Written in the stars?

Once again the faithful meeting of yarn and pattern. In my favorite ebay shop (Kingcraig's fabric, you know from Scotland) there was a bunch of yarn on sale. I was different from their usual fingering or worsted as it said "Hunters chunky". I had no idea what they mean by that, but it was all wool, it was red, it was tweedy, and it had great price...The only problem, it was only 380 gramms, which is just not enough for a full sweater especially from this weight. Then Angela reminded me of oneof my old favorites. Someting I saved a long time ago, thinking, sometimes when I will come across the right yarn...

The pattern is Kristina Sutherland's Star cross'd love but once again I made so many modification. Mostly because the pattern only comes in size XS (I am no way that small) and for bulky yarn (this yarn was called chunky, but though it is thicker than the usual scottish yarn, not that thick). At the end I think I left the basic structure , and recalculated the numbers, changed cables, knitting directions here and there, to make it totally seamless, and even changed the shape a bit to better suit my body and taste.

Started with the back, adding some ribbing and narrow cables between the big ones to accomondate the bigger size. Changed the middle cable to a three stranded one for symmetry. And increased under the arms to get a real arm-hole. For the front I picked up stitches from the shoulder, knitting the big cables (and a small one for the size) downwards, adding the arnhole shaping underarms. When I picked up the stitches for the collar once again I rearranged the stitches and cables to get them even and symmetric. The same went for the body stitches and decreased and increased for wais shaping, then at the waist ribbing (which is actually 1 by 1 cables, twisted every sixth row, I added some stitches here and there so they can flow out of the patterning AND more of an A lined shape. The sleeves were picked up and used short rows for shaping them.

The pictures don't really give back the lovely red the yarn actually is. It was spun from shades of red and bordoeaux, with tine specks of purple/blue thrown in.

It was a bit "harder", scratchier than the other scottish wool, but then it all changed when I washed it. Once again it bloomed gorgeously, but you've already heard me wax poetic about that.

We had a perfect photo-shoot planned, the perfect place picked out (the stars of Chris's school), I dressed up in total style (buble shaped skirt from Promod, red thights, and boots, even had some make up on) but the light would not cooperate. And there days it is just way too cold to do outside shots. Sorry about that.

Angels for Lucia

As in many school in Christopher's there is also a traditional Xmas/advent/St Lucia fair around St Lucia's day.

A few days before it the parents get toogether and prepare small crafts. This year I knew that because of my work schedule I will not be able to be there, for the full time, I prepared a few crocheted angels ahead.

With the parents we made angels from all kinds of natural material, including dried mushrooms, bamboo leafs and whatnot. The fair was a huge success for the class, so much that when I got there like half an hour after openening the table was empty save for a few leftover muffin crumbs...

A promise is a promise

A few weeks ago I've knitted a hat to a collegaue of mine. Chris tried it on and wouldn't let it go...only with the promise that he gets one like it for himself.

Who am I to argue with that? I still had about half of the yarn (second hand find, with high percentage of wool content). I only changed the striping a bit.

Whorls turning

When I went to the spinning class a couple of weeks ago, I did not went to actually learn something. I did, (learn that is) and I could even more if I'd have a funvtional spinning wheel, but that is an other matter. I went mainly to meet with others whose mind is spinning around things similar to what I think about. I went to finally meet in person with some whom I know from their blog.

And in these gatherings you can just feel the creative energies flowing and one can just absorb so much of it. Before I went I was a bit neglecting my spinning, but getting home I could hardly wait to get my hands on my spindles again. (And start a hunt for the best solution in the wheel question, but then again, that is a topic for an other post).

So here is what I finished.

I bought this roving when I was out for a pir of red gloves las winter, but when it arrived I saw that it is not a real red...But I started to spin it anyway, and I had the singles put away for months, now I plyed them in my lovely, gigantic start shaped plying spindle. Here it is after taking it off teh spindle.

I don't really know why was this what I took in my hand to finish as I have no idea what to do with the yarn. It is about 65-70 gramms, 270 meters, which makes it to a fingering or sport weight, enough for a pair of gloves or a lacy hat, but the coloir does not suit me. I have really warm fall coloring and red(umm, orange) hair, and this is too blueish, too cold of a red, which would suit someone with wintery colors, light skin, dark hair maybe. It is nice, slightly heathered from the white silk carded into the dyed merino.

Here is the picture I've shot after having it sit over night, getting a warm bath and being twhacked a few times at the side of my bathtub.

