Chance

There is an ever so slight chance that I will have my own handcarded and handspun yarn finished in time to knit the New Year Sweater with it...

Now the plying can beginn...

Is 2016 over yet?

The Goblin King, The Half-blood Prince, Prince, and now our Princess. 2016, you officially suck.

I loved David Bowie and Alan Rickman… I really did, but I grew up on the original Star Wars films. There were no downloads, no DVD-s, not even video recorders around back then, so we sat in the movie theater again, and again, immersed in a galaxy far-far away.

I know, many of you would not think me as a Sci Fi fan, more like an old fashioned handcrafter history buff, but I am just as much one as the other.

I thought that, at least on the personal level 2016 didn’t suck as much, in fact, there was a few really good moment in it.

I am ready to withdraw that conclusion.
On the other hand...

Timey-whimey...stuff.

This much sleeve of a sweter can I knit in the movies watching a two hour movie.

Just because some of you will ask: the yarn is DROPS Lima

And if you want anything good for yourself, and remotely interested in Sci-Fi, and/or linguistics and/or time theory, do yourself a favour and watch the movie Arrival. 

It was amazing. Even Christopher, who is not fan of the slow paced artistic movies enjoyed it tremendously. It also gave us the opportunity to have nice talks about the movie, linguistics and the concept of time...

I try not to read up on a movie beforehand, only afterwards. I was NOT surprised to see that many thinks that this is one of the best movies of 2016.

Also that there is a name of the theory, I felt rather strongly about for a good while, “Sapir-Whorfhypothesis” . That the language you speak has an effect the way you think. More pointedly, that Hungarians out in the world are not so successful because they are smarter or better, but because they think differently. It is like our brain is wired differently. Just imagine a problem, and a bunch of specialist with anglo/saxon/french/etc wired brains looking at it from one side, and they can't find the solution. There comes the Hungarian, and because the way his/her brain is wired h/she turns the whole thing upside down, and loo and behold, the solution is there. The basic structure of our language is so different from the other indo-european languages. I have no idea if we think differently, because of our language, or the language is different, because the way we think.

If I would be slightly more interested in linguistics than I am, I would certainly research that.

Replacement

I got a box of lavander cookie from Zsuzsi...
It dissapeared in a few days so, I had to bake some replacement.

Did you ever realized that there are recepies that only one person can make truly well?
Even if they give you the recepie, even if they show it to you, no matter how you try, it won't be the same?

I have a friend, Gizi, with whom I always made gingerbread cookies to put on the Xmas tree. She gave me the recepie, she showed it to me, still whenever I mix up the dough, it does not come out as well.
She says the same thing about my biscotti. I gave her the recepie, we did the dough together several times, and still, she says she can't do it.
I can't replicate my the stuffing of my mother's stuffed meat, or her liver patee either,,,

The lavander cookies are the best when my friend makes them. I love the cookies all to well to wait for her all the time, so I do make them, sometimes, then she asks why do I keep whining abou them. That is why.

Christmas mood

Still eludes me, even though I AM trying.
You see?

  Sorry for the crappy phone pictures, but all of them were given away before I could take better ones.
Pattern for the bird is here.
For the xmas balls you can find a bunch on Pinterest or Ravelry, I looked a few of them, then made up my own.
Yarn: DROPS Muskat leftovers.

2002

In 2002, this day, in a heavy snowfall, I was walking over the bridge in the city I grew up, and tried to make sense of the fact, that I never ever going to see my mother again. People kept telling me, that it will hurt less in time. It did not. The pain never went away and never lessened, I just somehow learned to live with it. Even though she was not the best mother of all times, I cannot deny how much of me is actually her. And I miss her every day.

New year's sweater, preparation, step2.

I started knitting a newyear's good luck sweater in january 2012 (I wrote about it here.)
Repeated it the nex year.
And the next one.
By 2015 it was intentional, I prepared for it, and intentionally made it to a red one.
In 2016 it was tradition and I made it into an event, made a Facebook group to cover it, and asked other peoples to join me.
This year the group is still alive, and I already have plans for this year's one... In fact I started the preparations a couple of months ago, by carding some batts...

And last night (umm, very early this morning) I officially started spinning the yarn.

I do hope it will be ready by New Years eve (if not, replanning will be in order, but I am not afraid... I have enough red yarn kno knit swetaer's for a football team, so I can probably find one sweater's worth in my stash.

Birthday gift...and the leftover

I know Timea since our highshcool years... We kept contact throuout the years, and as fate turned we had been pregnant together, which brought us closer than ever before. Even though we seldom actually meet personally, we talk a lot, and share a lot. So much, that when Christopher was Christened in his (catholic) shcool, and  it turned out that at the day they organized the event, my cousine, who was supposed to be his godmother had other engagement (I know. Family. Don't ask), my boy asked what if we asked my friend instead. We did and she happily accepted...

She is one of the few, who really appreciate my handmade presents, but for a few years my Xmas and birthday presents were less than I would have loved to give her. Those were the difficult years, with both time and money so scarce, but that never deterred her to always surpise us.

