Latvian folk costumes in Prague

We interrupt our completely unscheduled usual talk of sewing and Czech landscape to bring you more Latvian folk costumes!
(It actually ties nicely into the upcoming HSM challenge of "Heirlooms & Heritage", except that the heritage isn't by any means mine...)

You see, there was a festival of amateur folklore ensembles in Prague last week, the Prague Folklore Days, and because my sister speaks Latvian, she was asked months ago to act as a guide and interpreter for Katlakalns, a Latvian ensemble from, you wouldn't guess this, Katlakalns*. :-)

So when they heard I was interested in folk costumes, the ladies gave me a quick fashion show after their performance and I have photos to share.

This first one is probably the most interesting in its "story" - it is the folk costume of Abrene, nowadays in Russia with a different name (which may still have Latvian roots).
Other than that, it's the style found in Latgale, the eastern part of Latvia, and allegedly (according to that Wikipedia article), in being all white it is the oldest type of Latvian folk costumes. I have a thing for Latgalian folk costumes, as my last post on my old Czech blog attests.
This one was apparently a little adjusted for the necessities of performance (there was a zipper at the side), but you can still see the typical features - the off-white colour, the red accents, the upturned bottom corners of the bodice, the red embroidered "crown" (worn by unmarried girls throughout Latvia), and the white shirt kept closed with a (more-or-less) circular brooch at the neckline, which is something all Latvian costumes seem to have in common.

These are from Ķekava, i.e. the region/municipality the ensemble comes from. Notice the richly patterned pleated skirt - they make for a lovely sight in movement. :-)
It's also a little bit more typical than the Latgalian one, as you'll see on the following photos. It seems to lie on the border between Zemgale and Vidzeme, so some of the sources I glanced into put it in the one and others in the other (presumably depending on whether you treat the Daugava as the border or not).

This one's from around Rīga; my sister pointed out the metal buttons to me as a feature marking it as a costume from a richer background.
(It's quite fascinating how subtle the differences can be, especially compared to Czech and Moravian folk costumes, where there could be silk brocades and tons of starched petticoats involved... It's another reason I enjoy the Baltic folk costumes - they never cross the line into impractical show-off material.)

Vidzeme (the northern part of Latvia). The pleated, striped skirts and simple bodices continue.

Krustpils. Apparently the border between Vidzeme and Latgale. A plaid twist on the pleated, striped skirts.

This is their fun-loving soloist, in a costume from Lielvārde. The town is, among other things, renowned for its richly patterned jostas (= the woven belts somewhat typical for Baltic folk costumes). Also, I've visited there, so I'm a little partial. :-)

This costume is from Rucava, a Curonian town relatively near the border with Lithuania. Me and my sister have agreed that it shows in the costume: the green colour is not so typical, the bodice is longer which is more typical for Lithuanian folk costumes than Latvian ones, just like the long ribbons are.
Also, notice the skirt is cartridge-pleated rather than box pleated: that's another distinction I noticed between costumes with patterned skirts and costumes with plain-coloured ones.

To contrast, a costume from Katlakalns itself: richly striped skirt, box-pleated.

Two costumes from Alsunga. Also Kurzeme / Courland. Cartridge-pleated skirts, decorative trim in the front of the bodice running below waist, metal (brass?) crowns.

Nīca. Kurzeme, typical "jewelled" crown and woven bright red skirt with an irregular pattern (cartridge-pleated).

Bārta. Kurzeme - the same crown, black cartridge-pleated skirt with a patterned bottom and a silver-trimmed red bodice.
(Apparently, normally the shirts of the above two, at the very least, would also be embroidered, which again seems to have been dropped for performance interchangeability.)

And one from Kuldīga, also Kurzeme. Similar to the ones from Alsunga; clearly, there are regional similarities and the costumes are not uniform even in one town or village.

