Morning in March

Since my last post my son was born on January 28th, 56 cm, 4660 grams. He was huge, that is why the last months of pregnancy were like hell. 

Now I am on my feet again, and with my daughter in the kindergarten I have my time off, as this baby is sleeping the way his sister never did :)

So, I decided to write the blog again in English too. Now follows my post translated from Hungarian

I decided to clean the house properly, as from October, due to my ball-shape I could not access some hidden places. I started to clean everywhere below the furniture. I have the energy to do this. Afterwards I will have time to get my yarns again.
Yesterday I made some pastry, as I promised to my daughter

and, if the oven was hot, I also made a cake. And a two-course lunch.
I started to feel monotonous the sock-knitting, even though I have the ruby yarn I wanted, so I have no idea what to knit. I would knit for Klári, but I am not sure she would wear it, she is in that period of nothing-is-good-enough. Poppyseed (my son) is growing so fast, that I have no idea what size to knit for him. And I am in the period of reshaping myself. So my options are to crochet some hats for the kids (I promised a ladybug-hat for Klári and I must make something for Poppyseed, his head is so big, all the hats became too small for him) or to spin. My spinning-mojo returned and spindle-spinning it is a great take-out project, even if we go to the countryside I can take it with me, and when the boys have a drink I can just twirl my spindle.
Then there is the temptation of knitting something from my first handspun, I promised Klári a scarf, a Baktus would be ideal.
And spring is coming quickly, every morning when we wake up we hear the birds singing. The family leaves the home, Poppyseed is sleeping, so I can have my light coffee in light and birdsong. I am so happy to have a sleeping child, ha wakes up only once, between 4-5 in the morning. Soon I can have my coffee on the balcony - now there is still a bit of frost every morning.
Life is beautiful, indeed.

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.

Colors of fall

We had a great time here, finally we might become a normal society.
I watched TV and followed the news on Internet much more than in the last 2 years.
And I was knitting and spinning.
Now I have two pairs of socks on needles, far from finishing them, but I have a new yarn.
The fiber is 50% merino, 50% silk. I had some troubles with it, I suppose due to the silk. But I love the result.
The roving was handdyed by my friend, Bucilla (of course).

It was pure autumn.
I made two singles, just by spinning until I got to the half of the roving, and then spinning the other half. It was almost perfect, one of the singles being just about 2 meters longer than the other.
And then the plying. I think plying is the best part in spinning.

This is when the yarn is finished. It is a pleasure to watch how the colors are embracing each other.

The result of these days is 110 grams/425 meters of fingering weight yarn.

It has greens and browns,

but also grays and yellows

- cold and warm colors in a great balance. 
(the light is just awful here, it is foggy and dark and gray...)

Spin to stay sane

I am just spinning. I cannot concentrate on knitting, not even socks, so my spindles are spinning a lot each day. This keeps me sane these crazy days.

Today I might finish the singles of the merino-silk roving I was working on lately. I might even prepare them for plying.

I love the colors...

Socks again

I finished another pair of socks.

And again, 2 at a time, toe up.
But this time I did not enjoyed the process so much, and this is because of the yarn. Not its quality but the type. I used it before, but never by itself, first in a pair of Broken seed stitch socks and then for the Endpaper mitts, and both times the colors were beautifully accentuated by the contrasting solid color yarn. But now, on its own - I do not know. It is a bit too dark. It is a bit too contrasting.
Then I have this issue with the self-striping yarn.
It was a nightmare to find the point on both yarns to have matching stripes on the socks. For the fourth or fifth try I made it.

Then the heel. This yarn has a rhythm which is completely broken by using a few meters for the heel. So, at the gusset there are "missing" stripes.
In rest, it is OK.
I like the pattern. It was easy, but kept me interested. After finishing the socks I found several Mock Cable socks on Ravelry, both cuff-down and toe-up, anyhow, before casting-on I did not look at them.
The yarn is Gründl Marathon Scott, I used 2.5 mm Addi Lace circulars.
These socks took a week, for my 37 size feet, while I had two spinning projects going on.

Both fibers are merino-silk.
Now I should cast-on a new pair of socks, size 45. But I would also like to spin. 

End of October

It seems that autumn is on its way to turn into winter. After a weird light autumn we had the first frost of the season.
Last weekend plants that use to have flowers in early summer were is bloom,

and now it is 4 below 0, freezing.
I like autumn. The sign that it is here is that I change a few cups of coffee of my daily dose to tea.
The autumn landscape and colors inspire me.

It is good when I can discover shades of autumn in fiber or yarn.

It feels good to have calm activities like spinning when preparing to winter.
Speaking of preparation, during wintertime we need socks.

So I knit socks.
I like that it is mindless (the mock cable is easy to memorize), the rounds just pass, one after the other. 
And I have lots of plans, both in knitting and spinning for long, dark evenings. Of course, if the princess allows me to knit or spin...

Spinning

I can spin, but I do not call myself a spinner.

But from time to time the spinning bug bites me.
Just like now.