Co by tu... / What to knit...

Dziękuję za porady w kwestii kolorów Klasika, poprosiłam o próbki z Zamotanych i Kolorowego Motka (już z Motka lecą do mnie pocztą *^v^*), a dodatkowo napisałam maila do Fastrygi z zapytaniem o ich zdjęcia - na razie odzewu brak.
W oczekiwaniu na próbki zaczęłam dłubać coś nowego.
Thank you for the advice on Klasik colours, I asked for samples in two online stores and one of them already sent them to me. *^v^* Additionally I sent an email to the store with the nicests colours but no reply up till now.
While waiting for the yarn to come I started something new.

(Wiem, mam jeszcze ma drutach Gythę, ale ona musi na razie swoje odleżeć. Skończyłam dolną kolorową część i chyba jest... za duża! Prucie żakardu to prawie jak prucie koronki, równie upojne, więc muszę się nad tym zastanowić, pomierzyć, odczekać.)
(I know there is still Gytha on my needles but it must wait a bit. I finished the colourwork part and I believe it's... too big for me! Frogging the colourwork is as fun as frogging the lace so I have to think about it and measure it properly).

Kompletnie nie wiem, co teraz robić na drutach... Przeglądam włóczki (te zgromadzone w domu i te na stronach sklepów), przeglądam wzory, i nic do mnie nie przemawia.
I absolutely don't know what to knit now... I look through the yarn, both in my stash and in online shops, I look through the patterns and nothing inspires me.

Bo weźmy na przykład taki mohair - w zeszłym roku kupiłam zieloną melanżową włóczkę w Yarn Paradise, jest mięciutka, zieloniutka i kojarzy mi się z jesiennym wieczorem w lesie.
Let's take a mohair as an example - last year I bought the green variegated yarn from Yarn Paradise, it's soft, greenish and it reminds me of the Autumn forest evening.


Postanowiłam coś z tej zieleni wydziergać, coś zwiewnego, i wygrzebałam takie propozycje (z różnych numerów Rebecci):
I decided to knit something airy with this yarn, and I found the following patterns (Rebecca magazines):







Najbardziej skłaniałam się ku ostatniej propozycji, wprawdzie to ażur (których nie lubię), ale wzór nie jest bardzo skomplikowany, a wydaje mi się, że ażur z tej włóczki wyglądałby ciekawie. No, bo jest też przecież płaszczyk gładki (zdjęcie nr.1), ze słodkimi dziewczęcymi zbieranymi rękawami (cóż z tego, że dziewczęciem przestałam być jakiś czas temu! *^v^*), ale przy gładkim wzorze bałabym się placków jednego odcienia zieleni, co niweluje nieco wzór ażurowy.
My best choice would be the last pattern, it's lace (and I don't like knitting lace), but it doesn't look too complicated and I think it would go well with this yarn. There is also a plain coat (photo 1), with cute girlie gathered sleeves (who cares that I'm not a girl anymore *^v^*), but I'm not sure about the variegated yarn in plain stockinette.


Ale wracając do ażurowego płaszczyka, zaczęłam robić próbkę z moich zieleni i na razie mam taki kawałek od góry:
Coming back to my lacy coat, I started to swatch the Turkish yarn and I have as much:


Wygląda na to, że włóczka daje mi szerokie pasy ciemnej i jasnej zieleni (żadnych placków, hurra! ^^). Jeszcze kawałek przerobię na gładko, a potem zamierzam odłączyć rękawy od korpusu i polecieć dalej wzorem ażurowym.
It seems the green shades will appear in wide stripes (no pooling, hurray! ^^). I'm still going to knit stockinette for a while and then change into lace.

I tu się zaraziłam. Od Kath i Dagny zaraziłam się wzorem z rosyjskiego forum, na który Dagny podała schemat na swoim blogu. Oryginał wygląda tak:
And here is the catch - I decided to knit the pattern that Kath and Dagny are knitting already, found on some Russian forum. The original blouse looks like that:


A mój będzie płaszczykiem z zakładanymi na siebie połami, rozszerzający się w dół od biustu. Takie przynajmniej mam plany, a jak będzie - zobaczymy. Włóczka jest bardzo cienka i mięciutka, i jestem bardzo ciekawa, ile mi jej zejdzie, mam przeczucie, że bardzo mało. *^v^*
And in my version it will be an A-line coat with overlapping fronts. At least these are the plans. The yarn is very soft and very thin, and I'm curious how much it's needed for this project. *^v^*


