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. 

Venice, Venice, Venice.. and more Venice.

I was standing there on the bridge between the parking lot and the historical inner city of Venice, thinking " Oh my god, I am here. I am REALLY here."

About 30 years ago, coming home from a business trip, from Milan to Budapest, I was sitting in a car, at a sign saying „Venice that way to XX kilometers”, and I was begging the driver with teary eyes to go and see. We had time, we still had money; we were sitting in a car, but no, no and no. The more I asked, the harder the no was as things were (Icantparkthere, the carwillbestolen, toomuchtourist, itsonlyatouristtrap and I can still list the excuses). 30 years passed, so many things happened, I even got to travel rather far, but Venice, Venice eluded me. 

Until Geri from a historical costuming group mentioned about a year and a half agom that he is planning to organize a trip for the group to go and be part o the Venice Carnival. From the first moment I was jumping up and down "yes, yes, yes, i wanna goooooo". A year and a half went on, with qiute afew meetings, discussion, saving money, Facebook chats and whatnot, renting a flat on AirBandB, planning the trip, changing a lot of details, but on 1st, I was standing on thet bridge, with tears in my eyes, thinking. Oh, my God. I am here. I am REALLY here.

In which I act like...

... the last 9 months didn't happen in complete silence....

I cannot act, like it did not happen at all, because...OMG so many things did happen in that 9 months... Those of you who are my friend in FB, know some of it, I might even get around telling my blog about some. I miss blogging, and I keep thinking of thigs to post about, be cause even Facebook does not know (or do) everythng. We will see, how well it goes.. or not.

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.