Dress from the age of reforms (1845)

 Until I decide what to do with this blog (isn't this a motif that keeps coming back? but the same thing is going for my life, I continiously trying to decide what to focus on, as I want to so so many different stuff)...

Most probably for the next while there will be a mixture of posts about travels (ten days in Italy, that were magical), crafts (clothes, kintting, yarn related) and probably stuff about reenactment and our group, the Mare Temporis Foundation, which sometimes referred as "the foundation" or "MTA" (from its Hungarian name) 

I realized, that in the years I've mde most of my historical clothes I hardly blogged, and I never showed those dresses properly, saved maybe for the first, Tardis Blue ballgown, and the regency daywear. And I feel those dresses deserve their own posts. There was one general summary when I wrote about just how much material goes into an ensemble like that, but lets se some details. There will also be no particular order (not timewise, nor the order of their making, once I might make a summary page, and put them in order, but who knows, how and when).

Anyhow, first let's see my dress from 1845. This period, in Hungarian history was leading up to the 1848 revolution and freedom fight, and called the age of reforms. In English/American it is early Victorian. 

This post was mainly inspired by a blogpost on wrap style 19th century dresses. The wrap / foldover style is a long time favorite of mine, I loved it long before I started doing historical dresses. I loved it for moderm clothes, tops, dresses, sweaters, cardigans... It suits me, and I love it. So I always looked for that style in historical clothes, however assimetry, as far as I can see, only pops up in the regency / napoleonic period.  This blogpost is a nice summary on how 19th century used this style and it also mentions the dress that inspired mine. 

My inspiration was a dress is supposedly in the Moskau Historical Museum. 

Guess what its blue, has small white patterning (two traits in a fabric I deraly love) and its foldover front enchanted me. 

 

I made this dress after a first run with am early victorian dress the previous august, which is not a full succes, but still used when a somewhat lower class victorian character needs to be presented). I do not have many pictures of that dress, only these here, as I probably only wore it once, at the first Savaria Festival I attended. Since it was worn by Nori, who is more found of playing poor characters than I am.

Sewviing the dress, my friend, Tilda helped me to pin up the folds. Which then promptly needed to be taken out, becaus ewhen I took of the the thing all the layers were off and warped. It took me days to rearrange and tack down those little pleats, but I am still ethernally greatful to Tilda for all her help, including the pinning up the final hem. 

When I wear this dress I wear a chemise, bloomers (usually the same I wear for the somewhat earlier, regency period), a corset, a corded petticoat, a small bumpad, ruffled petticoats and a petticoat that should smooth doewn the lines of all that underwear.

The block printed cotton fabric came all the way from india. The small white prints on indigo blue could fool anyone thinking it is a typical hungarian thing, but no. When I ordered it, I thought it will be a cotton, the typical thickness of the printed calicos, but it was much thinner, almost like what we call viscose flockon (the thin rayon). 

I lined the bodice with cotton and added boning to give it structure. 

Searching back for some link, I ralized, that probably this is my most used dress, but rightly so. 

After all that wear I still love it, the details, the folds, the buttons, the narrow,, blue edging at the waist.

Not to mention the fact, that even though it is decidedly a day dress, not a ball gown, it moves nicely when dancing. 

Ikea

 When you wow NOT to make an 18th century Ikea-dress, because everybody and their sisters has them, what do you bump into in a second hand store.....

It has an ever so slight discoloration, I think I might just overdy it to light blue (what else?) But still....

Do people still read blogs?

 Is anybody still around here? 

I know I keep saying this blog as a very random journal for myself, but then again... 

Yeah, blogs are written to be read as well, isn't that so? 

I also know that this partical blog is kep in rather haphasardly, sometimes there are a bunch of posts sometimes there are none for weeks....I admit that the absence of any kind of feedback (umm, comments???) makes it harder to keep up (or should I say, makes it easier to be lazy, and not put things up for longer period of time). 

I also know people say that Ravelry / Intsagram/ Facebook and lately, increasingly youtube killed blogging, but I also know , that I, for one, like to read blogs...

So, I do have things to say, and pictures to show you, is anybody still here? 

If I would not go to concerts...

If I would not go to concerts… (For non-Hungarian friends: According to the latest from our govt, the current rules, for organizing cultural events (concerts, theater plays etc) are only allowed up to 500 persons at an open-air venue... all the while sports events can be organized without any restrictions. When the spokesperson was asked why is this discrimination, the answer was, because people can drink in concerts and then cannot behave and keep distance. Below there are a few Hungarian poets/poems, writers and songs and places are mentioned believe me- they are all very worth of knowing).

If I would not go to concerts, I wouldn’t only a few glasses of cider short (which I rarely drink anyway), but I would be poorer for not knowing some poems, that I find extremely important now, even though as a poem reader I had seen a fair share of the, I wouldn’t know to recite from the poem of Pilinszky „Don1t be afraid” or Ferenc Szemlér’s  „If you would be caring for me”. Not to mention Radnoti’s „Enchanting” (Okay, I WOULD know that, but let me tell you, it is much better sung. If I would not go to concerts, I would long forgotten that one of the last poems of Radnoti’s can be read in a different way, I would not know his wife’s Journal. 