So this year I decided to make her something extra special.  I asked her about colors... she said, you know some fiery fall clors... orangey-reddish purplish... Great. I dyed some 130 gramms of polwarth fiber, with a long color-transition and set out to spin.

It took me some time, but it was the finest I ever managed to spin. 

1600 meters of two ply...

And then went to Judith's worksop, and wove... The yarn was just a bit too much, we had to take out some bits, ever so carefully as not to break the gradual color change-

At the end of the day I had just enough time to weave those leftover bits into a shorter, randomly striped shawl, which also happened to end up as a birthday present to someone.

Weaving is always  kind of mysytic for me, but I find it especially magical, when I weave with handdyed, handspun yarn.The tiny small changes in shades, and thickness, as the color almost unnoticably turns into another one... I can never get bored of it. I can never get enough of it either...come to think of it.
(Pictures of the fiber and the yarn are mine, and the workshop pictures were shot by Judit Lukács)

From head to toes

In handknits. In other words in the name of "wear thy knitting" I show you how I look when I am wearing handknits from top to bottom. (Not really) incidentally all of them were made from DROPS yarns.

Hat: DROPS Andes
Shawl/Scarf: DROPS Alpaca
Sweater: Drops Flora
Fingerless mittens were never blogged, but they were knitted from Drops Cotton Merino.

My jacket (Per Una) and pants were bought second hand, the polka dot bag came from E-bay.

What you can't see, I have a pair of handknitted socks from DROPS Fabel and a pair of red ankle boots I got about three years ago at CCC.

Photo: Chritopher Laurent Deli

Lazyness

I was to lazy to get to the store for bread.

Question

And the question remains: is this sadism, or masochism?

Cookies...

If nobody gives you cookies, you just have to make them yourself.... right?
So today I've done a double batch of lemony lavander cookies and a double batch of madeleines, but you have to believe me, because I was running late, forgot to take pictures and then at the french folk dance all off them were eaten to the last crumb.

However, I will give you the link of a short programme about an earlier dance where we had a guest dance master. If you look carefully you can find yours truly among the dancers, and you'll all know at once, why I never pursued a dancing carreer. As much as I love and enjoy it, I have to admit, that is one thing I've never been really good at.

Ingrid who is Flora

It might be obvious that I am enamored with the new DROPS Flora yarn... After the kitty-cat hat I just had to knit a full sweater, and since I had my eye on the Ingrid sweater for a long time, it was a great opportunity to pair up the two. I was so excited to start that uncharacteristically I did not do a gauge swatch. I know, I know, it was a big chance to take, and I did had to tweak things here and there, but in general it did work out.

The pattern is lovely and well written... at least until the patterning on the shoulder, because afterwards I just went after my own head, especially adding more stitches at the raglan, to accomondate my thicker than average arms. 

At the sleeves I added a red adging, somewhat wider than the designer did on the sweater she knitted for herself.

 I knitted the sweater longer than the pattern, almost tunic length, and reapeated the narrow pattern and the red edging at the waist line,

 After all I am still in love with the yarn, I will definetly use it more in the future, and pretty much like the pattern, so I think I am satisfied.

Yarn: Drops Flora - the whole sweater weighs 325 gramm (total)
Pattern: Ingrid by Isabell Kraemer
Needles: Knit Pro Zing circulars and Addi Kolibri DPNs for the sleeves:
2.5 mm for the ribbing, 3 mm for the stockinett and 3.5 for the patterning.

Flora the restless

Who just won't leave me alone..

Smile

The feeling, when you go to the first official teacher/parent meeting in you son's new shcool, and introduce yourself to the said teacher, and he looks up a huge smile lits up his face and proceeds to tell you how great/intelligent/smart your kid is.... for everything else, there is mastercard.

Ps.: If I would be a real lady and sportsmanlike and all that, I would leave it that. But I am not, so I have to add: it is especially so, because of what he (and with him I) suffered through elementary shcool... So FUCKYOUKOLPING and your idiotic teachers. Of course even there were a couple of exceptions, and for those we both greatful,

Adding to this the evening spent in the irish folk dancing club, and a homebaked cookie that was gone until the last crumb, in fact people were sharing the last pieces (no picture, so you have to believe me)...

And the fact that my box managed to fix the laptop of my friend, who in exchange helped him to pic up his room.... I think I summarize this day as a really good one.

Good and bad

The bad thing is that we managed to catch the virus that requires bowls and runs to the restroom, while even turning in the bad seems impossible, much less getting out...
Also bad that in a relatively short time its the second time I had to cancel weaving dates, but I just could not leave Chris alone, while he has regular meetings with above said bowl...

The good thing is this.

I would say

...kill me if I ever start another sweater from fingering weight yarn, but this did not worked before either.

Not to mention the fact that I just ordered about a kilo of Flora yarn.

Weaving

I promised in an earlier post that I will show my weaving, slowly oe by one... so here comes the net installment :-)

In the spring, when I had my second time in Judith's workshop I thought I will have time to spin my own yarn to weave with, but I way underestimated how much time I would need to catch up with the stuff I needed to put aside because of finishing teh university and the final exams (the truth to be told, I am still haven't managed it).