I really liked that this ensemble went with that variety, especially because they happened to be the only Latvian ensemble present, and it went really nicely against the tendency of many other ensembles to be completely uniform in their costumes. Which may make sense from a performance point of view, or because obviously they have their costumes made on order, but it makes it rather limiting if you're looking at them as a representation of their country's culture at an international festival!
Not that I can really hold it against the others, because it was a festival of amateur ensembles, many of whom probably don't get to represent their country abroad that often.

* * *

Alas, I cannot show you videos of their performance, because my camera tends to switch itself off very quickly when I take videos. So I didn't try that, and there are no videos of their performance on YouTube (yet?).

I do have photos from their performance, not really representative because dance is difficult to photograph. I also have pictures of other ensembles. That's a topic for another post.



* Google has an annoying tendency to assume that the Latvian -s ending is a typo of -a, and forces all the genitive cases on me.

Look what I've got! The aunt edition + A dog story

My aunt is moving, and getting rid of stuff. She decided to get rid of a large part of her sewing supplies, because, as she said, sewing clothes is not really her thing after all (she makes super-cute toys, like my old teddy). Among other things, that means those old magazines are now definitively mine.

Today, I went to her home to pick some thread and other things (which turned out to be quite a load). I walked, and made a detour through two more villages - well, through one additional one as opposed to the usual way. As I walked through that village, I met a dog. The dog decided I was interesting and went on with me.

This is Dog, before I realised he was not going to stay in the village...

At the edge of the village, I got a first indication of Dog's unique nature. Dog kept running away to inspect various interesting smells along the road; but he kept running back to me. During one such expedition, he got in the way of a car. The driver glowered at me. I shouted at the driver that Dog wasn't mine.

Dog thought I was his, though.

He continued running around me, following me, running in front of me, running through puddles, getting in my way, getting in the way of cars (one stopped just in the nick of time, with a terrible screech) and being a total disgrace.

 

A clever and audacious and stubborn and cute disgrace.

He went with me all the way to aunt's door, where I had to get in through a narrow gap so that Dog would not follow me into the yard.

I got so many things from aunt that I don't think I can show you all of them here... maybe I'll never show you all of them anyway. :D

A sleeve board! This one I actually already got on Sunday. But oooh, I've been thinking for some time now that I really really needed this!

Some trim. The gold one on top is almost like knitted net, so I'm thinking that maybe I could manipulate it into a hairnet or something...
I also got lots of lace, but that I did not bother photographing. Sooner or later, I'll hopefully use it for something, and then you'll get a photo.

A box full of tailor's chalk! I think I'm going to share this. :D Although I'm definitely keeping the magenta one.

Bias binding! And some khaki twill tape.

A box full of tools, somewhat mysterious.

I have a feeling I've seen something like these before, but I can't place it.

It looks like some sort of smoothing tool?

 A little sharp hook.

A curved bodkin.

 A tiny hook. (Crochet? Crewelwork?)

A wooden needlecase! How wonderful is that? Also, now I have one of those bone awls! I think that may come in useful when I want to be sure my eyelets won't get too big.

And then I got lots and lots of thread; mostly polyester, but also lots of thick linen heavy duty thread, and two spools of Gütermann's buttonhole twist!

It can't get much better than free Gütermann's buttonhole twist, I think. If I manage it before aunt moves, I think I at least owe her a Tiramisu or something...


After I got home and sorted out most of the things, I eventually got a text from my aunt, telling me the dog was now sitting at the bus stop in my hometown: just to wrap up the story.

Summertime! A very long blog post

Yesterday, I did one of those summertime things. I went to a lake/fishpond/whatever it's called in English; mom had said there should be wild plums.

Maybe there are, I don't know. I never came to the place where they are supposedly growing, because on the way there, I found abandoned apple trees - lots of them, guarded by fearsome stinging nettles.

And just by picking the apples I could reach easily, I brought home about 3 kg of apples. Glorious green tart summer apples, perfect for pies and other such things.

Now, let us interrupt the story with an advertisement...

Well, sort of.

