Scrappy rainbow

Now this is something I've done a while ago, bit never showed it here. A circle cardigan, from leftover scraps of sockyarns. 

Right, sockyarns again.  I know, but I love the stuff, I am often enchanted by the colors, and I can't leave even small bits in second hand stores. I love the miss-matchy mood of things done from leftover bits . There are some amaaahhazing scrappy socks to be found. And some cool cowls, including mines, that I showed earlier, and more will be done, hopefully in the future. 

And I have this circle dardigan. I've started it about three years ago, not long after i finished my first neck-warmer. Circle cardigans are pretty, and fun, but they take a lot of knitting. A lot. Even more from sockyarn.

I've been knitting this literally for years. I have put it away, taken it out, knitting around and around, in circles that kept growing longer and longer.  

I have tried to keep the main colors of the yarn in rainbow-ish order.

The pattern is pretty simple, start with 8 stitches, in the first row knit 2 stitches into each stitch, and put a marker after every other one. Now keep knittin on teh round, making a yarnover after each marker, in every other row. When you run out of one yarn, just tie on the next one and keep knitting. 

When your piece is about as wide as your shoulder, make two armholes (For marking out: we can look for a pattern for a similar circle cardigan, and see the main ratios, or take the top half of your circle, and divide into three. The stitches in the middle will be the neck, the other two the armhole. In the next round cast off the stitches for the armhole, on both sides, in the following round cast on as many stitches as were cast off over the armoholes. keep knitting, and when you think your circle is big enough, knit about 8-10 cm wide with garter stitch (keep increasing as before.). Knit the sleeves, no particular pattern either, cast on anough stitches, knit back and forth, or on the round, as you like. I knitted back and forth, because I hate knitting the second sleeve more than sewing a sleeve up, so... 

Increase under the sleevs enough so your arms will fit into them comfortably. 

The top of the sleeves are decreased as most sleevs, go look for a good looking pattern in like the DROPS library and copy that. Or something, LOL. Sew up the sleeves (if not knitted on the round), and seew them in the armholes. Weave in ends.

Block the heck out of it, and use a shawl pin made by your friend to pin it together. 

(Yes I know, it is a bit too small, but thanks to thyroid problems, I keep gaining weight, even with eating less than 1200 calories a day. )

 

Finally, get your boyfriend to make some photos of you. 

(Phew, and I have the sixth post for this month in. Yay, I am good. Am I?) 

Writing block and animals.... and weaving.

In all honesty, I've hit a block, or something. Partly I've been working so much (what else is new), and all kinds of animal stuff fulls my head, due to all that animal-related Tv programs I've been working on, no matter how I try to get my "boss" understand that I do not like biology, or animals particularly Right, bite me. To my defense, I have been living in one of those prefabricated buildings in all my life. I did had a garden once, and I miss that dearly, but I did not had any animals there, nor do I miss any. Call me self absorbed, call me selfish, call me irresponsible, but I admit, I am totally incapable of anything resembling regularity. My only child survived because he has a mouth and told me when he was hungry. 

And while I don't have anything against animals from a distance, there is only one I could like close up, dolphins. Not that there is any chance getting colse up to one in the middle of Budapest, but you get the idea. Despite all this, I was working with so many animal-programs, that it was a breath of fresh air doing the only one about something else.

Partly, because, I did upload the pictures of this post about a week ago, but then kept putting off writing the post itself, because I simply could not figure out what to write... which would not be repetitive or boring. Even though, I should pick myself up, if I want to keep the 6 post per month thing I've managed nicely until now.

Because already my post about the yarn had the chances being boring, but pretty.  So will this post.

Because yet again, I did not wanted to do anything complicated in weaving, just let the petrol warp and my handdyed, handspun yarn take the lead.

When I dropped in ahead, to wind the yarn onto bobbins. I did not have any particular goal, I thought I will see what it will become, either a textile to sew with, or a shawl, depending the final looks, and size

I could talk about Ági, and her workshop, and how much I love her and the place, but I also did that already, and you could say I am biased. So go there and see for yourself. 

But there isn't anything new about how much I enjoy being there, and how much I enjoy even just throwing the shuttle from left to right, right to left.

I've also mentioned already, that I am just to short for this loom, I need to hold on, lie underneath and bend over at the same time. Not undoable, but I take it is some pretty physical work. 

Also there isn't anything new in how much I am enchanted by yarns that are handspun, especially if they are from handdyed wool.  

Which was surprising, that without any particular effort from my part, how regular the stripes became. Dyeing the yarn I was concentrating on the colors, but I threw them on the fiber without any particular conception. Spinning it, I started one end of the rowing and spun to its other end.

At the end, it was about 2 and a half meter long, maybe too little to sew anything serious, but maybe to long for a shawl,but it is incredibly soft, has a nice handle and lovely fabric. 

For a shawl, it would be the type you wrap around, and hide yourself in it.

For any case, I did the fringes, and for now I am leaving it as a shawl.

If inspiration hits, I might sew something from it. 

I still find it enchanting.

Every fiber, every thread, every cm of the yarn, every throw,, every time I can sit down beside a loom.

Pictures in MintaMókus workshop was shot by Ágnes Dénes.

A product, modell, and outdoor pictures were shot by Norbert Varga. 

Outdoor pictures were shot in the Nograd castle ruins.

Happenings

 I was so good about blogging until now, but seem to loose my momentum. The anti-plague shot (and probably also the nasty weather - Snow? In mid April? Come on!- gave me an awful headache, which slowed me down awfully, so much I was happy I could send in the minimum-really-must-do part of my work (this will not be the month I work ahead I am afraid)

However, even if nothing specifically spectacular happened, there were small things. 

Like this:

Ikea opened, and they finally had the dresser I wanted for months. I did not even wanted to go, thinking it will be full of people and because of the limits (to the number of people can go in at once), there will be lines... But N checked their website, which said out of the 1300, they only had 363 customers in the shop, so we got into the car... and while there, we picked up some more plastic boxes... 

And while we are at the topic of boxes, this also happened:

I know it is crazy. Absolutely crazy, how I cannot say no to some nice sock yarn. I am spending like what? one and a half year by now to reorganize the flat, so everything would fit, and spending days putting away yarns, noting that I really, really do have an exorbitant amount of yarn, most of it is sockyarn, and wherever I look there is some of it, and now, I do need to stop. STOP. Then having a some shitty days, turning around and raid the webshop of my favorite secondhand shop...eeek. 

And also this happened:

Feeling awful in waves resulted me spending a totally unplanned afternoon and evening in bed, watching Tv and knit, so I finally managed to finish my new year sweater, even wove in the ends. Now it needs to get blocked the heck out of it, but the Ikea trip also meant that we will finally do something about the living room. We all know that these kind of rearranging makes a lot of mess first. A lot. 

And at the moment not enough space on the floor to block the darned sweater. 

Hopefully I can soon return the regularly scheduled blogging, I still have photos and plans for a few more posts.

Until then, sorry, but I need to fill up some shelves. 

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)