Just some knitting

There was some before the sh** hit the fan, then no knitting for weeks. I simply couldn't pay enough attention, I didn't feel like it.
I sat in my bedroom looking at the boxes full of yarn, and wondered what will happen to them...
Then slowly I started again picking it up here and there, and then it all came back...
Here are some pictures, and then more will come.
Here is the red Urchin I made in November

The yarn came from the same Uruguay company as the yellow lace. I was very happy with how it knitted up.

Then having succes with the fair isle west I thought I might try a beret with self striping yarn:

Also there were my knucks (fingerless gloves) :

And I thought I might add a feature for a while...
What did I do today I wouldn't have if P. would be here?
Chris woke me up at 3AM, and I couldn't fall back asleep... For a long time. So I could turn the TV on and knit.
We had breakfast at 11 in the morning...
The cable men were here to connect the net and TV and phone and we just didn't got around it...
I also didn't feel like cooking so we just ordered a PIZZA (without feeling a complete slob).

Edited to add: All the pictures were shot by my............SON!!!! Thank you darling :-)))

Back online

After many weeks of incredibly maddeningly slow connection, and then an other couple weeks of absolutely no internet I have service again...
I am still alive, coping thank God, I even knitted some this and that...
Things are far from being solved, but I am hopeful.

It is over

P. is gone.
I am hurt all over, especially inside, I feel like my heart was teared out. I was trying so hard to find a peaceful solution, but it was just not to be.
As you all know I was sick all weekend (when he went to the shopping mall I asked him to bring me nosedrop, but he didn't, but that is just one small thing... didn't even mattered much, but so typical).
Anyway last week in ann email he asked me to pay some bills and I he promised the money wil be on my desk when I get home. It was not. (nor did I got the money for the bill I paid a month ago). Monday morning we got into an argument about how I cannot trust him even with things like this.
He wanted to stop it with shutting the door in my face. It was the entrance door, and I was still inside, so he pushed me out with the door. I went back to tell him that he cannot kick me out of my own home, and from then it went all downhill, he attacked me, wanted to hit me.

Later when my dad called him, P. told that "his head is bleeding" because I hit him. I was defending myself, and my keyes were in my hand... but he is bigger, and stronger...
I told him I want him out. that day.

I was all shaking when I got into work. I called my dad, because I decided that this just cannot go on anymore. I cannot let Chris witness this. My dad called him and told him he has to go, but he refused. He and his wife drove here.
At the afternoon P. (like nothing happened called me that I should by brea for the evening. I told him that he shouldn't thing that I will let this pass, and once again he would continue like nothing happened... Chris stayed down with my dad's wife, and the two of us went up. P. was cleaning (vacuuming!!!!!) like he has no care on the world. My dad told him (very strongly) that he has to levae, he refused, saying that he talked to his lawyer and she told him, that he has every right to stay... he repetaedly tried to call the layer, and my dad repetedly broke the connection ("don't call the lawyer, talk to me") .At a point P attacked my dad, he wanted to hit/beat him, but my dad was suprisingly strong, much stronger, but furniture still flew around...
Then my dad called his wife, who called the police. They came about fifteen minutes later. While we were waiting P. kept vacuuming... We did told him, that he still have a chance to leave peacfully but he was ever so obstinate...
The police came lisened to out story, he checked our papers, my dad showed his retired army officer card... P. kept telling that he has every right to be there, and then they asked for his adress card (if you live somewhere you have to have an official adress ID card, it can be obained with the permission of the owner of the place--- he was careful to avoid every official thing...avoid taxes, and avoid leaving traces- now it backfired on him) and he couldn't show one. He has none. The policemen was very nice, calm and patient, and straight to the point, he told him that we can report each other forever and keep fighting, but for the sake of the child, it would be better for everyone to leave, and please would he pack up his personal belongings and leave... he tried to fight it but he had to leave. my dad sent me off while he was going...
I felt like my heart is breaking, I sooo wanted to solve this peacefuly, but he resisted every attempt...

I felt so sorry when he was leaving like a lost, beaten dog...

He left, we changed the lock, and I haven't heard from him since. I don't know where he spent the night,
Christopher was crying because he didn't got his usual evening story, then because he couldn't say goodby to his dad... poor kid.
I haven't slept one minute, I haven't ate anything since sunday...
I can't even cry... I keep feeling I will break out crying, but I just can't.

I feel like I am a failiure.
I failed P., I failed my life, I failed my son.

But I simply had no other choice. I want a LIFE. I want a LIFE for my boy.
My heart is breaking all over this.

