Socks

I do not know how many pairs I knitted since I did not write about them.
A few of them are here
The first one I cast on in 2016 (I guess), then I became bored and put it away. I found it last year (or the beginning of this year?) and finished it.

Nothing special. Two at a time, toe up vanilla socks.

With fish lips kiss heel.
The second one started with the mood of knitting for myself a pair of pink and purple socks. So I did.

The pattern is Stay-at-home socks, and this is the first pair (I think) that I knitted two at a time, but cuff down.

Also with fish lips kiss heel.
This is the pair I had on my feet, when I had my coffee in the swing last weekend.
The next pair will be a gift soon.

This was one of my portable summer projects.

This is also Stay-at-home socks, size 42-43. It will go to its owner at the end of October.
I then have another pair almost done.

This is the pair I knitted to learn the afterthought heel, and I still have the heels to knit, and I plan to finish it on Tuesday, when I will be at the hospital with Klári, to remove the rod from her broken arm.
And there is another pair in progress. Two at a time, cuff down, plain vanilla. I should start the heels now.

Size 45. I have a lot more to work on this one
I also have a finished pair of fair-isle socks, but that needs a whole post.
And now I start to prepare for the weekend.
At home.

Optimism

Yarns and plants helped me through tough periods of my life.

I turn to them again, as it seems that I will live with an autoimmune disease. The symptoms and blood-tests show that I might have Sjögren Syndrome. If it will remain at this stage my life will not become harder.
But the thought of depending of medication for the rest of my life is frightening. And I now probably have a disease about which I had no idea last Friday morning, and in the evening I exercised the pronunciation of it.
When I went for the Ravelry-challenge this year I had no idea about having such a motivation. For sure there will be 19+2 finished projects.
And I will arrange the balcony with lots of plants, which I did not do in 2018, due to our rushing way of life. I will slow it down a bit.
But this will have to wait, as it is still snow on the hill near the city,

and mud on the streets. There is wet, dripping whiteness left only in the shade.

And this melting is OK for me now, I need some colors and warm and light. It helps to be more optimistic when there is color in the grayness. (although I like gray)
So I dug out an old WIP-sock for portable project

(photo from July 2016) 

and there is another WIP going on: a rusty pullover. I cannot make photos, as there is still not enough light for this.
And we have blooming Kalanchoe and Hippeastrum at home...

Spring

I had some busy time lately. Life with two small ones is quite hard sometimes. They need constant attention, and when the Poppy-seed is sleeping and the girl is in the kindergarten I choose to knit instead of writing.
Anyways, I had a good last year knitting-wise (or crafting-wise, to be more precise), I wrote about it in my Hungarian blog more than 3 months ago. Well, there were mainly small pieces, but there were quite a few... and there was a curtain-sewing experience for our home, which turned out really well, but as we chose a plain brown fabric it is not as spectacular as practical. Finally the kids do not wake up so very early in the morning.
2017 started with sock knitting. I got addicted to stripes at a certain point, so in a short time a have knitted 3 pairs,

and there was a 4th one - a bit different -, but I never sewed in the ends of this last pair. 

All the socks were knitted in sock yarn, with 2 and 2.5 mm needles.
Then I made a hat for my daughter.

Then I finally took a deep breath and made a crochet edging for the tablecloth I cross-stitched about 7 or 8 years ago.

And yesterday I sewed a circle-skirt for my daughter.

She liked the fabric, and she told me she wants a skirt to twirl.

So I gave it a try.
As the motifs have a vertical direction (twigs with flowers) I could not make the skirt in one piece, so I cut 2 half-circles. The waist-band has two casings for 2 cm wide elastic.
She likes it so much that yesterday evening she asked me if she could sleep in it, instead of her pajamas...
Now I am working on some lace-shawls, I have one done but unblocked and the second one on the needles.
And I enjoy the spring.

Heading into the autumn

This week the cold arrived. Inthe mornings we have 1 degree Celsius. In the weekend it was still summer,

and now Klári wears a hat and a scarf when we are walking to the kindergarten.

The sun is rising in a different place, and much later. 

The light is coming from a completely different direction.

And I started to drink tea. Black tea, without sugar - it is part of the autumn-winter for me.

This cup belonged to my grandmother. It was part of my childhood. It is a luck that we have all 6 of them. I really enjoy motherhood with this boy. He is much calmer than his sister was. We have difficult periods, like now, when his teeth are errupting, but generally he is the kid I never thought I will have.

He is 8 months today. He is a big boy. Mommy's big boy...
With him I can knit quite a lot. I have the first pair of socks for this cold season.