Here, trying to get a close up, but the light wouldn't really cooperate.

Now, tell me, what should I do with it?

Fall berries

This is something that was also a love at first sight. The moment I saw the pattern I knew I wanted to make it, and I knew I wanted to make it from this rusty colored scottish wool.

However, unlike the military jacket, this dream took a long time to become fulfilled. Oh, I did bought the pattern at once and I had the yarn in my stash, I even cast on promptly... But then it started so slow, and then the knitting olimpics came and I decided in the last minute to go for it and cast on for something else.... then the bomb hit and I did not knit at all... for the longest time. It was only a couple of weeks, but it seemed like an ethernity. By the time I started again, it was way into summer, and I knitted lighter, cottony stuff and lace shawls (don't ask me why, lace knitting comes over me at summer time-go figure).

But at finishing the Military jacke I had great momentum, and it was fall again, need for warm sweaters, so I took this out of the basket and finished it in two weeks.

The pattern is Blackberry cabled cardigan, Well worth the money. Great pattern, wery straighforward instructions. The changes I made are not because I thought the original not god enough, but only accomondate my body, and particular likes. They were more decrease and increase for waist-shaping, slightly wider sleeves, and a really wide ribbing at the cuffs.

The yarn once again came from Kingraig's fabric, the scottish wool. And once again I go all gaga and mushy when I try to write about it. i already mentioned how great these sellers are, so I am not going into that. I also talked about their wool/silk tweedy yarn.

This one is lamb'swool aran, and the color... the color. It is so gorgeous, and not only because the rusty orange is so perfectly me, goes well even with my hair. But because it is so gorgeously heathery, and so deep, as there is several shades of orange spun toogether with a tiny bit of ochre and some dark red thrown into it. The different colors can only be seen if one looks at it very closely.

Since this is not the first time I knit with this yarn, I was prepared to see it changed, to "bloom", but the way this did just blew my mind. Let me show what I mean, OK?

As I told you it was gorgeous when I knitted it, and was enchanted with the colors. Look, it looked like this when I finished the sweater.

But then I washed it, and it changed for even better. The fibers that were smoothed down by the spinning process loosened, "fluffed up", and they softened. Even the color has changed, deepened even more. (The photos were taken in different light conditions, but you get the idea).

Take a closer look, before:

And after:

OK, I admit, since I know this quality of the yarn I did put in the washing machine and gave it a few turn in the gentle cycle, to enhance the blooming process even more, but that is something I DO NOT suggest for the faint of heart, especially because this is not superwash. I only dared to do it, because the sweater came out ever so slightly big, and it could only benefit from shrinking, and it was really only a few turns, and I rolled in into several layers of towels before slightly spinning it (I know, this is bordering on blasphemy, but otherwise it would have rot before it dried).

But it would have bloomed if i just give it a bath a few gentle tuck in the bathtub. All in one lovely yarn, which comes in gorgeous colors and at a good price.

And I love the sweater as well.

And so do I love my photographer :-) You know who that was.

and so it was

that in one of my forrays to the second hand shop I bumped into a bunch of tiny balls of leftover sockyarn. they were all self-striping, self patterning ones in orange/yellow colors, but all different. But they were all lovely, and I just could not leave them there, right?
Then I kept wondering what should I do with them, up until I bumped into some brown tweedy sockyarn from Lana Grossa, when it clicked. Ever sinc I knitted a Selbu beret for my sister a year agi I wanted one for myself... and I wanted in in orange/brown colors... so I just combined the tweedy but solid colored brown and used the colorful one as teh contrast color.
here is the result as it was blocking.

This pattern is so beautiful... the only thing I changed is to do a folded hem, and a three row orange picot edging.

It even goes well with my new shawl :-)

Went spinning

Look....These pictures are not from an american blog-post about a spinning retreat...No, this is here in Hungary. Yes, about a dozen women and a couple of girls with spinning wheels, spindles and lotsa wool...(and some angora and alpacca, even a bit of lama)

Would you thought that one can find this many spinning wheels in working in the whole country, let alone in one room?

There was something new for everyone. For some it was the spindle. For others it was the wheels, or carding.

There were all kinds of wheels. From the tiny wheeled antique one to the new ashford Traveller.

Me, the spindle spinner trying the wheel, and the drumcarder, and get my hand into dyeing as well.

All the girls were just LOVELY and I am so glad to meet each and every one of them. Rita was a cool teacher, Adrien a lovely hostess, and I could just go on and add something for each name.

I can't wait to do this again.