I can't say how sorry I am that it came to this... But I don't know what could I have done differently.

Winter

This will be a terrible whining post...
Winter...Is not my time of the year. I actually get very depressed. I hate the cold, I hate the darkness. I would gladly give up Xmas and all if I wouldn't had to endure winter.
Other stuff troubling me as well. I am struggling with work, it is simply not going as it should. I keep wondering if it is my fault (probably yes, to a point, but I just don't know what to do, what else to try...) or the other party's impatience, or simply I have too many boss. I do know that I am not such an idiot as I am made to appear. Also there are changes coming and I don't know if it will be good or bad. This week I came home in tears a couple of times and on Thursday I broke out crying in the office. Fortunately there was only two colleague there to witness it, one of them is my ex boss (who wasn't really), and an other very nice lady, who tried to comfort me... afterward I was so ashamed of myself. And due to the current economic situation I can't even say to myself that if I don't feel well, I will just leave and find something else, because there will be no something else... Add to all this I can't even come home to complain, or get comfort, because PJ would...1. gloat over my un-succes...2. tell me that it is entirely my fault...3. keep referring to it for not only years, but decades...
On other fronts I keep running into walls, whatever I try I seem to fail, except for knitting.
On the home-front no changes and that is something that bothers me too... and as the days get shorter I draw back more and more, and sink into the big blue depression deeper and deeper, and it seems to get worst every year...

I proved

To myself that if I put my mind to something I can do it.

I knitted something I never thought I would...This might give you a hint:

Color-work knitting always eluded me. I keep telling how I grew up seeing my mom knit, but I don’t remember her doing many colors in one piece. The only stranded sweater I remember her making was a blue and white summer sweater. I fell in love with the pattern and asked her to make it for me. She did it, and then nobody would believe it was handmade. Unfortunately the last time we left Miami we still planned to go back, so a lot of things stayed there, including this last thing my mom made for me.
Anyway, as much as I looked at them in awe, and always oh-ed and ah-ed how gorgeous they are, I always thought they are way too complicated to make.
I though I will have happily knit my lacy and cabled projects forever when a couple of things happened … I listened all the back-episodes of the Sticks and Strings podcast, in which David keeps mentioning his Henry sweater. Then Dinara knit this gorgeous Alice Starmore pattern. Then incidentally in a second hand store I pulled out from the pajama/lingerie bin a very nice red shirt (my favorite brand, perfect size). As lovely as it was I have to admit is was red. Very red. So I kept thinking about how could I tone it down a little bit and Dinara’s vest kept coming into my mind. Yeas, a black and red, or a charcoal and red vest, but I still wasn’t sure I would dare to venture into the land of Fair Isle, but it kept bugging me. I looked on the net, checked some videos, how people do it. Throwing, or knitting the continental way, or with a yarn in each hand. I did small swatches. I went yarn shopping, found black, red, orange and maroon yarn in the same brand. I kept looking into patterns. By then I knew that Fair Isle is not as complicated as it looks, especially because it never uses more than two colors in a row. I kept looking at patterns, but they either used more (or less) colors than I had, or they had many stitches in one color which meant long floats in the back, and I didn’t think I was up to dealing with those for the first try.
It seemed I can’t find what I wanted, so I sat down with an excel sheet and started to design my own “Fist-Isle” pattern (Thank you Angela for pointing me to this excellent tutorial!). Most probably it is not very original, but I wanted to keep things as simple as possible, for a first timer.

Then I knitted the vest up in one week! OK, I admit there was a night when I went sleep at half past three, because I couldn’t stop knitting, but still I am still amazed how fast it went. I decided not to steak it. Steaks are scary and I don’t want to scare anyone from doing color-works. Besides looking up on steaking I found it works best with small gauge and yarn that is sticky, or even felts. I used DK yarn because I didn’t want it taking forever (and because that was the yarn I found readily available).
So, may I present my first “official” design: The First Fair Isle Vest:

Modelled picture and pattern is coming soon.

