Flora

Right, I am trying my best to post something almost every day, but I am not a machine and life, or sometimes work happens.
The first two days of the week I spent with the street foods of Amerika and trying to find a way to translate tricky, untranslateable business names, and figuring out different ways to translate "delicious"... I did think about posting, but I haven't even left the flat since I crashed in after the day of wool...
For today I can show you my "haul" from the wool of day... I got two skeins of the new DROPS yarn, Flora. I really like the yarn itself, I love Nepal and Lima, I already knit with both, and I like the touch and feel of Flora. I think it will be great for fair isle projects. I thought it will be great to use for products that originally uses Karisma, but now I see that it will be good substitute for their Alpaca yarn. I really like my knitted fabric more dense, than the average knitter (addig to this that I knit loose, you know why I start to knit swatches with needles that are two mm smaller than the suggested). As much I love the DROPS alpaca yarn, I always think it feels a little bit too... limp. The Flora has a denser feeling, so... we'll see. I find the colors a bit too pale for my taste, but I am sure a good combination can be put together even for a multicolored fair isle, and I am also sure I can find someone to overdye some yarn for me, if I really need a different color.
Here is the two color I got to try out:

I was thinking of a hat, much like the Selbu modern, but something else, as I already knitted Selbu a number or times.
I also know that this will blow over my self imposed ban of yarn shopping, but more on that later...
And this seems like a good idea... now shall I do it?

The day of wool

It is hard to believe that I can't find words for something, isn't it? I could repeat what I said about the day of wool before, how close and dear to my heart it is, how I wait for it and how exhausting it is... This year I don't even have a lot of pictures, but I still have to say thank you to Gabi and Adrienn for their last minute help, and Marcsi for the life saving sandwich, and mention Judit, my favorite pupil, and how happy it makes me if others like what I do, and how happy it makes me when I see the smile on someone's face when they "get" spinning and enjoying, and I see the seeds of a lifetime addiction start to grow. The forst three pictures were shot by Gabriella Tóth, the other two came off my phone.

Inspiration

I am often asked, where do I get the Inspiration for my colorcombinations... well, OK, sometimes, I do write to my friends on chat and nag them to death for ideas, of which in tehmselves, or combined I do use. But most often I get my inspiration from nature itself...like this:

Sometimes I am asked why do I collect/post/share those colorful bird pictures... like for because of this...too.

Sunglass time :-)

We have a saying in Hungarian about how man is planning but god is doing, or according to the dictionary man proposes, god disposes, or something at that direction.

I should have been suspicious when, arriving to the hospital with Chris, we've been told, that he is on the last place at that day's scedule, which meant he got out of surgery after 2 PM, and according to the rules he may leave after minimum of six hours... which appareantly was not enough as he was fast asleep for the rest of the afternoon, but upon realizing that he may have to spend the night, tried to fullfill the requirements of leaving, namely drinking a lot and peeing, and not puking, So we were all set, got the paperwork, and as he was ready to dress up, all the water and tea he drank came right out, so everything was cancelled and we had to resign to spend the night. Which is fine, his safety is more important than anything, and he is totally OK now, but it meant the next day going to the wasteland and getting our wits together.

However, I managed to loosen and braid up later in the evening all the wool, and today there was just enough light to make some pictures of some the colors and stuff  I am taking with me tomorrow to The day of wool. So here you go. 

Greens..

Silk yarns, mostly for weaving:

My favorites for this year: antique roses

Some impressionists:

 Colors mixed:

Drops lace based:

Blues

and some casmeere based stuff

And ispired by my accountant friend:

This is not all, by far, but maybe enough to entice those who are inclined to do so, actually come and see for themselves.

It's got dark outside...

I had full intention today to post a bunch of pictures of the freshly dyed stuff, however... since tomorrow is fully out, and the day of wool is on Saturday I have to balance my work that pays my bills very carefully, so today my creativity was spent trying to figure out a fifth thousandth way to say tasty/delicious/awesome in Hungarian, By the time I got the text I need to finish into the shape so I can spend tomorrow in the hospital and be with my boy as long this week as he needs me without worrying about missing the deadline it got to dark to make any pictures. I will show you the one I've done the morning before started to work, other pictures will follow. I can't promise anything for tomorrow, it all depends, but I am most certain, I will flood my facebook page and the blog with colorful pictures. Stay tuned. And get your sunglasses if you haven't already. Like, because of this.

Rainbow 660 - weekly spinning

Dyeing is underway, but until something gets dry enough to take a photo, I will show you some handspun rainbow...

This has a long story, long, as the time it took me to finish it. This was the wool I was spinning on the craft fair a year and some months ago at the big August festival of folk arts, I even have a picture of it... (I have no idea why I never posted about that event..).

 I finished the 100 gramms braid, in four days in four part, I put the singles on paper rolls... three of them as it turned out later.

 When I wanted to ply I could not find the fourth one. I looked everywhere, in every bag I had with me, under and behid the shelf where the other three was, I could not imagine where it went...

 Until in this years festival I needed to free up a spindle, that had pinkish yarn on it. It totally looked like the merino/silk I am working on and off whenever I am demonstrating spindling, but now as I was transferring the yarn yet on another paper roll, under the pink a purple a blue and a green part revealed itself, and I was ready to have a headdesk moment, as it was there all along, I just did not look hard enough.

 From that moment it didn't take me long to ply it and here you are 660 meters of two ply merino, Enough for a sizeable shawl knitted, a smallish one (or if you add something else to it a normal sized) woven scarf.

Sunday, knee deep in wool, up to my elbows in dye

Next saturday the day of wool will be here again.
I was there at the very first one, and ever since I am waiting for it, like childrens wait for Christmas.
If you thought you get out of looking at retine-burning colored wool and yarn well... look for another blog. If you stay I will be the most happy, but sunglasses are recommended.

These for example, were dyed for the other festival a month ago, but refused to dye in time,

The next batches are in the dye already, in fact some of them are even drying as we speak, so stay tuned. To be continiued.