Knee high stockings... again.

It seems I don't knit much anything else these days, but historic stockings... This is not entirely true, but I can't document the opposite just yet, so let's stay at socks.
Between reenactors barter type exchanges are everyday occurences, even if they tend to take long times to complete sometimes. In our case I recived a woven basket from our teammate, Gizella (and the promise for another), and she asked for a pair of stockings for her husband to use for his 17th century attire.

The only thing wrong with these stockings... they take ages to knit, and the knitting itself... honestly... ummm... well... Not the most exciting thing, so there it is. I can say, they are boring as hell.

Just knitknitknit around and around, broken only by some increases and decrases... Kind of lucky, that this is the knitting I can do in a car, because I only have to look at it once in every four round...

So with all that travelling in the summer...it did get finished after all, and I gave it to its new owner at the Baroque Wedding, who gracefully accepted the role of the modell for a few picture.

Stockings: about 150 gramms of sock yarn,
Pattern: my own
Needles: 2.00 mm
Photoes: Norbert Varga

Regency or Napolenic / Jane Austen era daydress project - part 2. fabric

I had the style of my dress selected, now I needed some fabric. Looking around the regular fabric stores around here it was obvious, that finding near HA (historically accurate) fabric is totally impossible. My next try was looking around Ebay, where fabrics printed in India are abound, and at once found something that I loved.

Only to find out that they only have 3 yards of it, while I needed about 5 for my project. I tried to ask the vendor, but communication was slow and difficult and took about a week, which made difficult to get anything else in time. 

There were other possibilities, like this 

 and this,

but because of the time I lost waiting for the answer about the other fabric, neithe of them would have arrived in time. 

I almost gave up, but then in the cheapofabricstore... Actually it is called I Love Textile, and they sell...factory rejects, remnants, leftover, and who knows what. One never knows what s/he finds when going into there... an upholstery brocade that would be great for a renaissance dress? some wool for a 17th century doublet? A few meters of linen for underwear? cotton for victorian petticoats? anything can happen. Generally it is full of sh***(polyester muslin and the likes) but sometimes there are real treasures. Hungarian reenactors would be lost without that chain). Anyhow, they had this rosey-birdsy print that in itself was..way to tacky. The contrasts were too high, the colors too bright.

In the international costuming circles Ikea dresses (dresses made from Ikea duvet covers) are abound, and though we do have Ikea here, I did not want to go that route... mostly because there a ton of those dresses around, and if everyone else have one... I don't want it. However, reading a lot about those dresses one info got caught in my mind, according to which someone dyed the fabric to make it look.... different, more appropriate, worn. etc. I am no stranger to dyeing stuff, yarn and fiber are regulars in my kitchen, if fact I even dyed some fabric a couple of years ago, when I made my early 17th century workwoman dress. Even the one I am wearing on the pictures of the Sárospatak post was dyed by me. 

So when I bumped in the fabric, I thoough I could just try to tone it down... and make it blue. I asked for a small piece to test it and dunked into a small pot of jeansblue dye... or at least I believed it was jeansblue. I must have mixed the small bags with the dye-powder as the test piece turned out to be green. 

(The pictures were taken late at night, the base color of the original fabic IS white). BUT  saw that the idea was not bad at all. Overdyeing toned down the to bight colors, lessened the contrast between the base and the print, and gave it a bit of antique feeling. 

I dunked the 6 meters of fabric (I call the store cheapofabric store for a reason, fabrics really cost little there, I could be generous with how much I buy and allow for errors) into the washing machine added half a bottle of 20% winegar, turned up the temperature the machine was supposed to wash to the highest possible setting (90°C) and had it turned the fabric a few times and turned off to let the it soak. In the meanwhile in an other pot (I am using it to yarn-dyeing anyway) I heated up about 2 liters of water, added vinegar and salt, and solved the dye-powders until I got the color I liked, in higher saturation I wanted the end results (The color was mixed from light blue, skye blue and some cornflower blue- I will never be able to repeat it I am afraid). 

Added the solution to the washing machine, then I let the machine add more water and heat it up again to the maximum, while tossing and turning the fabric. Turned off the machine, let the whole thing cooled and turned up again, but this time I let the cycle run trough and rinse the fabric three times (by the third time the rinse came out almost clear) and spin it. 

After I put it out the drying line and when it was almost dry, ironed the whole piece. 

With this process, beside the dyeing, the fabric was throroughly preshrunk. I don't think I will have to deal with shrinkage issues

(The original and the dyed fabric).

Now I had the fabric I liked, the next step was doing something about the pattern. 

See you next time 

Event catch up... Győr.

