Nothing special

Just another pair of black and red striped socks

From leftover bits of yarns of course. Knitted toe up, of course. On knit pro 2.25 needles, of course. 

Go ahead, and complain about combining polka dots and stripes. I actually think, they look good together. 

Pictures are shot by Norbert Varga of course. 

And please excuse me, while I go in the corner to whine about the headache that seemed to be triggered my first shot of being a Modern/a woman (do you want to hear the full story? I really wondering, if i should write about more personal stuff, or just stay with showing stuff I made) and the crazy weather combined. I am being an agressive bunny today. 
 

What happens...

 when you take out the socks you knitted in the car, in the dark, and see that you messed up a stitch... about 50 rows down..

Outlander- the neckwarmer

In my long term plans there is a whole set (or several set) of Oulander style clothes... I even have the  fabric for many pieces, but I admit, I even had the yarn for the neckwarmer for quite a while (okay, like three or more years? I most probably bought the 4 balls of Andes yarn at one of the last Drops Wool supersale at Barka.

And I would never thought that the neckwarmer will be the firts piece I make. 

It has so many things that would tell me why I should not knit it. For example, for the longest time I did not like neckwarmers (I know, you wouldn't know, seeing how many of them I knitted lately.)

It is thick. I mean really thick. I don't really like thick yarns, and the Andes yarn is not the thinnest one to beginn with, and I used it doubled up. I am use dto knit with sock yarn and thinner, and it is not often that I knit with worsted oe thicker. I didn't even had thick enough needles, I had to go to the second store, and I picked up the thickest needle I found there. I suppose the needles are about 8 mm thick. The knitted piece, is still less chunky than most of the "outlander cowls", but this is as far as I will ever go with thickness. 

It is kitchenenered, the grafting I think is genious, but keep forgetting. Every darned time I have to do it, I need to look it up. (Yes, you can see the grafting on my shoulder. I could have hidden it, but I did not. Intentionally.).

And last but not least, it is knitted with garter stitch. I do not hate it, but I strongly dislike garter stitch, and I avoid it, if I can. Its okay for edges, but I am really not found of it. However the original was knitted with garter stitch, and so did I. 

With my whole Outlander project "Screen accuracy" is not my goal. I do not want to copy, but I want to make pieces that will evoke the Outlander mood. Claire's coloring (on the pic below) is totally different from mine, her clothes are warn earthy colors. I will see how can I change that so, that the mood will still say recognizable...

 Knitting the thing was easy, cast on with a provisional cast on technique. a number of stitches, knit with garter stitch until you are almost run out of yarn (or your piece is long enough) and then open teh provisional cats on and graft the two sides with kitchener stitch, makng sure there is a half twist between the two ends. 

Yarn: Drops Andes, 4 balls

Needle: 8 mm circular 

Photos: Norbert Varga

(Claire's picture is from the Internet)

The sock harvest of 2020

I just found this picture in my phone... Obviously made with the intention of showing you, whixh I never did... until now.

It does seems I did knit my share of socks... Its not an inordinately large amount, but still.. considering that we travelled a lot less than we used to...

Most of them are made either from yarns leftover from projects, or with bits and pieces of sockyarns I picked up in second hand shops...
 

Silk and linen... black and red

For the last few days I was thinking to show you pictures of our weekend walks and talk a little about what I think about our current situation... But then work happened, and when I finished it (no, not really, but now at least I can breath), and then I finally had a good night sleep, the sun came out, so I thought I would push and chew on those thoughts a little more, and rather show you another shawl I wove at Ágis Workhop a few weeks ago.

I spun these yarns some years ago. 

The darker one was a Specialty Blend from World of Wool, I might have mentioned that I am such a sucker for linen. I love linen clothes, I love sewing linen, I love to weave with linen, and if some yarn has linen fiber in it I want it. Don't know why, probably something got caught up in my mind, from when I lived in Miami, who knows. 

So there was this fiber blend that had merino and linen, and black, white and RED in it, so it was pretty obvious, I want to spin it. Originally I had the idea of weaving it in a black warp, which I had the idea of weaving it in a black warp, which I thought would take it toward the darker side, and will look good with a bit thicker, more rustic red silk contrast yarn.

