Almost...

For the last day of the year, here is a little round up on almost everything I sew in 2024, ecept for bit of odd pieces here and there. 

As usual, things were done without much planning, rather haphazardly, as needed or as I felt like sewing, but here is to have at least this much, maybe more next year!
 

Sorry not sorry

I don't really have anything for you, maybe a joke at the most.

The bear sees the bunny in the forest. He goes to him and asks:

"Why are you crying, bunny?"

"Because I was raped."

"Where?"

"By the river."

"When?

"Well, the day before yesterday, yesterday... and I am going there today as well."

And with that I am going and try to take some a few hours off,

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Sorry I did not mean to use this bale out this often, but I am ever so tired,

So called yard-stick cake... 

In its original form resembles a yard-stick, and this was the cake my granmother used to bake on special holidays (easter, xmas, etc). She is long gone, but for the last few years I baked one for my dad. This year I was not up to doing it in the original form, but a simpler one. 

It may not be pretty, but I am told it was good. 

FO: Pink fair isle hat

 

Remember the pink handdyed yarn and the neckwarmer I knitted from it? Yes, that one. 

When I finished there was about half of the yarn left over, and I was thinking and leafing through my ravelry favorites, what to do with it. A pair of mitten to accompany of the neck warmer? I really don't know, if the intended owner likes fingerless mittens or not, and it was not enough for a pair of full gloves. 
Well, it would not be enough for a full hat either, but what if I add some other yarn, and make it a stranded pattern? I had my eye for a while on the Swirl hat pattern, ths was the perfect opportunity to try it. 

I absolutely loved knitting this one, this is the type of pattern, which makes you knit faster, and especially when the pattern units get smaller, you get through them faster and faster. 

I made the slouchy version, but I started with 122 stitch and then after increasing, I used 6 pattern repeats (instead of the 7 in the pattern)

This is definetly NOT the last time I've knitted this...

Yarn: DROPS Flora: (the pink is handdyed, and the contracst color is offwhite).

Pattern: Swirl Hat

Knitting needle: Zing, 2,75 mm, 3,25 mm

Photo (modelled): Norbert Varga @Bodeszphoto.

What the friday?

 This week's friday mistery was a mistery only for a few mintues.

Then I remembered... 

Back, many years ago, I saw a crocheted skirt, up in the Buda castle at the annual big folk-craft-fair

(I blogged about it HERE, if you scroll down, you can find the skirt too), and wanted to replicate it. I found the pinapple stitch, and started the skirt, and then fall came, and then it was put away, and forgotten. I would still love it, if I could miraculously loose like 20 kg, but that is not likely by this summer, so this is getting frogged, or thrown out. 

Weeky SO - washing handknits

 I was not sure if I should put a strong opinion out on xmas, but some questions were asked about my yesterday post, so here we go. 

Yes, I do wear my handknitted socks a lot, practically they are the only socks I wear from early ocktober, to mid-april (of course, depending on the weather). 

No, what was on the drying line are not the only socks I have, one of these days I might just make a photo of my sock-drawer.

Yes, I machine wash those, but here is my weekly strong opinion... handkitted socks (from sockyarn that has about 20-30 % of acrylic or poliamid) and mittens (also made from the same type of sockyarns) are the ONLY THING, that should be machine-washed. 

EVERYTHING else, (hats, sweaters, shawls, scarfs, whatnot) should be only ever handwashed. 

No, I do not care if it is superwash or even acrylic. No, I do not care if you have a special wool-cycle on your machine. 

If someone spent many hours to knit you something (or if I spent many hours to knit myself something), that work worth as much as to dunk it into the sink, add a bit of shampoo (or lavander shower gel, or special wool-washing detergent), press it a few times, rinse it. press the water out, and lay it out on a flat surface to dry. 

As for pressing out the water I have two methods, both involves rolling the item into a BIG and THICK towel. One: if you really want to be careful, then just press the rolled up towel, you can even step on it, or ask your kid to walk over it a few times. The other one I use for bigger items (sweaters, bit shawls, etc)  to roll the item into that giant bath towel (the bigger the better). carefully wrap it, as thight as you can. If you rolled it, then try to fold the ends of the package... and.... put it into the spin cycle. Those thick layers of frottier protect the piece, then you can pin out the piece to block, or reblock. However, ONLY do this on your own risk. Washing machines are different, towels are different, I understand, if you do not do it. 

What is the difference between washing something in the machine and put it through the spin cycle? That the thick frottier layers will protect it, and (at least the washing machines I worked with), the centrifugal forces  press the package at the wall of the drumm, and the keep it there, so the knitted piece is not moving, not agitated against the drum. 

I have this tag, I usually put over my handknitted presents that says something, like "Please only handwash this item. If you put it into a washing machine, and gets ruined I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW about it." Meaning do not come to me "oh, I loved that hat, but I felted it and would you knit me another one?" because the answer will be no. 

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Drying socks... because I really do use handknitted socks... 

 

Merry Everything!

Merry Everything, and Happy Always!

 

Work In Progress

A hat in hope it will be done in time to give it as a xmas present.

With latvian braid as one does.

For the very first time, as though I knew in theory how is it made, this was the firts time I actually done it. The video on the DROPS site was really helpful, though, I realized, that since I do my purls differently (with a short downward motion, I don't need either to twist the needle, like they do, nor to put the yarn behind the needle each time. 

I rather like the result so, this is most probably NOT the last time I have done it.

Giornea

 That is the little cape-like garnment over the italian renaissance dress (called gamura). 

No matter how beautiful your dress itself, somehow, it is not a full outfit without a giornea. 

It is like the cape of superheroes, flows after you, though its role is actually add a layer of warmth and protects your dress from... whatever, it can encounter in everyday wearing. 

For many years I did not have one, so I set out to figure out how to make one. 

I looked at patterns, I looked at paintings and I looked at pictures of women wearing it, and I took a good, hard and long look of the piece of velvet I had in my fabric stash to see how can I squeeze out someting fitting. 

I've tried to scroll through my phone-pictures, to see if I have some pictures of making it, but I could not find any, so you will have to do it with only me wearing it.

Pictures: Norbert Varga @Bodeszphoto

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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? 

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A bit of leftover sockyarn. I have this little, no more. 

What's it gonna be?