Maytime excitement

Steampunk festival Waltz on the Wye is fast approaching and I am so excited! It's a little over a month away now. Mr Robot is once again official event photographer, and he's got loads of new kit for the modern setup (he bought a fantastic new lens last week), plus we'll be giving the Voigtlaender an outing. James Richardson-Brown and Arfon Jones are going to be releasing their new book, Life of the Air Kraken at the event (written by James, illustrated by Arfon), and I have to go to that!

I'm an 'urchin' (crew for the event). In my case this means being photographer's assistant for the ball, watching over the Contraptions Exhibition for a session on Sunday morning, and giving a talk on Victorian and Steampunk knitting after that. I've already started prepping my talk, and I've got a design to finish for work and then I can move on to knitting my samples for the talk. (Note to self: knit faster!)

I've got most of my outfits sorted. I'm going dieselpunk rather than steampunk – think between-the-wars science fiction rather than Victorian – and have planned one outfit each for the Friday and Sunday, and a day outfit for the Saturday plus my ball dress. The Saturday is looking like being all Able Grable, all day, as I'm planning to wear my Miss M for daytime and a Dream Girl 1932 for evening. I don't think I've ever planned so many outfits, not even back when I went to the Whitby Goth Festival! (And believe me, I knew people then who would take suitcases full of clothes for that weekender.) The thing I'm coming unstuck on is hats. I'm probably going to have to order a few bases from MacCulloch and Wallis and trim them myself. I'd meant to drop into their shop when I was in London and buy some, but now it looks like I'll have to suck it up and pay the postal costs. (Ow, ow, ow.)

Anyway, enough of my witterings: Jarkman has revealed one of the things he's made for the Contraptions Exhibition, so feast your eyes on this incredible steampunk pocket watch. One of the things I really admire about steampunks is the way they make beautiful, functional, enduring things. This is real craft.

Images: copyright PP Gettins
Top: The Expedition to England, part of last year's event.
Bottom: Pocketwatch playing on the bandstand at last year's event. They're playing at the ball this year, and I will be abandoning my photographer's assistant duties for their set. They play strange, beautiful music with twisted lyrics. I loved the song 'It Ain't So Bad' about poor Lucy, who survived by eating rats until she ended up in the place where all the rats lived...

Comments

  1. I'd love to hear your talk, the whole event sounds like so much fun! x

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  2. Sounds an amazing event. Can't wait for photos!

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  3. Not sure of the Waltz dates, but I'm probably going to be in London on (Sunday) 13th May, if that's any help avoiding postage costs…

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  4. we're really looking forward to seeing you chaps again at Waltz. Petes photos were beautiful last year! i'm thinking of putting instagram on my phone and doing some pics through the weekend through that. You guys are amazing ;D

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