If I wouldn’t go to concerts I wouldn’t’ know a lot of beutiful places, the Castles of Szigliget, Kőszeg, I would have never seen Ráckeve, Alsbogát, Kapolcs, Tusnádfürdő, and a bunch of other, very special places. If I would not go to concerts, I would not read the books of Krisztiám Grecso, I would not know how to put together a photobook, and I would not know what happiness is being truly wet by a summer rain, and sing from the top of your voice „may the rain was our hearts to one”…

If I wouldn’t go to concerts, I would be short of quite a few friends. I wouldn’t know how hard can a special needs girl hug, I wouldn’t know how much I can miss her sister too). 

I would not know the feeling that they save my place in the front row for me, I would not know how a cello and a violin sounds in a rock band. If I would not go to concerts I would not smile on someone’s posts on Facebook, or would not think about the things another shares. If I would not go to concerts I would not know, that one does not only go there for the music, but for the friends.

If I would not go to concerts I would not know what love is. If I would not go to concerts I would be still sitting home, lonely, and feel sorry for myself. I would not know how it feels, when someone cares for you, takes care of you, loves you.

I admit, I’ve never been to a football game, and I am sure there are positive things there, for those who do go, but I find it really sad, that all I got from going to concerts in the last few years, is dismissed with a shrug, because in concerts „alcohol can be drunk”. 

I’ve never went to a concert to drink, and I would be going just as happy if, from now on, you could get only water in these places.

Most of the pictures were taken by Norbert Varga, at a bunch of different places, I am grateful for everyone who are in the pictures, and for those also who, this time were left out, but they are still in my heart.

PS: If I wouldn’t go to concerts, I would not have planted flowers this year either. Just sayin’. 

Open!

My favorite textile store that is... after almost two month, it is a tiny-tiny shade of normality...
Last week when I've had an appointment with a beautician, and she cancelled, I literally cried  (I might make a list that make me cry these last weeks. Or not. However, there were some real strange reasons there... ). I mean I am so hungry to have contact with people other than N and Chris...I mean I love them both to pieces, and if I can only talk to two people for he rest of my life, they would be those two, but still...
Anyhow, I still ventured into the city, but downtown was so empty it was rather disheartening.
But this week it seems some stores had enough and reopening, bit by bit....
Like the "cheapo fabroc store"née I Love Textil, which do sells a lot of sh*** I mean stuff that is no value to me, but sometimes I do find trasures there... Just like now.

Its not that I need or have space for them, but still...

So, here is hoping that things might just turn for the better... one day.

Start...

of something new... As if I needed more hobbies... even though thi sis not entirely new, but I haven't done it in decades...

Treasure chest

I finally got around and folded and put away my fabric stash... at least most of it.
I have a fairly old, retro, modular office...whatever they call it. It has modules for storing clothes, but it also has modules with drawer, and shelves. It probably sat in an office of the old socialist party. PJ got it, when he first rented a flat, about some 30 years ago. The furniture he'd gotten used back then,came from one of the party headquartes. (The last of teh chairs from there gave in pretty lately, it was thrown away in the last spring clean up). There must have been sized to a standard wall, because if it is all put up, it is exactly the size of the wall between my bedroom and the sewing room.... come to think of it, the second wife of my father had exactly the same set, exactly on that wall for a while (yeah, this flat has its own story, maybe I tell it one day). However that set had been around here, put up here and there, turned this was and on the other, the last I moved it was when after PJ left and 6 piecesout of the 8 had been put up in the small room that used to be my sewing room / storage. Now the shelved one stayed there, providing storage for Chris now, and the two wadrobe functioned was moved in the old/new sewing room. I asked N to put in some shelves, so teh fabric I put in would be more accessible, I wouldn't have to take our all, if I want something from teh bottom. This also gave me the opportunity to make "collections" and put fabrics with similar uses in one heap.
Since I do have (yes an awful lot of yarn, but also) an awful lot of fabric, I needed to figure out how to store them the most possible efficient way. The chest (let's call it chest) is not big enough to put in fabric rolls, so I measured the shelves, and spent literally weeks and weeks of folding up the fabrics to size. some I had washed to have it shrink if it wants to, those needed ironing as well.
I do not have enough space for a proper table, I worked on the floor. That put a considerable strain on my back and waist, but now it is done, and I guess it was worth ot. there you go...

 These are the taffetas and above the fabric that are suitable for stays, corsets and the like.

 Velvets, some of it for "civil"uses, most of them are for historical items.

 Small prints on cotton, for regency, early victorian and maybe late 19th century stuff... at the top are some knitted fabrics for modern stuff-

 Ahh the whites... these are different white stuf, for historical underwear, some cotton, some linen. Love them all. On the other side of the chest (no separate pictures, but you can see teh bottomright shelf on the top picture) there are similar amount of white fabrics for modern clothes... I do love white clothes, don't I?

 The wools.

The colored linens.

 And the stuff that I just could not stuff in its shelves. Some wool, some taffeta, some brocade, but all for historical stuff...

 And no, this is not all... I have about this much more, on the other side of the room, in boxes, but these are the things that -hopefully- will use the most in the near future.
The lesson is, that when you do fold the stuff flat, you can really stuff more things in. In this place there is about 12 huge moving box (the type you can buy in Ikea, or Kika in my case), and what had been lying around in bags.... Now I can see what I have, and go ahead and sew something.