Icarus, the winner

I don't know how you are with things like these, but many time I am not only drawn to a pattern because it is beautiful, (because this one this pattern is so darn gorgeous), but also because it's name... I do like the English/American way of naming things, like houses, patterns...I have a book of quilt block patterns where using the different blocks one could tell a whole story...
Icarus is like that. You might remember that my father is an aircraft engineer and a pilot. He believes that one of his earlier life's he was a French Air force pilot in WWII, I also believe that he must have been a bird at least once. He could hardly walk when he climbed up a ladder and jumped off with "look mother I am flying". I used to say about him that "he has so wide interests, he is interested in so many things of the world... as long as it has two wings and can fly." Anyway, he also have some artistic talents, he draws, paints pretty well, and in his early thirties he made a sculpture, called "the winning Icarus" with which he even von a few prices.
I have it now. The pic is not too professional, but you get the idea:

It is Icarus, who loved flying, but in his version he did not fall in the sea, but managed to fight of gravitation and fly off with his wings.
So when I saw this pattern I knew I had to make it.
The yarn also made that round around the earth, the cashmere was produced and spun in Mongolia, then went to Alaska where my dear friend Teal dyed it and sent it to me as part of the "yarn therapy". In the card she wrote about this particular yarn: "The cashmere reveals that you are deserving luxury. The color purple represents royalty. You are the queen of your home and life, your shoulders should be draped in luxury"
I love this yarn. I love its softness, its heathery purple, the slight variation of the colors... I did run out of yarn not far from finishing but Teal, once again came to my aid, and dyed up the last skein she had of this yarn... The color did came out different, but since it was for the edging it is now a design element, played up with some beads.

I love beads on clothing items... I used the crochet hook method (with some 0.5 mm hook).While adding the beads into the pattern wasn't too bad, but the bind of... Ouch. I added like eight beads to every ten stitches, and it took me AGES (like five hours or so) to do that one last row.

But I love the result and would (in fact probably will) do it again.

And the reason so many knit lace... the wonders of blocking, just look, before:

Being blocked on my bed:

After blocking:

Me, wearing it today:

Guess what from the extreme heat, the weather turned colder, so I COULD wear it today...

It was worth it, wasn't it? Thank you Teal, it wouldn't happen without you!

ETA: outdoor pictures were shot by Natalia. Thank you, they came out really nice , even without me wearing any make up...

Apres surf hoodie

I've been working on this for a while now, but it is done. I like it...

Brown sheep cotton fine yarn, 7 skeins in the wilde orange color way.I did had a bit of a dye lot problem with it, as the one package yarn came in two different lots, but since I bought it on the net about a year ago I couldn't go back and complain.

I was amazed though how little yarn this took, less than 350 grams..., now I have to figure out what to do with the three and bit leftover skeins...
2.5 mm needles (straight bamboo).

Instead of doing the provisional cast on, and I cord bind off I did an I cord cast on, which is basically doing a long enough I cord and picking up stitches along one of the columns. If I would do this again I would use bigger needles for the I cord than for the rest of the sweater and pay attention picking up stitches along the "back column" (the stitches that were behind the DPNS as they tend to be looser.

Made the body longer and the sleeves a bit wider, but basically went with the pattern. I did missed something tough because I ended up with less stitches at the shoulders and around the neck, but I compensated that for a wider stockinette edge around the hood, where I finally did my first I cord bind off.

So here are he pictures:

(please excuse my red face it was abut 200 degrees in my places and the fingering weigh lace hoodie felt like I had FUR on.... Pictures shot by Christopher :-)))

Taking a shower

in other words: my bathroom and the law of Murphy...
some of you might remember the tap was "broken" (dripping) for a long long time...it gotten so bad that I had to close the main tube for cold water... which was OK, for a while because the hot water wasn't really hot, but not so long ago, the house changed services and then the hot water became... well hot. Washing my hand equalled a hair removing exercise... anyway To change the tap the basin would need to be taken off the wall... But the screws holding it were "rotten" into the wall in the thirty years of damp environment... No tool could fit there to cut it off, so it would need to break apart , so a new basin is needed. I decided that if I need to change it, I might get a smaller one to save a bit of space... Went with the plumber (an ex colleague of mine) to get the new basin, spent like two days searching for the right one...But the smaller ones have no holes at the corner (a special solution for these prefabricated buildings that uses the same tap for the basin and filling the tub.)... Then at a point my aunt renovated their bathroom and they took down the old basin. My father got it and brought it to me. It is the same size as the original one, but for free, what the heck. I had two taps. One was bought by PJ (used of course) and the one that came off with the basin.
Plumber comes, breaks the old basin, drills holes for the new one, puts the tap and the new shower thing on, puts the whole thing back on the wall... And the lighting goes off. I suspect that it is some connection problem, and use a spot-lamp.. (ever since) And the tap is dripping... it is too late to change so he goes home, comes back two days later, and the other tap is dripping (though in a different place and not as much as the other, AND the shower does work.) Plumber goes on vacation.
While he is away some piece of the drainage is breaking off, and whatever goes into the basin, goes right out to the bathroom floor...
In the meanwhile I get a rod for a shower curtain as a present from someone I know (she had her bathroom remodelled and the rod was in her closet for eight years)... nice, huh?
Only I find out that it is about two cm too long and I cannot fit it into the place...