However I never got around to do that, Teri's workshop (that had the loom with the black warp) closed, things happened, and I wasn't thinking about weaving that much...

But while working on rearranging the flat (no, it is still not done), from time to time it found its way into my hands. I started wanting to weave again, but the the Plague came, workshops closed, opened, then closed again, and I did not managed to weave it.... 

Until Ági opened her workshop and there was that RED warp. I did weave a red shawl in it pretty soon after opening, just as a warm up (if weaving 3,5 meters of linen twill wasn't warming up enough), but I felt it was not enough. (Can a silverheaded woman has enough red shawls?)

And the package with the two hanks of handspun yarn somehow found its way to my hands again, and I though, what if intsead of taking it toward the black I would tip it toward the red? 

Thoughts were followed by action, and there I was at the "Squirrel" again throwing the shuttle from left to right, from right to left. 

Technically it wasn't challenging, once again, the handpsun yarn, that is mostly so thin like a thread was left to speak for itself. 

The mix of the three colors, the two very differently structured fiber kept me entertained and then throwing the extra lines from silk, just the rythm, and order I so need from weaving. 

I do love this shawl and will wear it happily. 

But in retrospect, in all honesty I am not sure, the red warp did not overwhelmed the yarn. Wouldn't have a black warp emphasize more the contast between the red and the black?

This is something I can only know, if I could weave the same yarn again, in a black warp... Which I might just do. Sometimes. 

The fiber is still available from the WoW (though they do not ship to the EU at the moment), so nothing keeps me spinning another hank and try it in a black warp, once that will be available in some of the workshops that keep popping up in the city. 

And here is the place for the same obligatory swooning about weaving from handspun yarn, but I did that in my last weaving post, go and read that, LOL. Let's just say, I am afraid there will be some time before I got bored of it. 

I did the "contrast" (umm, or is it "only" the decorating?) lines of real red silk yarn in differenty rythm, they followed each other more closely at the edges of the shawl, and further away in the middle of it, which I would keep, would I be weaving the same thing in a black warp. 

When I was talking about my plans for this shawl with Ági, she mentioned (okay, was trying to convince me), thet I could (should???) do some small picked pattern on the decorating stripes, but I ended up not doing it.

Partly because of time restraints (this one of the reasons I want my own loom), I wanted to finish the shawl in one day, and I still wasn't feeling confident enough.

Also, because I had the feeling that there is something about the simplity of it, that aside letting the handspun yarn shine, also will be enchanting for me. 

And it was. NOT that I do not want to try it, or will not go back and ask Ági to teach me, but for now, I needed this simple thing.

And let me just say, no, I am no way finished with that red warp... Not by a long shot. 

Workshop: MintaMókus

Yarn: my own handspun

Fiber: World of Wool

Workshop photos: my phone

Photo: Norbert Varga

Oopsie

OOpsie, when two years ago I just managed to finish my new year's sweater right before March, I thought, how slow I am, if  I'd knit it any slower it would be frogging (the fastest one I made in like three days or so), and now we are getting close to the end of March, and I am nowhere newar finishing it. At the moment I am not even sure its going to fit, but then nobody ever told me to try to knit a bottom up design top down. At least it is fair isle, and at least made of sock yarn. 

Rainbow

Back in december, in the darkest days of the winter, I needed light and color...

For the longest time, I wante dto make rainbow colored socks... And then, Lana Grossa's rainbow colored wool/ soja sock yarn popped up in Müller...

As usual, I wanted the colors take a lead, so the sock itself is rather plain, toe up, the only change from my usual one, was that instead of short row toes, I started at the very end, in order not to break teh color sequence. 

I have not even finished I finished the socks, when I decided I need mittens, maybe even more than socks, so I went back for more yarn.

And these are also my standard top down mittens, starting from the fingers, and going from there. 

 Yarn: Lana Grossa Soya

Needles: Knit Pro Zing, 2 mm

Photos: Noebert Varga