I love how easy to knit these are. I love the simple lace-panel.

And I love that I do not need a chart for it.

The yarn is Vendita Sockenwolle, knitted 2-at-a-time, toe-up, on 2.5 mm needles,

with Fish Lips Kiss heels.
Now I am knitting a hat for Poppyseed, his head grew so much that it is impossible to put on the hat I made for him in February. I have an idea, which keeps coming into my mind and I must test it. 

Summer holiday

We are all at home, we managed to get time off work at the same time - it is just that some virus hit us all. After the first week we start to feel ok, so we have hopes to enjoy the remaining two weeks.
My 10 weeks pregnancy is complicating things, as I must visit doctors and make a genetic test - and all this takes time -, but I feel much better than I felt with the first baby.
The worst part is that dizziness is keeping me away from knitting. This was the same the first time, but I hope that passing the limit of the first trimester things will get better. I still have at least 3 weeks of dizziness.
Anyhow, two weeks ago I started knitting a pair of socks, for a 4-year old, and this is the point I got:

the pattern is Charade, but I made some changes, by knitting it toe-up, two-at-a-time and with Fish Lips Kiss heel.

Winter socks in summer

In the last few years I was in love with the pattern. I knew I will knit it, it was only a question of finding "the" yarn. This happened in late April - the yarn is not the same as it is in the pattern, though. I like it, anyhow...

The woodruff is this plant:

Mine looks like a marine algae, due to its color, but it does not matter.

It wasn't a qiuck project. I knit the first half for two weeks, then I made something else, and last week I returned to my 3/4 pair of socks. The heel flap took me 3 days. And the rest of it another 3. It was yesterday, when a miracle happened and I could actually finish the sock, starting to work at the middle og gusset. Yesterday evening I put down the sock with only the grafting left (and of course weaving in the yarns).

This is a different kind of socks. (this is the same with General Hogbuffer almost every design. She is great).
First, the colorwork on the heel-flap.

I would never think about this solution. She did. It wasn't my favorite part, as purling colorwork rows is hard, but I found a technique, which helped me. Anyhow, I don't think I will ever knit a bigger piece in plain colorwork.
My favorite part was the gusset. 

She put the decreases on the top of the foot, which allows the sides to contain a beautiful, compact unit of colorwork.
Of course, I made mistakes. Mainly in the toe-segment.

There were occasions when I rip and reknit it, but there were a few when I did not feel the power to rip. I am glad I finished it. I just need some cold wintertime to wear it (which I do not want, so wearing will wait).

The yarn is natural color Vendita Sockenwolle and an unknown blue. I used 2.5 mm circular, knitting on magic loop, but only one at a time.
Now I need some rest before knitting something else. I might spin some - or I will just get out in the balcony for some gardening.

Changes

Summer arrived. We have a very warm weather now, and even if we try to avoid the hot sun we succeeded to get a tan already. This is what one gets with a garden, even if we can visit the house only on weekends.

The garden changed a lot during the last two weeks: it is so very summery. Half of it is mowed, but in the other half there is high grass - with flowers.

Then I found this mayfly in the garden and have no idea where it came from, because I do not know any suitable habitat for him in the area.

Still, we are quite behind - on the Transylvanian hills elderberry finished its flowering while in our garden, beneath the Carpathians it just begun.

In fact it is mostly buds, but anyhow, it is a great hiding place for some.

Another change is that after 19 years (!!!!) I had the courage to drive a car again. Quite a long way. I had to learn everything from the beginning, but it was not as hard as I thought it would be. I am somehow forced by my new position, but I think that was a good motivation.
Another and not so positive change is that I cannot knit, not even socks. I am knocked out by the everyday work and I have this exhaustion in me - there are days when at 10 in the evening I fall asleep - so I lost my evening knitting time.
But in 2 weeks and a bit we will have time off from work. I can hardly wait.
And a few words about the socks: I finished the first half some 2 or 3 weeks ago.

I even started the second half, when somebody asked me to knit a newborn cardigan. Which I did. (but I did not take photos, I gave it away still wet. Knitting with cotton will not be my favorite job. I mean I like the result, but the process is very heavy, due to the inelasticity of cotton.
Then I restarted the work on the socks - and in 3 evenings I succeeded to knit the heel flap of it. This speed is woeful.
Maybe I should spin some...

(But I want to finish my socks before.)
And most of all: I should rest and enjoy every calm moment before other changes that will come and we are waiting for with lots of hope and happiness.