-~- Accordion to Kellie Summertime Blog Party -~-

What is your favorite cold summer treat?

My all time favourite summer treat, forget cold, is a juicy green tart summer apple, picked from the tree, and all the things that can be made from it. Like apple strudel.

I forgot to put any sugar in it. An excuse to put even more sugar on top!

If you insist on "cold", it's lemon ice cream. Especially the lemon + mint + ginger ice cream that I once had. My sister made homemade ice cream recently, cherry (obviously), with excellent results (so excellent that I do not have a photo). There's mint growing in our garden, and lemon and ginger are easy to come by. Maybe I should try it.

But mango lassi is also good.

Ideal summer vacation?

 Anywhere with a forest (although Bohemian-Moravian Highlands don't hurt). And blueberries. Or blackberries. And little streams in the forest. Accessible by train. The possibility to visit historical sites, like a chateau. And nice people around.

The Konopiště chateau, the residence of Franz Ferdinand d'Este, which we visited with mom and sister and cousins back in 2008.

Favorite summertime sport?

 Alternating between basketball and softball; but both only when it's not too hot. And I'm not much of a sport girl to begin with. If hiking by any chance counts as a sport, it's definitely hiking.

Name your favorite book for the perfect summer afternoon read

 The best, perfect summer afternoon read was Silver Rose/Green Brigade. I found it in the library of a recreation centre/camp that belongs to my church; it's the sort of library where people put their library castoffs. It was an old book, from the 1940s (as I figured out much later), and some of the pages were still uncut (!). I carefully cut them, and read it one summer afternoon on a lakeside...

When I came to the camp next year, the book was in pieces, scattered over the whole library, and I could not put it back together.

(I saved several books from that library; until then, it felt like stealing, or borrowing for an indefinite time; after that, I kept them without regret.)

Currently, both me and my sister are immersed in the Brother Cadfael series. I found its awesomeness thanks to Lisa. I had encoutered it once or twice before, the name and the basic premise, but I had not bothered checking it out because back then it sounded like one of the countless "historical" novels that are to be found out there. You know, historical murder mystery? Solved by a monk? Sounds a lot like something riding the popularity of Name of the Rose. Thankfully, I know better now. It was written by a historian, it describes a time and place in English history that you rarely hear about (plus some Welsh history thrown into the mix, which you hear about even more rarely), and it was translated into Czech by two of the best Czech translators from English. Just that would suffice to mark them as books made of win; but it usually also has very good stories. ;-)

Current #1 summer goal:

 To organise and clean up my sewing supplies. Ideally also to sew something up in the process.

A favorite summertime memory

 Too many!

The one time I scored a homerun in softball at a summer camp? The times in the Baltic countries with my family, my first glimpse of the sea at the Curonian Spit, the crying of the seagulls, a field full of storks? The one time we celebrated Christmas in August? The many times I picked blueberries? The countless campfires, the songs, the starry skies? That one summer camp based around The Hobbit, and the night walk along a creek, with torches (real ones, not the electric sort) and the campfire under a rock cliff? The time I was learning to recognise plants, and the fact that I still recognise some of them? The smell of wild thyme? The smell of phloxes?

As I said, too many.

There's also a ModCloth giveaway running at Accordion to Kellie. I'm not sure I want to win it myself (overseas shipping, you know?), but hey, maybe you want. :-)

Do you still remember I was telling a story?

The story is a story of "luck sides with the prepared." In this case, someone equipped with a camera.

As I walked towards the farther end of the lake, bag full of apples and still hoping to find some plums, I noticed a bird in the creek that runs alongside the lake. I thought it to be a duck, but gave it a second thought and turned back, to see it was not a duck.

I do not know what it is, but it is certainly not something seen every day.

Then some people passed me (actually, one of them was a librarian lady that I like to chat with when I go to the library, walking her dogs). The birds disappeared under the plants at the farther bank. And as I waited for them to reappear...