I am still knitting

Even though it doesn't looks like I do from my posts...
I finished the knitting on the Hey Teach cardi

And the done up the orangey bamboo socks. I tried several patterns with the yarn, but it resisted all of them, so I ended up doing two by two ribbing and a turned down to where I twisted (cabled) the ribbing and I bind it off with a picot edging:

And finally a modelled shot from the tiny short shrug I made out of four balls of Rowan cotton tape:

Finding our place

Our little knitting group is in a constant serach for the "perfect" place to hold out meetings... the summer was no problem, the cafe on the St Stephan square and on the Szabadság tér was great, but they are closed for the fall... so we keep looking...
We like the Coffe Company (where teh pic of the yoga wrap was shot) is OK, but if there is more than three of us, we have difficulties to fin enough comfortable chairs, and we can hardly hear each other...
We went to the Teahouse To The Red Lion wihish is nice and not expensive, the tea is great too, but... it is dark, and the chairs downstairs are only comfortable for the time one sits down to drink a tea, not for prolongated knitting. The upper level, has pillows and bean bags on the floor. Again not the best for knitting, not to mention that there is not enough light and way too much noise.
This week we went to Lukács cukrászda (a coffe/tea/cake-house). The place is gorgeous, elegant. not too crowded, but..........way too expensive for regular meetings.
So the search is still on...
I leave you with a picture of Jenny (our member from England) knitting in the Lukács... She knits English style. Come to think of it we had about 8-10 people coming and going in our group, and we all knit differently...

Salsa

I already told you about the team-building stuff that goes own. My teaching knitting to my collegaues was part of this series,.
This month we went to a salsa class. Once again it was great fun. Though I have to admit cuban music is not my favourite (I had enough of it in Miami), but I love to dance. We learned a few basic steps and a couple o figures.
P. dropped Chris off at the class at a point, but he acted better than I hoped for :-)))

Happy halloween!

As I already told in the previous post here in Hungary we don't celebrate Halloween as they do in the US or even in the UK. Like many things coming from overseas it gets more and more fashionable. I love dressing up, but I prefer the carnival... We didn't plan on any party or dressing up for the day, but my son asked for a Jack'o lantern... So we went to the market, bought a small pumpkin and carved it... I never did anything like this, but thanks to the advice Angela gave me (she pointed me to some really good sites)...

The most difficult time I had was scraping the pumpkin flesh out. (I cooked it up to a pumpkin soup. We'll see how it goes with Christopher).

Here is the end result. Christopher drew up the face:

And I put a bat at the back of it.

And here how it glowed in the dark (these pictures were done with my cell-phone's camera, which doesn't have a flash).

When we lighted it and turned off the electric lightbulbs, my son was so happy, he jumped up and down, clapping his hands... So it was all worth it :-)))

Lovely day

Here comes a long post with lots of pictures.
Chris's school is off for the fall break in this week, and I managed to get two days of vacation too. P. went to the lake and I have my boy for all myself (yay).

November 1st is the day of "all saints" and nov. 2nd is the "day of the dead", which means we spend time to remember those who are not with us anymore (or as we tell to Chris "those who went back to the stars"). This is the time when everyone (even those who usually do not) goes to the cemeteries, light a candle, and remember.

This year with many things coming together I decided I take Chris to the city where I grew up, and where my mom is buried.

We took a small wreath and lighted a candle, but Chris was adamant about a small bouquet of flowers.

Afterwards we stopped a "Cukrászda" (cafe? tea house? but the emphasis is on the sweets, the cakes. Chris asked for an ice cream and a frog shaped sweet.

We took a bus and I showed him the windows of the ground-floor apartment I grew up. (Behind the lilac bush is the window of my childhood room).

Then the elementary school I learned to read and write:

And the small river with the dam we played so much on:

On the dam we walked toward the "inner" city. I always loved walking there. behind in the distance there is the small pedestrian bridge, where I got my first kiss.

The small river (Zagyva) runs into a bigger one, and just at the crossing there is the boathouse where I went rowing for years.

The park behind the pool I learned to swim. When I was a kid, the small pond was crumbling and empty. Now it had frog sculpture, and water fountains.

We also checked the high school I went to.

And my son played on the new playground in the park right beside it.

Before we left he city we looked the sculpture that was put there as a remembrance of all who lost their lives in the first world war.

But the truth is that the whole city calls it "the naked butt", because from the walkway on the banks of the Tisza it looks like this:

I don't know about these days, but back it was common to make dates by "the naked butt".

By then the sky turned cloudy and windy and we got pretty tired, so we headed for the train station and got on the next train to Budapest...

After we got back we stopped at the cafe which is one of the place we meet for knitting. A girl from Ravelry was in Hungary and we met her. She is cute and young. Christopher was the end of his (and my rope). Until I had my son I never believed that when kids get tired they get hyperactive (which for my basically very active son looks like he goes nuts LOL). Now I know it happens but still do not understand... But by the time we got home, I made my baby have a shower, drink a cup of ovomaltine, and as soon as his head hit the pillow he fell asleep (yay), and didn't wake up until nine in the morning (I've been sleeping badly because he always comes over and sleeps in my bed... rather restlessly. Not last night. Yay.)

