Dressed up in Venice

Are you all bored by my Venice pictures? Because I cannot get enough of them. There were a few thousand pictures shot, and though there are favorutes among them I can find something new every time.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, there is somthing magical going to the carnival all dressed up.

Compared to many dresses, mine was more simple, less spectacular, but I loved wearing it.

I made the dress last summer, the upper layer, the giornea was lent by my teammate Gizella.

I walked favorite pair of shoes, that was handmade by a hungarian crafstman around in the venetian streets.

My favourite cople.

Mirrored in a window...

Who is lacing whom?

Underneath the renaissance coat, the youngster wore balloon pants and red thights...

After about 30000 steps, by the evening... pretty ired, but happy.

Breaking news: I've knitted something!

Really. It is not that I do not potter around and make things, I do sew, I even knit, but much less than I used to, and finishing things are even more remote possibilities than they used to be...
But the new year's sweater did get finished, even photographed on our way to Italy.

We stopped in Slovenia to see the caves in Postojna, and the castle in Predjama... My sweater just got dry enough at the morning we left so I put toogether the necessary, the useful and the nice things and asked to have a couple of pictures made.

Yeah, I still remember the time, when the new Year's sweater took me about 4 days... well this one was done in two months, and let's just leave it there...

I picked up the yarn in a second hand shop. 50% wool and 50 % cotton, but thinner than the Drops Cotton Merino. More like sock yarn weight. 

 Pattern is based on DROPS (what else) 186-7 Belle Epoque, but of course the yarn is totally different, so is the gauge and the stitchcount. I used their charts and the basic structure of their sweater and went from there.

 (Photos: Norbert Varga).

The carnival in Venice...

A few things about Venice...and the Carnival.
Geri asked about our experiences, and here is a few of my thoughts.
Start planning and organising well in time. We started more than a year ago, and we reserved our accomondation on AirBandB about a year ago. The place we managed to score was great. A cople of corners away from the Rialto bridge, windows overlooking a canal. Spacious, the originally planned  8 person would have been comfortable, for the six of us, was plenty of room (3 bedroom, 2 bathroom).

Train tickets for those who came with train were bought in the fall (and they went so fast, I mean in a few days all the tickets were sold out). However the others said, that the railjet overnight route was pretty uncomfortable.
We came with car and left the car in a parking garage. We reserved a place outside of teh city beforehand, but later decided that it is not worth the difference of 20 Euros (for three days) to loose all that time and money travelling out and in to the city to park and pick up the car.
With whatever you travel, be prepared for an awful lot of walking. No, more than that. No, even more. And add the fact that there are stairs (and bridges) everywhere. The fist night my feet hurt (abut 40000 steps). By the second night my butt was burning (close to 30 000 steps). The third day somwhere between 20 and 30 thousand steps)... let's not even talk about that.
If you go for the Carnival, do not go alone, or even as a couple. Go with friends. At least 4 but six to 8 people I think is easily organizable and enjoyable. However, plan things so, that you do things together, but leave enough time to yourselves and do things alone as well.

(especially if you are a reenactor, or into cosplay, or other dressing in costumes business)- go dressed up. As for costumes, hostorical accuracy is the least of the concerns. What matters is how visible, how flashy, how bold is your costume. I mean it.

But go, if you can. Go, because it is such great fun. 

(photos: Norbert Varga)

The same from backwards

I kind of decided that I try to revive this blog,posted one note (umm many pictures), then promptly submerged into the whirlwind of reenactment business, and only raised my head after the March 15th celebrations. ..

But before I go into that, I will show you more of Venice, how about that. Let's see some of the costumes...I only had my phone as a camera, but Norbi (hmm, wonder who he is? I might talk about him later) had his usual gear... My pictues -naturally - are not as good as his, but I was going for dress details, like the back of a dress and the fabric, while for him the overall picture was important.

These are my pictures... to be continued.