 Our group was part of the Győr Baroque wedding for many times, this year for me was the third time.
Onc again the event in the middle of August itself has mixed rewies and for reason (while it could be really good, historically accurate with a little more focus, energie, maybe money)... However, our group went there with our introduction of early 17th century life, and I believe that was as historically accurate as possible and enjoyable as well as it pribably thaught something to those twho stopped by us.

 We had muskateers, the camp doctor and his wife, kitchen wonders and some handcrafts.

Muskateers and swordfighting on the place..

 A lost time traveller on a quiet street..

 "Spontaneious" fighting on the street...

Teaching how to do magic (khmm... spinning) to little girls... she was adorable and duly enchanted by the magic of spinning. 

 And we showed what was used in 17th century kitchens,,, and what was not.

Basketweaving...

És az elmaradhatatlan esti felvonulás...

  Angyaltáncosainkkal.

Fotók:  Varga Norbert

Erdély (Transsylvania)

Ever since we knew each other we have been talking about travelling to Transsylvania...I've never been, on the other hand N had, and he loves the place... and everybody, who knows me, said that I would love it too...
And so it happened, that my favorite band put up an event on FB, that they will have a concert at a festival...no, not in Hungary, but in Transslyvania... And so it happened that we started talking about how it would be a good idea to go there now... And then it so happaned that I bumped into a dear friend, who asked so naturally if she would ask if I will brush my teeth before bedtime, she asked if we are going and she would be at that festival, so would we all meet...
And so we started to talk a bit more seriously, and see how could we fit the trip into our schedule, as We aleady had ticets for a festival (umm concert) at the lake Fertő (the Northwest corner of out country), and I had a reenacting event to attend at Sárospatak (at the Norteast corner of the country - I posted pictures of that here)... But then it so hapened that I recived a text from our above mentioned friend that would I give her the full name of N, as she would list us among the guests, and we could get in without buying tickets... NOT that the tickets were that expensive (especially compared to the price of the whole trip), but still, the fact that she though about us, was enough to push us over the edge...
Yes the weekend before that would be crazy and the weekend after it would be just as crazy and we are total idiots even consider it, but that one of the things I love in N... He can be so totally crazy with me... I always loved travelling, but my father is absolutely mmune to it. Don't ask me how, I cannot imagine, but he just does not care, not interested. PJ, my ex would have liked to travel, but he was way to cheap to actually do it...
N is not like either of them.
And so when I say.."we should go to..." "Let's go to...." he says "Okay..." and when I say "you are crazy I was joking..." "But I did NOT how fast can you pack?" he makes my heart melt.
I love sitting in the car beside him, and just go...

And so we did go to Transsylvania...
He said we pobably would not stop at Déva, yes, there is a castle up there, but no museum, "just the stones"... But as the road turned and I caught a wiev of the castle and gasped... he knew we had to stop.

No, it is not just stones... aside from the legend about its building (what was built during the day fell by the night, what was built at the night, crumbled before the sunrise... and so he had to sacrifice his wife and built her body in the walls to make them hold up), it is not just the stones.

However, our excursion to see the castle took just enough time, that we arrived to Vajdahunyad just after it closed.

N found accomondations for the first two nights in Torocko, a small village between the montains, famous for its folk art and (for me) its rustic bobbinlace.

Gyulafehérvár (Alba Julia), I loved the central part of the city... lovely churches...

Mixed heritage...

However right around the central part the big apartment buildings were so n down, they definetly had a post apocaliptic feel...

The salt mine in Torda was interesting (and I know there is a crevice / canyon? there, which is beautiful, and you can walk in , but not with the car - we passed it a few times and N told me that every time we did...even though we had no time to actually to stop and do walk in there)

And Marosvásárhely...

Again, the center and the castle area, is gorgeous... I could just imagine a historical festival there...

Korond and Farkaslaka..

and the birthplace of a writer, Áron Tamási

By the fourth day we were on our way to that festival and the concert...But we stopped at Csíksomlyó...

Tusnádfürdő...

The festival itself has some political overtone, but I do not get into politics publicly.
Not even as far a a like on Facebook. Not that I do not have an opinion, I do, but I will not express it.
And we did not went there for the politics, but for teh music.... and I belive my favorite band did so too.

As an extra I caught a quick hug and photo with the violin player (and singer and writer and whatnot)... just because the one who dies with the most picture with him wins...

and it seems I caught up with this festival thing..

The last days we were supposed to drive back to Hungary directly, but N wanted to show me the most he could, and took an excursion to see the Death lake and the Frog canyon..

"Ahh so you said I would not there to climb out there??? " :-)

"Or just I should not??? Anyway, too late :-) "

My feelings were somewhat mixed about Transsylvania... but those feelings were probably just because we only had a short time and could only see some major points of interest and could not go deeper.... Maybe next time.

Photos: Norbert Varga