Hello lovelies, 

after a year break, we went to the school of old handcraft congress again. The last one was in 2023, read the post about it here. 

We were glad that the event took place in July as we were freezing cold in November 2023. But our joy didn't last long because when we saw the temperatures the week before, we couldn't believe our eyes. 5°C to 15°C plus rain? That's so cold for July, even for this region. But, we couldn't change it and therefore packed warm clothes, a coat, scarf and blanket. And boy oh boy, did we need them. 

The weather was okay when we left Vienna and it started raining, or rather pouring.

 

It rained so hard when we arrived that we just sat in the car for 10minutes and hoped it would get better soon.  

As for the location, it was a true downgrade from the amazing monastery but I later found out that the monastery as location cost 8000€. And for such a tiny event that was truly too much. Papstin, where the event was held, looked and felt like a big beer tent built right next to a wooden lodge. I was very happy that the classes were held in the wooden lodge because it was freezing cold in the tent. But all of the poor vendors had to stand in the cold for three days, I'm happy I declined the invitation to vend at the event because I would have gotten sick. 

We stayed for the opening speech from the organizer and the mayor of the town. There were maybe 30 people in the room, not a great start to the event.

My partner and I booked classes to attend and while his straw hat class was cancelled, the reason for this will be mentioned later, mine took place as planned. Friday in the afternoon and Saturday in the morning I had medieval embroidery and Sunday in the morning I had fingerloop. Hias switched to Sashiko in the last moment and he really enjoyed it. 

 The medieval embroidery was purely done with silk thread. I came to really hate those slippery bastards. Silk is just a pain in the butt to work with wether it be fabric or thread. But at least my progress looked nice. And in typical medieval fashion, the pattern is just a weird guy with a djin- like body.  

All stitches were made as a split stitch which was an interesting choice.  

We first had to do the outlines and then fill in the motif. The embroidery of the late middle-ages was  big on shading and in depth, which hasn't been in the earlier middle ages and surprisingly enough, wouldn't continue on to later centuries. My instructor thought that it might have been too expensive to have all embroidery this way. But who knows. 

After the congress we drove to our hotel. We stayed at Hotel St. Lambrecht again and the owners recognized us again.  We had this amazing view from our hotel room and I marvelled at the low hanging clouds. 

I continued working on my medieval jin-man in the evening until the light vanished. Eva-Maria, my embroidery teacher, told us that the medieval guilds had very strict rules. Embroiderers were usually male and they were forbidden to embroider when the light is gone. Which means he could stop working in winter around 3-4pm (?) but had to work overtime in summer. Rules that I thought were pretty modern. 

 

We rushed to the location of the congress again Saturday in the morning after breakfast as both of our classes commenced at 9am. Definitely not my time of the day. I wore my rabbit tooth dress as it was super comfy and a warm cardigan. :

 

And that is my whole progress in 7 hours and two days lol. But at least it looks like I'm halfway through? So maybe another 7-10 hours and then I'm done.  

 

In the afternoon Hias and I sat at the lectures and it was icy. We both wore thick cloathing, and I also had a small blanket but it didn't really help. 

Eva-Maria had a lecture about embroidery during the high and late medieval time.  

Then Lydia talked about Reenactment and Living history, and the later on, she also held the stays lecture but only because the lecturer got sick.

I told her jokingly that I already made about 3 or 4 stays and they never turned out good. One was too big, the other too long and the others too tiny. The lacing gap was just too much. Oh well, at least I only hand-sewed two of them. 

I was famished and Hias promised to drive me to mcdonalds afterwards. Look at those amazing low hanging clouds again!

The flowers in the hotel were also super pretty, I just had to take pictures.  

Once again we drove to the congress hall at 9am because my fingerloop class was this early. And once again Eva-Maria way my instructor. This time I wore a newer dress I got this year secondhand. 

The technique of fingerloop reminded me a bit of lace making. My brain had to get used to the loops going from one hand to another and then from finger to finger and sometimes I just stood there for a split second and tried to find out where this loop was supposed to go again. Haha. Fun times. 

But in the end I managed to make three different designs and I was really proud of myself. Nevertheless, it's not really my technique and I think Hias would have thrived much better in the class than I did. At least it was an amazing work out as we had to stand and us our arms to tighten it.  

 

Hias was done with his classes on Satuday and he finished his Sashiko piece: look at his amazing work!

We went around the shops after my class and I bought a cute ring, ordered a new ring from lydia and got a new headband from the Klosterarbeiten shop. 

 The ring is from Wizart and is an amethyst in a copper socket.

 

So, and now to the hardest part of the story. What happened that made us weary to go and even think about cancelling the event entirely?

Nazis, because Austria is Nazi ground zero. Or at least, a publishing company that is on the far right of the spectrum. They were announced to have a booth there but, at least, not to sell their Nazi trash, only old handcraft books. You see, they are one of the only small publishing companies willing to produce a small number of books in the niche of old handcrafts. One artist found out and decided to cancel her class and boycott the event. But before she could send out word explaining why and her side of the story, the organizer sent an email saying it wasn’t as bad because the publishing company wouldn’t actually have a booth there and wouldn’t sell their books. But the can of worms was already open, and in our eyes, she didn’t think it was such a big deal. In my eyes, it was. I do not want to attend an event where Nazi books or books from a far-right publishing company are sold. We later found out they had to sell the books at the event because of a contract with one of the vendors who was there. The contract stated that if they were at the event, they also had to sell the books (if I remember correctly). But that was not the information given to us. So it was a huge mess, but we did learn from it. Now we know the name of the publishing company, and if they have a booth again in 2027, we will not attend.

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All the best, 

Auris Lothol