Ps: I shot the pictures with my brand new cell phone. I guess the 3 megapixel camera it has is not bad at all...

The day I thaught my collegaues to knit

The day was today... the turnout was nice, even some of the men came. It was fun,... after the initial struggle with the cast on, they got the hang of the knit stitch pretty fast. There were some girls who had learned how to knit but they didn't knit for ages found out that if they try it comes back pretty fast. So without further ado, here are a couple of pictures...Oh my cakes did well too (doing the disappearing act :-).

My boss concentrating hard...He said it would take some practice for knitting being meditative:

Interestingly the boys did very well:

Haircut

Just an other picture for the sake of my friend, Timea, who didn't see my new haircut in real life... Actually I rather like my hair now. In the last two decade I had my hair from very short one to long one down to my waist... As with the others this took a bit getting used to, but it generates nice comments and it is also easy to care for...

Economics

The current situation found it's way to my knitting... the exchange rate went crazy, which partly means P. is happy as a cat that ate the canary, his pension worth more (hopefully he will pay those bills he kept putting aside as I just found out :@(...), but I just cannot order yarn from abroad. It was expensive to begin with, adding to it the shipping made it even more so, but now I just cannot pay so much for yarn... So as much as I love the good stuff I have to make my stash work for a while I guess, or figure something out with the yarn that is available here. Thankfully the selection is getting slightly better with more yarn that has higher percentage of wool for example.
BTW... I have to teach my colleagues to knit. We have these events about once a month where one of us shows something of his/her interest. There was a "presentation" about India, a yoga class, they went to Nordic walking (all before I started there). I was telling my boss rather jokingly "well, I was thinking about this and I could take you all to fly... or I could teach you to knit..." to which he reacted surprisingly with "hmmm... you know what? that is a really cool idea!" and didn't left me alone until I organized it. It will be on next Tuesday. And some of the men will come too. Since everyone replied with "please bring me needles and yarn" I went to a second hand shop where I knew they also sold yarn. Of course I rarely buy there as these yarns are never enough for even a pair of socks, but now I collected some odds and ends for the "class" with the thought what we wouldn't use now I could take to Chris's school for craft classes, and I found a few small skeins of very fine, very soft gray yarn. It is even finer than regular lace weight. Of course I bought that all, and along with the other yarn for teaching I paid less than I would have for a ball of Noro...

Dahlia

I would go crazy without knitting. All those who say that knitting has health benefits are right...so are those who say knitting is like meditation. Even if I do something at the same time like watching TV...

Sometimes there are results too. My Dahlia got finished, blocked, and an I cord knitted for the tie. The pictures were shot at the California Coffee company, at the weekly meeting of the BICC, which is always great fun. At the moment there are seven of us. From six different nations. Seven different way of knitting.
Here is my Dahlia... Oh, and my new haircut. I almost forgot to mention it.

(I hope you noticed the matching socks! LOL)

The details. Dahlia by Mary Weaver, pattern can be found at Knitty-com.

I used ten balls of Debbie Bliss cotton-angora yarn bought from Ebay. Addi circular needles 3.25 mm at the bodice, 3.75 mm at the "skirt".

Modifications: I added a few rows of ribbing (mainly to prevent rolling) before the picot edging at the neckline. Did the skirt somewhat longer and instead of the sewn cast off I cast off loosely, making a picot at the end of the cables and adding and extra cast-off stitch at the purl part between them.

Also I got this far with the orangey bamboo sock I started again. The colors of the yarn are way too busy, so for the fourth try I just did ribs.

Ps.: Nicole, thanks for the pics :-)

Waves above my head

It feels like that at work. I have no idea if I do my job OK, or not. I keep getting tasks thrown at me with absolute disregard of the fact that I DID TOLD THEM that I have no idea how to use power point and excel.. Yes I will do it, but I need to ask for help, and it tales me MUCH MUCH longer... do you think anybody cares? I feel like putting out a table "No new tasks please -until I finish some of what I have now"...
But I do learn a lot. PowerPoint and excel stuff too. There was some knitting done to, hopefully I can post pictures in a couple of days.

An other FO. The yoga wrap.

This was a summerlong project, and it means change for me. I started it on my way to the carrier training where I met that HR person who was behind the idea of me for this job I have now. I finished the knitting on my last day in the call center. After it was blocked and the sleeves sewn in... here it is:

And here are some modeled pictures, that were taken in the cafee at last week's of knitting club. Thank you Nicole for sending them to me. I cut my head of because I look awful, but that is my fault not anybody else's...

