Another lucet workshop for friends during Celtica Festival - from #LRCrafts - DIY Passion: if you can think it, you can make it by Rici86.
Celtica Festival in Valle d’Aosta is always magic. It’s a place for anyone, where you can go from beer and late concerts to spiritual connection with the woods, from craft lessons to dances, from games with friends to a stroll at the market.
Explaining what Celtica means is a hard task. It’s the only place I found where thousands of people gather in the woods for days leaving no trace behind them: no litter, no garbage, nothing broken. They enjoy and respect. If something of this would spill out in our everyday life, the world would be a better place for all.
This is also a place where you go with an idea in mind and may happen to do the opposite, enjoying what this place and people offered you.
That happened to me this year, in a way. I planned to follow a few crafts lessons at the living history camps, but for many reasons I wasn’t able to follow a single one. What I did instead was… an improvised and spontaneous lucet workshop.
A while back I promised a couple of friends to make them a wooden lucet, and I brought them with me at the festival because we all would attend. I also came with all my lucets and yarn, thinking I would enjoy a few calm moments in the Peuterey wood to make bracelets and practice new techniques.
In the end I happened show them how to lucet and we made knotted bracelets together.
Also Locutus helped, this time. He’s not really into working with yarn, but he knows how to lucet, too!
We also had the possibility to work again with our newly-made lucets, the same we used during our first official workshop during the living history event “Belgioioso Medievale”. I have to say I really like this design we came up with! The size was constrained by the width of our wooden boards, but I have to say it’s quite comfortable.
What can you make with a lucet?
Besides being a tool for historical reenactment, the lucet can be handy even in modern everyday projects.
Discover some ideasWe spent about one hour during our lunch time on the grass working on our bracelets (and that’s why you see cake slices along with yarn!). We all dived deep into the task, not stopping until everyone had her own finished piece. Well, except for Locutus: his patience run short, so the only thing he made was a simple lace for my hair.
My friend Lara – who’s an awesome knitter, you should check her out! – swiftly adapted to the lucet technique. She got the tension right from the beginning and produced neat cords. The other friends achieved commendable results as well. Ale is into crochet, so she had no problems making her cords keeping a constant tension.
Yes, I think tension is the hardest part for any beginner working with yarn, using any tool from knitting needles to crochet hook to lucet.
In the end my friends were able to make their knotted bracelets, bi-colored or single-colored, with a button as a closure. That’s one of my favorite designs so far!
Well, sitting under our favorite tree, we mixed crafting, laughter and friendship. In the end, our lucet workshop became a microcosm of the larger Celtica experience: an example of the festival’s ability to facilitate unexpected connections and foster an inclusive sense of community. Celtica, as always, reminds us that sometimes the most memorable moments are the ones that unfold spontaneously and that, most of the times, things don’t go as planned for a reason, and it’s for the better.
What I came home with, moreover, after such a small gathering, was that the magic of creation lies not just in the final product, but also in the journey itself, mainly if shared with friends: the common laughter, the mingling of skills, the deepening of friendship.
Each year I learn something during Celtica and each edition has a sort of different topic, a fil rouge. This year we shared more experiences than ever with our friends, enjoying the woods longer together. Our spirits were lighter, more relaxed and open, and we enjoyed more time at ease in our Celtic garb. Our walk along the labyrinth, for once all together and not everyone by himself, is the best example of what I mean.
I wish we could have more occasions to craft with friends, sharing this common passion of ours along with our love for Irish Dance.
#FriendsWhoDanceTogetherStayTogether
Celtica, the Festival with no strangers
“There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t yet met.”
This quote by William Butler Yeats is the perfect summary of the athmosphere during Celtica Festival.
If you ask “What is Celtica”, people who tried it at least once will answer: “to know it, you have to live it”.
Celtica is a unique experience. Try it once: youl’ll never be the same.
