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 Renaissance dancing

What the friday?

 As I said, in these posts I will show you some of the forgotten UFO-s I found, while cleaning out and reorganizing a bunch of boxes full of yarn, and other stuff.

Now, what would you do, if you'd find something like this? 

I totally forgot this, but how can someone forget something that is almost done?  Only missing the two sleeve edge? 

Yes, there is a story for this one...

Back, when the book publishing company (with a great selection if craft books) took over the yarn store named Barka, they contacted me, that they would like to work with me... And would I be up to design and knit a smal booklet thematic booklet. 

Let me think I said, and in a few days, came up with the Knitted Stripes theme, with pieces from a simple hat/scarf/mitt set through a bolero, to a tunic and a few more pieces.

I even started working on the knits, I knitted the hat, the scarf (never photographed, and now I do not have it, I might knit something similar to them, because they were simple but nice).

And the tunic.

It was to be kind of simple, a raglan, a wide neck, with a deep, folded collar.

However, in the meantime, I felt disppointed, in how they dealt with some things, especially money.

I do not want to get into details, let's just say, my enthusiasm was severly dampened. 

And then they closed the store, and cut back severly on their craft books, and that was it. 

Most probably something more interesting came up, and It was... Not a good feeling to deal with this piece.

Now, when I took a good look at it, I think, it actually WAS a good idea, I still like how the yarns and the stripes work together. 

Now, I should like to finish it, the only question is the size, as I am bigger now, then when I started it.

I still think I will finish, if it will not fit me, I will give it away.

I even found the yarn that I need for it.

Lace neckwarmer

 Yes, that lace, you've seen me struggle with. Well, not really struggle, but I needed time to get back to it. 

When I posted the yarn I dyed for the day of wool, a friend of mine really liked it, but she is not a knitter.

So I tought, why not freshen up my lace.knitting skills, and make something for her? I winded it to  a ball, and looked up the pattern I have knitted once. It was quite a few years ago, but still...

Yes, I had to frog a few rows, I had to frog half rows, more than a few times, I had to do surgery on it...

But, at the end, I finished it.

Yarn: DROPS Flora, handdyed.

Pattern: DROPS 155-29 (only the last two pattern diagram)

Needles: 3,25 Knit Pro

Photos (modelled) Norbert Varga @Bodeszphoto

Weekly SO

 Strong opinion, that is. I would not go as far as a "hot take", but my thoughts.

Knits and zippers do not go together (for me, at least). I do not like zippers to beginn with. It is not because they are a pain to sew. No, I can sew them just fine, but I don't like them. I avoid them if I can and one can learn about ways of closing clothes without using zippers from historical clothes. I know there are a bunch of cardigans, especially hoodies that are designed with a zipper in mind, but for me.. eeeek. I much rather knit a buttonband, and use buttons. 

The perfect birthday wekend

 Yes, my birthday this year is on Tuesday, but noone say, you cannot celebrate the weekend before that. Too.

Two concerts, 600 kilometers, 2 reenactment/living history event, in two different period, and about 6 hours of sleep. 

Just the way I like it.

What does that Facebook meme say about Saggittariuses? "I will sleep when I am dead!"

My mom's knitting

My mom died 22 years ago, today. I have written about that day, which was a Monday, just like today, the snow, the walk through the bridge to see her for a last time, but getting there late...

I thought, this year I will tell you about her a little bit more. 

I already told you about how my mother was a great knitter, though while I prefer colorwork, she was a cable-wizard. She knitted gorgeous cabled sweaters. Because someone asked, I looked up old photos, if I find an example, and there it was, a few of them. 

Look:

When I say, that I simply do not know life without handkits, I mean, this

or this (look at my west, and my father's sweater, both knitted by my mom):

And when I say, she was a cable-wizard, I mean this:

And this:

or this:

Or this, which is one of my favorite picture of her and me.

And as a final note, I do have to say, that my paternal grandmother was just good of a knitter, and, my mom being left-handed, I actually learned from my grandma. 

Anyhow, I think I just got a particular mix of geenes.

Dilemma

 NYGLS (as in New Year's Good Luck Sweater)

It is every year, and though in the FB group I say the rules are pretty loose, in fact the only rule, that we should knit something for OURSELVES, I am usually more stricter with myself. 

Usually, but there were a couple of years, when I was not holding mysself to my own rules, and though I know that things I carefully built and worked like hell for, falling apart does not have much to do with my good luck sweater, still... This is why, last year I did keep my own rules, and I have not knit anything else, but the New Year's sweater and my travel-kit socks, and the current scrappy neck warmer, until I finished the sweater. 

However, things did not get better, but, in fact, kept sliding downward... 

And now I am thinking... Just how much red sweater one uses? Oh, yes, I like red, it suited me with dark brown hair (when I was a child) with red hair, and suits my silver hair too. What is more, there is a perid of each year, when I wear red with red (hmm, aside from the fact that I like to dress colorfully and like variation, there are periods of eaxh year, when I tend to use one color or another more ... I might write about that one day). But since I work from home, I do not need to dress-for-office each day, I only need to dress up, when I go to some event (where we change as soon as we get there), a concert, a rehersal, dance class, shopping. 

Anyhow, I stop blabbing and tell you the options.

1) I did select a slip-stitch colorwork cardigan, in which I can use - once again- a bunch of red and gray leftovers. In fact I already bought the pattern, because it interested me, ever since it came out. But I just knitted a red and gray cardigan las year. 

2) I found some brick red wool/viscose yarn, which is somewhere between lace and light fingering (50 gramms 300 meters.) I have 400 gramms, I can find something really thin, lacy piece, I can double it up, or I can use it stranded with the white color of the same yarn, either striped or stranded, but then, which pattern?

3) I can take out the mauve-ish sock yarn, with which the white/light purplish one I bought at the second hand shop a few weeks ago would go well, so I set them aside, call it "almost red" or part of the red color-family, or something, and make the Renaissance sweater from Elena Mortensen. 

4) Totally ignore the idea of the good luck sweater has to be RED, and make the white thing I just fell in love, head-over-heels, so much I already bought the pattern AND ordered yarn for (DROPS yarn, not even on sale).

5) Or I can knit that Kate Davies sweater (ÁSTA SÓLLILJA), for which I bought the yarn about ten years ago (or so), and just found it.

What do you think? 

What would you do?