Clapotis.

OK, this is ready, but I am not happy with it. I have done about a dozen pictures, but maybe because it feels my unhappiness it refused to come out on the pictures.
The color was way off than the pic showed, then it knitted up even worst.

It striped up OK, but it bleed like hell. I tried to soak it in vinegar, but today I tried to wore it and the color rubbed of on the collar of my cream jacket. YUCK.

The pattern is fun, and I will definitely knit it again, from a different yarn.

Where is my knitting mojo?

I used to knit so carelessly, and most of my stuff turned out rather well, and the way how little yarns I had left over was almost famous... now I run out of yarn and had to rip back a repeat from the Adamas shawl. But that wasn't that bad. Now this clapotis is a complete mess. The yarn was bleeding, and it was just not enough. Even though I started with two repeat less at the increasing rows, I didn't had enough to make twelve at the straight ones and decrease all the way. I frogged back one, and it still was not enough, so I frogged the whole thing back... By now I almost hate that bloody (umm bleeding) yarn. I am stubborn enough to do that clap once more but I sure will not love to wear it... the colors would probably would go well for my friend (who received the Hungarian socks back in the spring with such a grace)... and I already ordered some other yarn from the company I got the yarn for the Adamas.
Then I realized I made a mistake with the Dahlia too. I wanted to decrease it a bit to have somewhat more fitted waistline, but I haven't realized that the bodice part should be longer than I thought. If I decrease it this rate it would be way to tight. So I have to frog it back too...
I have no idea what is up with me. I keep frogging things back.
So I am either cursed, or just simply lost my knitting mojo, or... could I have become more of a perfectionist? That I wouldn't go things pass by and I would rather rip back and fix it?
That still wouldn't explain the bloody bleeding yarn that turned out so much not as I imagined from the skein...

The good news is that the yarn I ordered from ebay and was starting to get worried about it has arrived today, and I love it, and I am pretty sure it wants to become the cable down raglan sweater. Now I have to see how can I get hold of the pattern...

Bleeding yarn!

I had my shares of dealing with bleeding fabric, but never with bleeding yarn
I am knitting the clapotis I just did the tenth repeat of the straight rows. I am using this hand dyed cashmere/alpaca yarn The color has more pink and dark purplish red , and as soft as it is, it is bleeding!!! I have two stripes on my left index fingers, and on my right hand all the tips are dark pink!!! II will have to soak it to block it, and i was wondering if I can do anything to stop the bleeding. I mean if the color transferred to my fingers, what will it do to my neck? Or if I wear it over a white shirt? Anyway, do you think putting some vinegar in the soaking water could help? Salt? (I can't get MORTON salt here) What else can I do? DUH. And I thought I am doing so well with that clappie...

I gave in

For the longest time I thought about the Clapotis... OK, it is a rather simple but fun pattern.BUT everyone is knitting it, so why should I? Since Nokia phones are the most popular cell phones here, I will not get one...
But then looking around, listening to podcasts, reading blogs I realized they are like a knitter's badge. The pattern is so popular, that most probably every knitter who gets online at least once in a while knows it. I heard reports from places like Stitches Clapotis were showing up at every turn. If someone wears it it means it is hand knitted, that the person wearing it is a knitter (or in a gift-relation to someone who knits).
Since I live in a country where knitting is still considered a weird past time, it is not very probable, that someone will approach me with "OMG, is that a Clapotis?" (Nor will the same question will be asked for Noro yarn, unfortunately), still I finally gave in and ordered the yarn and started a Clapotis.
This is how far I got with it in about two hours on late Tuesday night:

That was with frogging the first ten or so rows twice. Once because I decided I want something lighter, so I went up with the needle size, then... I learned to knit with slipping the last stitch and knitting th efirst one, no matter what happens afterwards. The clapotis pattern calls for knitting or purling into the front and back to the last stitch and sliiping the first one. I could do it, but after doing ten rows twice like that I realized it will be a pain in the ass for me. NOT because anything is wrong with the pattern, but because I am so much used to knitting some other way. So I was thinking how can achieve the same effect with how I feel comfortable enough to knit. So I decided to slip the last stitch and knit into the back and front of the first one of each row for the increase part, ktog for the first two on the right side and knit into the front and back of the first stitch on the ws. Up until now it works just fine. And even though I could only knit a few row at each night, this is how far I got with it today: