Camellia

Pattern: Camellia by Kim Hargreaves
Yarn: Madame Tricote Camilla 6/4, 100% mercerized cotton, 65 g
Needle: 2.5 mm, 3 mm
Time to knit: 2 days

I decided I needed an autumn cotton hat, so I bought a ball of my favourite brick-colored Camilla cotton and made this slouchy beanie. The original Camellia is a short beanie, but I'm into slouchy hats lately, so I just continued knitting in the general style of the hat, until I ran out of yarn. Still thinking wouldn't it look better from behind if the decreases were more steep and dispersed ...??

Grey-Lime Stripes

Pattern: self-drawn based on Elfe transition stripes
Yarn: YarnArt Jeans 55% cotton 45%acrylic
Needle: 3 mm

Notes to self: I experimented with the raglan yoke. Instead of four points of decrease, I decided to decrease 10 stitches, evenly distributed, on every fourth row, eight times, and then 12 stitches on every 3rd row twice. This method creates a round rather than an angular yoke, the issue here is the visibility of the decreases, especially with this unforgiving cotton yarn. However, because the sweater is intended entirely for domestic wear, I didn't mind that so much. I'm curious how this method would work with wool, probably better. Might try it some day :)

Though I've photographed it outside, in front of the local supermarket, I really mean to wear it a lot and strictly at home. One of the issues of every woman, who makes her own clothes and is a home-stay mother or is working from home (I work from my home office) is the fact, that she spends a greater part of her time at home and gets to wear her new and fancy clothes more rarely. So this autumn I've decided to make a few items specifically to be worn at home, which for me means soft and preferably wool-free yarns. And I'll try to de-stash a little bit.

It's FO Friday and lot's of people are showing their finished objects at
FO Friday and Creative Friday

Whimsical Knitting

Is your knitting logical? 'Cause mine sure isn't, especially of late :)

I've finally finished the Elfe-striped sweater, it's blocking now and I hope to be able to photo-shoot it for FO Friday. I started the grey-lime sweater as a stash-busting project, I had about 180  g of lime and 120 g of grey. I knew, that if I wanted long sleeves I could pull it off with lime at the bottom and grey at the top. However, I liked the color transition better from grey at the bottom to lime at the top. So, here I went, knowing that this should mean 3/4 sleeves max. And I did make one of the sleeves, in the round, on 5 needles, and 3/4 length, and I didn't like it at all, neither the length, nor the width (kind of roomy around my armpits). So-o-o, I unraveled it and this time decided to knit the sleeves flat - not only because it's much faster, but for structure too. And realizing that I definitely prefer the sleeves to be 7/8 in length, I went and bought another ball of grey yarn. So, if I had made the sweater lime-grey, I would have busted the whole lot of yarn, while now I still have about 100 g left. Do I regret it - NO! I like it as it is and I believe after all this is what really matters :)

And on my current knitting - it's Menemsha Pullover by Angela Hahn. Last month I bought this still unknown to me yarn - Alize Lino, 25% linen and 75% viscose in a natural color.

I have never knitted with yarn in the form of a knitted tube and I was hesitant about the final result, but I like it a lot and I think it's the perfect yarn for this sweater.

The only hitch - it's a short sleeved summer sweater, it's coming along very slowly, so I will be knitting it for at least two or even three more weeks and autumn is already settled in. I should be knitting hats, gloves and cardigans, and I do have the yarns already, why am I knitting a summer sweater, which I will not be able to wear until next May, earliest!?
Because I can, I suppose? :)


I've just finished the right sleeve and started the part of the yoke, forming the boat neckline.

Szentendre, Visegrád, Esztergom

My second photo story about our stay in Hungary. This is from our trip along the big bend of the Danube, where we visited Szentendre, Visegrád and Esztergom.  

Szentendre is a small picturesque town with plenty of souvenir shops, picture galleries and (exotic) museums - such as a potty show, a museum of miniatures (carvings on a thread thinner than a hair), a museum of marzipan. It impresses with its narrow (real narrow!) cobbled streets and cluster of churches (there seemed to be one for each dozen of houses).

Afterwords we continued to the castle of Visegrád with the summer palace of King Matthias and a citadel. Visegrád is known for the congress, held there by the Hungarian king Charles with the Bohemian king John and the Polish king Casimir, depicted in the wax museum. It lay the foundations of the connections between the four neighboring Central European countries of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, known as the Visegrád group.

The last of our stops along the Big Bend was Esztergom - the old capital of Hungary and the seat of the Hungarian Catholic Church. The Esztergom Basilica is the biggest in Hungary, extremely beautiful and impressive. The town lies on the northern border of Hungary, across the Danube is Slovakia.

Budapest

When I started this blog, I was not quite sure if it should be a strictly knitting blog, a craft blog in general, a diary. It gradually becomes more of the latter, a place to keep notes of the more interesting happenings in my life with an accent on knitting. But though I rarely miss the opportunity to share my WIPs and FOs, I tend to be lazy telling you about my traveling adventures.

So last year I never wrote about the ancient Thracian tomb in Sveshtari, the Pleven Panorama, the Park of Aristotle in Greece and the ruins of Stagira - the birth town of Aristotle. And of the five interesting places we visited this year while on the Black sea coast - the Madara Rider and early medieval ruins, the botanical gardens of Balchik, the cape of Kaliakra, the Aladja rock monastery near Varna and the Stuck Rocks (Pobitite kamani), I told you only about the rocks.

But it would be a crying shame not to share a small bit of the hundreds of pictures I took last week of Budapest - the capital of Hungary and one of the most beautiful towns I've ever visited. Situated on both banks of the river Danube and spectacularly illuminated at night, the center of the town with its historical buildings and beautiful bridges is like a fairytale scenery.

:: The Royal Castle

:: The Fishermen's Bastion

:: St. Matthias Cathedral

:: The Square of Heroes

:: The House of Parliament - I had to remind myself constantly that it is for real - it's so beautiful with its intricately decorated towers.

:: The amphibian bus

:: St. Stephen's Basilica - a gorgeous building with red marble interior. We attended a Saturday mass there.

:: The Vajdahunyad castle - my favourite attraction in the city park.