One of the things I noticed during my visit to the craft fair was that most, if not all the crafters exhibiting were representing an association. This means crafters are associating to for a unified community, which automatically lead to preserving the tradition and these old habits.
Once you have an association, it's easier to grow, to make progress, and to help accommodate new members. Back in the day there were the guilds, now we have associations. Different name, but it's the same thing basically.
One of the things Transylvania is famous for is its embroidery. Each region has its own style, so what you're going to see in this post will be a variety of embroideries.
These are traditional table cloth that you can are specific to certain part of Transylvania.
There was a time once, when each housewife and young, unmarried woman was embroidering her own tablecloths, folk costumes and everything that was needed in the house. There's a piece on the right side, with written text, which is a home blessing. Imagine embroidering that :)
Pottery can't be missing either, as they still make their items they use every day.
There were some amazing plates there, that I would have loved to have, but... there's always a but. That big green one was calling my name and those green and brown bowls as well.
Szamosújvár's (Gherla) folk art association. This is a type of embroidery that I actually good at it, I like it, but who has time for such things these days :(
As I mentioned in my previous post, nobles and wealthy people had paintings on the wall, poor people had these handmade, hand embroidered wall cloths on the wall, embroidered pillow cases and that was their pride as they made it themselves.
This was the fun part. There was this canvas, where you could try out that type of embroidery. They were teaching people how it's done. It was like a workshop.
There was this guide that you could use to learn the stitches. You could even take the paper with you as they had plenty of copies.
This was another fun place. Unfortunately the activity was not started yet. Would have been nice to show you what they were doing. What you see on the first table is the things you need for decorating, or painting Easter eggs.
You need white eggs, the tool to write with, bee wax, which was heated in that mug and later the dye.
The end result should look something like this :) Not this nice though as you need a lot of practice to get to this level.
Yarn making, weaving, these were all activities you could try out.
These guys were pretty cute. They were made of wood, dressed in handmade felt clothes and the hair of the one on the right most likely was made of wool. And the devil too.
There were so many cool things there.
Rugs and seat covers, plus a harness? But I'm not sure about the latter.
Now look at that wooden chair! It must be really uncomfortable, but it's a real artwork. Above it there's a woven bag.
More beauties, a loom and a working station for felting. Too bad no one was making felt.
For those of you who don't know what felt is, the vest you see on the mannequin is made of felt.
These work stations were everywhere, but I only saw one woman working with it. This is the working station of the potter.
That tent you see on the photo above is called Yurt.
A yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger (Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered and insulated with skins or felt and traditionally used as a dwelling by several distinct nomadic groups in the steppes and mountains of Inner Asia.[1] The structure consists of a flexible angled assembly or latticework of wood or bamboo for walls, a door frame, ribs (poles, rafters), and a wheel (crown, compression ring) possibly steam-bent as a roof. The roof structure is sometimes self-supporting, but large yurts may have interior posts supporting the crown. The top of the wall of self-supporting yurts is prevented from spreading by means of a tension band which opposes the force of the roof ribs. Yurts take between 30 minutes and 3 hours to set up or take down, and are generally used by between five and 15 people. Nomadic farming with yurts as housing has been the primary life style in Central Asia, particularly Mongolia, for thousands of years.
Modern yurts may be permanently built on a wooden or concrete platform; they may use modern materials such as metal framing, plastics, plexiglass dome, or radiant insulation. source
Unfortunately there were people in front of me, who got in the yurt and I could not wait for them to leave in order to take a photo. I bet that little girl was hard to convince to leave. These yurts are now very popular during summer, there are yurt camps where you can rent one and you have the basics, like bed, chairs, rugs on the floor, even heating, but not during winter as the cold can be brutal sometimes.
Nádudvar is a town in Hajdú-Bihar county, in the Northern Great Plain region of eastern Hungary.
This was another attempt to empty (or rob?) my pocket, but I resisted heroically 😂. Those mugs, pots and even bottles were calling my name again.
Here there was another attempt to empty my pocket. Look at those gorgeous mugs, how can you resist such cuties. I needed a lot of self control, to walk away and not buy anything from here. Lucky me, I quit drinking coffee 5 years ago and these were too small for tea.
This man was selling all kinds of leather belts, bracelets and whips.
This is it for today. I hope you were able to find something that you like. Let me know in a comment.
If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides:
- Communities Explained - Newbie Guide
- Cross Posting And Reposting Explained, Using PeakD
- Hive Is Not For Me
- How To Pump Your Reputation Fast - Newbie Guide
- Tips And Tricks & Useful Hive Tools For Newbies
- More Useful Tools On Hive - Newbie Guide
- Community List And Why It Is Important To Post In The Right Community
- Witnesses And Proposals Explained - Newbie Guide
- To Stake, Or Not To Stake - Newbie Guide
- Tags And Tagging - Newbie Guide
- Newbie Expectations And Reality