A muskrat came out. It swam to a spot just in front of me, and sat there, cleaning itself, and pretty much ignored the fact that there was a human silently watching it just some four meters away.

And since I stood there for quite some time, watching and photographing the birds and the muskrat, all the time carrying three kilos of apples on one shoulder, I never came to the other end of the lake where the plums are growing. When the muskrat swam away again, I turned back.

And encountered one more being.

Before I reached home, on the lower end of the block, I realised there was a beautiful rose. I'm not so keen on roses as such, but yellow (as the one we have) and orange and yellow-and-orange, and this very slightly orange-ish pink, are very pretty.

Yellow and orange roses smell of carrots to me. That's why I love them.

A Little Black Dress in theory and a cat story

The theory - the plan - has changed since last time, thanks to the finished apron-dress's inconsistencies and my sister's input. To begin with, no wrapping: too much hussle for too little effect.

No square neckline; instead, I get this deep scoop that is teetering on the edge of what I find comfortable. My sister insisted, saying black would not look good on me too close to my face; she said it did not look good on me and did not look properly 50s until it reached this point. I guess she was right, it feels very properly Little Black Dress-y now; I only need to learn how to live with it.


The sleeves on these photos are not the final ones. I lost count of which sleeves are which; I only know which pattern is the correct one, because I folded away the previous ones. (It is possible, though, that I used the front from the pattern above on the final sleeve; the back is definitely different.) Also, the real dress will have shaped hems on the sleeves. I'd describe the shape, only I don't know how. So just wait and see, hopefully...

Deeper V in the back; many thanks to my sister for drawing it on the first muslin on me.

It's a pretty tight fit, although still with a bit of ease. The fabric I intend to use has elastan in it.

Things I'm learning:
a) Custom fit rules. I feel fabulous, and this is only a muslin made of an old torn duvet cover. Is it bad to feel fabulous in something I'm making myself? I hope not.
b) Sleeve cap ease is bogus. Pain to make, pain to make fit properly with a smooth design like this, and completely unnecessary. Last point proven, at the least, if you're working with a).


It will have a full, pleated skirt like my Dana skirt. The Dana skirt is still my favourite, worn almost all the time around the house, and still fun to do housechores in. Hopefully, the LBD I plan will combine this fun, comfortable aspect with the feeling of fabulousness I get from the bodice muslin.

I still cannot decide whether I want it to go with a sash or not.

The cat story:

Sunday afternoon, the atmosphere in our house became rather tense. That sort of thing happens. I did what I do in such situations when I'm wise in such situations (which does not always happen) and went for a walk. Or, rather, intended to go for a walk. I packed my camera and my mobile phone into my new camera bag (Christmas gift from my father, more on that sort of thing later) and left the house in the direction of the park and the cemetery, one of my favourite outings when I need to clear my head.

Only, I did not arrive there. I met a cat.

Meet Cat.

Cat seemed a bit hostile at first, but turned out to be very friendly. And Cuddly; she felt like a relative of our Kaksi The Jostling One, only she was bigger.

Besides, Cat had idiosyncracies of her own. She climbed down the vines and settled on my shoulder. Well, settled... that's saying too much. She did not settle. She kept changing her position (just like our Kaksi does) and poking her head into my hands so I could not help but to caress her (sort of like our Kaksi does) and went from one shoulder to another and back again, and completely refused to consider the fact I was a total stranger.

And she climbed on my head. (Good thing it was raining a bit and I had my hood on!)




I don't have a photo of Cat on my head. It is a difficult thing to take a photo of.

People kept going round me on their Sunday walks, and I stood there with a hood and a Cat on my head, laughing, because it was such a surreal and funny situation.

In the end, I succeeded in replacing Cat from my head on that columny thing next to the fence. Then I noticed the holes in the fence were very narrow and the vines thin, so that Cat might not be able to get back to her garden. So I heaved her up to the fence. She meowed her thanks (at least I think it's what her meow meant) and I went back home, feeling blessed.