so let's just start at the bottom. Regency clothes look like there is not much underneath, but that is just an illusion. the first layer is... yes, they did wear some kind of corsets- a pair of stays mostly to push the boobs up high, but that is not the first layer. No woman in their right mind wears stays or corsets directly on their skin, there is a shift, a chemies, or something similar underneath.

Also since I have a considerable extra weight, my thights are chafing in the heat, I need drawers as well.

Learned my lesson last summer in Savaria, for a two day even you need at least two sets of underwear.

 Two shifts and two drawers. For the shift I used the pattern I drew up last year, when I made the mid-victorian ensemble.

 Slightly longer though.

Drawstring neckline, tiny pintucks and lace at the edges.

 Drawers in the regency period just started to make their appearance in the ladies wardrobes, partly for modestly partly for health reasons. Those dresses were thin, and often see through. Drawers, howeevr were considered rather saucy choice.

 Actually only the two legs were put up on a waistband, I cheated just a little bit, by adding a normal waist.

They were narrower and longer than their victorian counterparts, sometimes even to the point where they were peeping out from the hems of the skirts.

I tried to emphasize the narrower, but longer lines with vertical pintucks and added ruffles as a nod to sauciness. 

 And if you ever wondered how they used to lighten their bodily burdens... here is the secret:

The next time: corset.

Question of the day..

Just to show the delpth of the problems I am facing... the question of the day is: if I want lace between the panels for a late 15th century camicia should I use (and therefore learn) needle lace, or should I just do a simpler, narrow lace from teh Le Pompe book.
I posed the question to a friend a couple of days ago, and she said, she understands the word of "between", "late" and "century"but has no idea, what I am talking about.
Stay tuned and I will explain later. Until then the pictures of me trying out a new Le Pompe pattern, to see whether it would be suitable for teh above mentioned purpouse.

 And one additional to show what happens, when the mailman rings, and I stand up so fast that the whole stand and pillow flies away.

Celebration in the Muzeum

More pictures than talk, would that be okay?

Let me just say, that March 15, 1848 is one of the most memorable day in Hungarian history, and celebrations each year were equally important.

This year our reenactment group was invited to be the part of the National Museum's celebration program. We've spent two days there March 3 and 16.

Hopefully I will write a separate post about the making of my dress with more detailed pictures... sometimes in the near future. Until then... picture time. 

The team at the end of the first day.

 Ladies in handmade / self made clothes

 Attraction in the ladies salon: bobbin lace.

 My inner diva :-)

 A true gentleman :-)  

Ladies from the age of reforms (as we call the 1840's)

 

In one of the acts. 

Ladies and gentlemen  in the salon.

Stocking from the 17th century...

In December several English lg knitting and historical sewing forum shared the note of the Leiden Textile Research Center, in which they were calling for volunteers to participate in reconstruction of a 19th century silk stockings. Of course in a "who-could-done-this-if-not-me" base I sent an e-mail right away, because I wanted o be a part of this.

Even from the pleriminary notes and exchanges we could see that it will not be an easy undertaking, as there were mentions of gossamer thin silk thread and knitting needles thinner than some of my sewing needles.

The second workshop was held in Castricum, where the stockings are stored, and the participants were allowed to take a look at them. It was an unbelievable, special treat. 

The story is that at the dutch seaside a lot of ship went under, and there is a lot of wrencks still under wate, under a thick layer of sand. The area is under protection, search, digging is prohibited, however, once in a while, due to an unsual wind, a new pier or something similar the flow of the tide changes, bringing stuff up from the sand. The wreck and findings from teh early 17th century was found that way. There were interior textiles, child and male dress items in various stage of detpriation, a woman's silk dress in a rather good shape and THE STOCKINGS.

Of course touching was not allowed nor the use of flashlights, but we got magnifiers, and a bit of time to study the stockings.

The first to notice is the unbelieveabli fine thread, the even knitting and the tiny gauge.

The heel and the toes have an unusual shaping, from before short-rows and kitchener stitch were invented.

The big heel gusset makes the thing look bigger than it really is.

There is a "clock" above the ankle, made from knit and purl stitches.

 The line of the heel flap and the back seam is enhanced with a narrow zig sag pattern.

There is no ribbing or garter stitch at the to edge, it rolled back.

As I mentioned earlier, the whole stockings are smaller, lighter, finer, narrower than one would think looking at the pictures.

I will tell you more about the project, but this was so amazing, I had to show it to you all. 