However, I didn't want to cancell my date at the workshop, so when I saw that finishing  spinning my own yarn in time sis rather hopeless I resigned myself to using factory made yarn, but my own handdyed one at least.  

I went after a bit of eastern, bohemien color shceme, thus I dyed somme purple, pink and turqoise wild silk yars to weave in stripes as a weft in a olivegreen warp. 

The weaving was done in the workshop of Judit Lukács, and the photoes were also shot by Judit herself. I am always greatful for her help and the time I can spend there. 

P.S.: if someone notices the similarity between the color I am wearing and the colors I am weaving with... I would say it is coincidental, but probably it is not.

Breaking up

Yesterday I was in the store formerly known as Barka. I went with big momentum, I wanted to buy a bunch of yarn, but there was none from the colors I needed... I was really down, but I fell in love with a color combination, and somehow a sweater worth climbed into my basket... Only at home I started to think what exactly I should knit with it...
Of course once again a discussion ensued about how much I am addicted to yarn (very much so) and how muc does it bother me (very little)... and I closed the exchange with one sentence...

Once I broke up with a man, who (beside bringing me yellow flowers and dark chocolate) asked me if I really needed all this yarn...

In one sitting

I did the patterns on the shoulder of the sweater I am kniting in one sitting.

As long as you can call knitting, sitting up in my bed, watching TV, then fall asleep, wake up and knit a couple of more hours without getting out of said bed....

A new toy..

I have :-)

I really loved the Flora yarn, so as soon as I finished the kitty hat, I started something new...

Poncho on a yarn diet

Even though I did not announce it loudly, at the beginning of the year I've put myself on a yarn diet (I should put myself on a food diet as well, but that is another story).

I know I have a surreal amount of yarn, and it got to the point when... No it does not bother me, nor does it frustrates me, only that there is really no more place to put them... yarn is everywhere in my flat. I did not made strict rules. Buying yarn to dye is alowed. Buying travel yarn is allowed. Buying yarn to weave with is allowed. I've been a really good girl, and kept to it with only two exception, Flora, and one bagful at the one of the very few remaining second hand stores. In both case I did used the yarns at a relatively short time.

 It is a great sadness to my heart that some of my favorite yarns (besides DROPS) are not available in Hungary. One of these favorites is the tweed yarns of Lana Grossa. Their sadly discontinued Lord was a joy to knit with, and I also dearly love their Royal Tweed. The balls I have I always picked up out of the bins and bags of second hand stores. Even if it was a half ball, and no matter what the color. No wonder that as soon as I saw that there was about 7 balls of dark red available I bought it without thinking. Only afterwards I started to consider what can I do with that amount as the yarn is to thick for sleeveless, or short sleeved anything, and not enough for a full sweater.

Going through the DROPS fall patterns as I translated them caught my eyes this simple and straightforward poncho that seemet the perfect choice to break the spell of the lost mojo (you might have noticed there were no knitting post all through the summer and then some- there was a reason for it, but it will be the subject of another post. If at all).

My poncho is loosely based on the pattern, I ommitted the very high, ribbed neck, and knitted it as long as my yarn held, adding a loose neck and an edge from garter stitch.

Pattern: DROPS Echoes
Yarn: Lana Grossa Royal Tweed
Knitting needles: Knit Pro Zing 5 mm.
Photoes: Christopher Laurent Deli

Kitty cat and the accountant

I was trying to figure out what to knit rom my brand new  Flora yarn, when my friend called this pattern to my attention. 

She also kind of implied (pretty strongly) that she'd like a kity hat, and since she is doing my accounts, and I do not argue with her when she says what and how should be done in connection to that, why would I argue, about a hat? Besides there is enough lavander-lemon cookies :-)

The pattern is up on Ravelry, free, but it is french. The charts and and the numbers are rather clear, I still asked the help of my Belgian friend Kim, to make sense of it. 

Good thing I did, as it uses tubular cast on, whch sounded pretty complicated, but this video helped a lot.

I love the yarn. I already had a feeling thet there will be love involved when I first read about ir, and I waited for it to be available, and available here too.

I really hope that it will have more colors in time, especially what they call MIX, and in English they are lovely deep heathery colors, but I think one can already put toogether a good fair isle from it. 

Bízom benne, hogy idővel még több színben lesz elérhető, elsősorban az általuk MIX-nek hívott színekből szeretné többet látni a palettán, bár azért már most is össze lehet állítani egy jó kis fair isle-ra val. 

The kitty pattern is not simple, there are pretty long floats to manage at places, which cannot be dealt with without weaving in, and it is not put together from small repeats but pretty large scale, it is easy to mess it up. For advanced stranded knitters and cat lovers, however, it is a great opportunity to 

pushing the boundaries of comfortable knitting.

Pattern: Lucette
Yarn: Drops Flora
Kinitting needles: Knit Pro Zing 2,5mm, 3mm