Anyway, plumber guy came last night, brought a new tap, fixed it on its place, changed the plastic drainage to a metal one (so it cannot break off), cuts the curtain rod, and puts it into place... In an attempt to find out what is wrong with the lightning I take out the bud off the kitchen lamp... breaking off a connection piece from that... so now I have no light in the bathroom nor in the kitchen... For the kitchen a new IKEA lamp would help, but IKEA is half a city away, and I have no time to go there...

But while we are talking of home improvement... a few weeks ago I bought a drawer chest for my -extensive-collection of underwear (yeah, i am a maniac when it comes to matching things- umm colors- up)...Anyway the thing came in a small flat box, so it had to put together... even my father doubted I could/would manage it, but hey, look...

It took me less than two hours, not bad eh?

Still more on home improving one night I came home to see this from my window:

I live in one of those east-European type of prefabricated buildings, that has many, many problems, one of them is bad, bad insulation. In the summer it is hot, but-which is much worst for me- in the winter it gets really really cold. Now the house is getting a 10 cm thick coat of foam-something put on it from the outside. These things are hanging down on two steel rope, but for the evenings they think it is safer to have it at the highest position, which is the front of my window. I am telling you it is NOT fun looking this thing in a real stormy weather, nor it is fun waking up these workers banging their equipment early in the morning... not to mention I have to be careful about running around without adequate clothing...

Skanzen

Just north of Budapest there is a gorgeous little city on the bank of the Duna, called Szentendre.
Just outside of it there is an open air museum called Skanzen, where they take old houses from different areas of the country, take apart and reassemble it, fill it with appropriate furniture and other household items, and the visitors can see how our ancestors lived.
When Chris had been there with his class in their outing the school wanted no parents there, but once in a while I enjoy seeing all that beauty. Also wanted to spend some real quality time with my boy (who spent his weekdays with his father, and I missed him terribly).
The place is really pretty, but unfortunately despite what they say on their website there was no organized program even on a Saturday afternoon. The site promised spinning, weaving, candle making beading and such, but there was none of that. In fact though they also say there is a bakery on the site, they had NOTHING by 2 PM...
But the place IS pretty with houses like this:

That has interiors like this:

You can see the old fashioned ovens they used to bake bread in:

And the open hearth where they cooked for centuries

Windmill of time...

More gorgeous houses and yards, gardens:

With their wells:

And houses from an other are of the country, just north of the lake Balaton (Can you see how I love those houses with those deep, covered verandas?)

And underground wine cellars:

And even though there were the special breed of sheep called raczka:

We had a hard time to find a working weaving frame... It was a huge favor from the lady (who specifically asked not to have his picture on the net) to show Chris how it works.

But the spindle and the wheel was only decoration.

They had an "eco-playground" with wood toys and such and this bowling with water filled plastic bottles:

We were pretty tired from all that walking around, but still a walk in the city itself was worth going for a bit longer.

All in all I declared the day a lovely outing.

Knitting content...

Since I promised...
My main knitting excitement was that Lene of Dancing with Wool commented on my blog... OMG she knits such a gorgeous things, I was absolutely honored...
Lately I was working on the Icarus shawl , which came to a sudden halt when I run out of yarn about twenty rows before the end... just because some of you asked, here is how 500 and some stitches of lace weight looks on a 14" long 3 mm needle (yes I do knit it on straights):

The major problem is that knitting the Icarus shawl I've run out of yarn about twenty row before the end (considering that the shawl is about 300 or so rows, that is close)... I combed through Ebay and etsy hoping to find something, but you all know how it would be trying to match colors through the screen... I got in contact with Teal, who said will dye some more for me, but it would never exactly match... well I just have to wait and see... since the missing part is the scallopy edge, I can use a different shade (even a totally different one, like lilac) and call it a design element...

I am also knitting a cardigan for the baby girl of my friend. She was born in early march, it is high time I go and visit them.

And the Apres Surf Hoodie is on the needle... I had this Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in my stash for over a year now, and also had the hoodie in my queue for about the same time...I am not sure how I made the connection, but I am loving how it shapes up.

Chiffarobe

Almost forgot to put on these pictures...
My bedroom is about 10 square meters and as most European places has no closets.

Last year when at my last try to get P. to organize the flat and give Chris his room I bought a gardrobe cabinet... P. never managed to put it together, but it is all in one piece now, and fits where I intended it to.

Chiffarobe is a word a lady in my Ravelry decluttering group came up with, and I love it... so do I love the chiffarobe itself.

Took as almost a day to figure out what goes where and put everything in its place...

Here is my father, who looks rather satisfied with the day's work:

Summer weekends

I know I promised knitting content, but I've run into some problems (umm running out of yarn, and loosing needles )... so just not to leave this blog empty here are some pictures of summer weekends...
The Kid's Island.. organized by the biggest telecommunication company for a few weekends in early summer they rent this island in the Duna, put out lots of entertainment, blown up castles, jumping castles, slides, there are places for crafts and other adventures.
Christopher's favorite were the jumping castles and slides, and this thingy, which was blown up, the kids were put on a belt and a flexible tape (?) and they had to run as hard as they could before the rubber tape pulled them back... Chris loved it, stood in the line many times to try it again, and again...

Then we were making "pogácsa" it is a biscuit kind of thing (or scones?) made of leavened yeast dough, and could be flavored with bacon, sauteed cabbage, fresh cheese,... this particular one contained potatoes and grated smoked cheese: