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 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.
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).