New Year's Red 2018

It says a lot of the state of my knitting and knitting mpjo, that it took me 6 week to finish my new year's sweater... (My best was about three days a couple of years ago)... But a rule is a rule, a tradition is a tradition, even if it is only a few years old, and even if it is a tradition only for me. 

Anyway it is finally done and here it is. I even took it to travel with me..

 Against my basic view of stash (the more is the better) I've decided trying to make use what I actually have, so last december I dug into my boxes and came up with a few ideas for my NYS...and after some consideration I settled on something I've already done in a different variation.

I loved DROPS's Nordic Summer pattern, and I wanted to do the pullover version for some time now, so much I even had the yarn in my stash for a red and white color scheme. 

 The pattern is pretty straightforward, easy to follow, the only change I've done, to use different stitch number for the sleeves to accomondate my arms, and when I've put the sleeves and the body on one sleeve I had to recalculate the decreases to have the proper number of stitches to be able to position the pattern repeats.

 The photoes were taken in Greenwich, London, by my son... light was on and off,

Pattern: DROPS Nordic Summer
Yarn: DROPS Baby Merino
Needles: Knit Pro Zing (2.75 (for the edges), 3.00  (for the stockinett), 3.25 (for the nordic pattern).

Sock yarn and Knitting Mojo

Back in the first decade of the 21st century we already had Internet and I, as a knitter already drooled over sockyarns,, but in my country the few places that sold yarn were still stuck with acrylic. However, there were a couple of second hand stores, and in some of these, occasionally bits and pieces of sock yarn showed up, and I could just not resist. No matter how small the ball was I bought it. And I kept this up long after new stores opened up, and sock yarns are much more readily available. I've knitted quite a few of socks, mittens and hats, combined some bits, but it never even made a dent in those boxes.. Remember this?
And that was just one box, I have at least another one for the patterned, leftover stuff (and lets just not talk about the unicolored and the full balls I have around).
For a rather long time now I admired those very colorful knits that used leftover bits, just like I have... there is this sweater for example, or these socks... in my mind I've been making similar plans, but... oh but...
For silghtly more than a year my knitting mojo was dissapearing, and at a scarily increasing rate. I have a rather difficult time to admit this, partly because... well just. I know exactly what was the starting point, what happened and what it caused, even if I will never exactly know why, but I seriously questioned myself, which probably was exactly what the other party wanted and even though I hated that... Anyway I felt constantly less and less like knitting. I was happy to jump into reenactment and sewing, and later bobbin lace, partly to take my focus away from all the yarns that are lying around in my flat, taking up space.  I looked at the boxes with increasing dismay, as I still loved yarns, I still loved knitting, but still... I just could not muster up the enthusiasm...until I bumped into a post on Facebook about a neckwarmer that was knitted from leftover sock yarns... the picture hit me. I kept goind back again and again... I saved it on my phone.... I was about to set it as a screensaver, when I looked up and saw my boxes full of yarns. I got up dragged down those with sockyarns and started to pick up those small balls, half skeins, and bits and pieces... Then little heaps started to appear in the corner of my bed, on the sofa, in my handbags... and I started to knit...

 It was so simple so utterly nothing, just knit stitches around and around...

 When a piece of leftover bit run out I just picked up the nect one tied a knot and continued to knit....
Then when it got about the length of my store bought (yes, I do have a neckwarmer that is knitted and I bout it in a shop... a second hand shop mind you, but still... I KNOW). Anyway, when it got to that length, I kitcheneered the two ends together, blocked the thing slightly, and thats it...

 I was so happy about it, I innediately started another one, and I still have little heaps and packages of yarns all around....

It is still hard to believe that something so utterly simple can get such a hold on me. Maybe this will be the thing dragging me out of the hole.

Yet again...

somebody told me... actually it came up several times in the last two weeks in discussions, that my partner in the given conversation said, how she liked my blog, and such a shame I do not write it anymore... which is not entirely true, as I do write it... at least in my head. Quite often I think how I should post about this or that, and since my phones are capable of making pretty good pictures. I even have photos....
Of course this started out as an all-in crafty blog, which turned into an all out knitting one---- which lately with a few vibbly-vobbly steps turned back to be again an all around crafty_sewing-weaving-spinning-historicaldressig-reenactment-dancing-acting-baking-bobbinlacemaking-embroidery-godforbidtravelling-evendressingorsocalledfashion-andwhateverIcanthinkof blog...then I got insecure, unsure... But what the heck this is MY blog, and as such I can put into it...whatever I want, even all of the above and then some....or not, but we will see that. For now, for example, here is a pic of me finding my big scissors and cut into a difficult... ouch that is a Hungarian phrase I don't now the English version of... anyway, we started something again...