Za to przedostatni sweterek z powyższych mohairkowych chyba zrobię z niebieściutkiej Sonaty, którą też mam w zapasach, bardzo podobają mi się te szczypanki na przodzie. ^^ No, i kusy sweterek na drugim zdjęciu, idealnie wpisuje się w moje pomysły na wiosenne ubiory - chcę być kobieca tej wiosny! *^v^* Dlatego chciałabym zrobić kilka kobiecych bluzeczek, pomijając modele z książki A Stitch in Time (której jeszcze nie kupiłam, ale zamierzam niebawem), podobają mi się poniższe modele i stylizacje (na Bloom Kim H. mam nawet upatrzoną włóczkę ^^):
I may also knit the last but one sweater from the mohair proposals above, I have the bluish Sonata yarn and I just love the ruches at the front. ^^ Plus, the small cardigan on the second photo is prefect for my new Spring look - I want to be feminine this Spring! *^v^* That is why I' would like to make several girly blouses, apart from the models from A Stitch in Time book (which I haven't bought yet, but I will), I like the following patterns and stylisations (I even have the yarn spotted for the Bloom by Kim H. ^^):

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Jagienko, ja też bym do tego zielonego dodała jakiś dół. Ziarenka dodawałam do chlebów, do bułeczek jeszcze nie, tylko posypkę makową, ale wypróbuję. ^^ Co do drożdży, możesz zastąpić świeże drożdże z torebki w proporcji 100 g drożdży świeżych = 40 g drożdży instant.

Kath, jaki piękny sen, ale niestety nie mam takiej znajomej pani w PKP. *^v^*

Michelle, trzymam te kciuki, szydełkuj, szydełkuj! ^^

Krissie, we don't have the exact product called hot cross buns, but we have sweet flat buns with cheese.

Antosiu, kliknij w link w moim wpisie, wchodząc na stronę główną VK rzeczywiście wyświetla się poprzedni numer, dziwne...

Blancari, czuję, jak mi pozłotka odpada przy każdym ruchu. *^v^* Pochwal się bułeczkami!

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A na koniec zostawiam Was z nostalgicznym wspomnieniem - ta brązowa teczka z wzorami do haftu (częściowo przeze mnie odratowywanymi po latach przy pomocy taśmy klejącej, bo stara kalka rozpada się w rękach...) to jedna z niewielu pamiątek, jakie mi pozostały po mojej ukochanej Babci, osobie, która ukształtowała mnie taką, jaka jestem dzisiaj. *^v^*
I'm leaving you today with my nostalgic memory - this brown binder full of old embroidery patterns (partly saved by myself with the use of the Scotch tape because old tracing paper doesn't want to live forever...) is one of not so many keepsakes after my beloved Grandmother, the person who made me the way I am today. *^v^*

My Granny Irena

I wanted to tell you about my Grandmother (my father's mother) so I reached for some old photo albums.

My Granny's name was Irena Zelazko, maiden name Kujawa.

I don't know where her family came from, anything about her childhood and adolescence, because when I was a kid I wasn't much interested in it, and then it was too late to ask... All I have is this very old photo of my Great Grandmother Anna with my Granny as a little girl - it must be 1915 or 1916, an I don't know whether Great Granny was a severe mother, but she definitely looks so in the picture (or maybe it was just the picture pose they tended to take while making such portraits?). My Grandmother had two older brothers and I believe she had a rather happy childhood (the three of them survived both World Wars and died in old age).

My Grandmother married my Grandfather and they hired a small 1st floor flat in a picturesque town close to Warsaw (just one room, bathroom and kitchen). He was a clerk, she was a housewife - she had her flat to take care of, a small garden in front of their windows and her crafts. Yes, that's what I'm aiming at - she was a very crafty person.

She had an old Singer sewing machine, the one with a huge pedal to keep it going (I used it several times and it really worked comfortably, once you've mastered how to keep a steady rythm... ^^) and was making a lot of her clothing. Later, when I arrived to this world, she was sewing for me - in the dull times when I was a child and there was absolutely nothing nice in the shops, I remember wearing colourful dresses and skirts made by my Granny out of the cotton fabrics she collected over the years!

I loved digging into her big three-door wardrobe, where I found real treasures: what we would call now 'vintage' shoes, dresses, hats (oh, she had many hats for different occasions!), bags, gloves, ect, ect. I often played dressing up and posed in front of a big mirror, and imagined where my Granny would wear this or that.

When I was older, she taught me different types of embroidery (it was her second favourite craft). She taught me the patience of long hours of playing with the needle and thread, the surprise of the pattern appearing in front of my eyes bit by bit, the pride of the finished work, the happiness and the value of the fact that I made something with my own hands.

Then I became a teenager and didn't spend so much time with my Grandmother - I started to have my own very important teenage stuff to do and I imagine it must have been heartbreaking for her, especially because she was alone, my Grandfather died of a heart attack when I was five, when they both were quite young, and she never found another partner (never even tried).

Okay, stop reading here if you don't want to cry...

My Grandmother was a heavy smoker for about 40 years but then she stopped, and it seemed her health was okay. But at the age of about 73 she developed a severe lung cancer, that was slowly spreading on other organs. Moreover, she had a small heart attack in her sixties and they implanted her a special device onto her heart to keep it going. So, the situation was more tragic, because she was dying of a spreading cancer, but she couldn't die because that battery on her heart kept sustaining her life and prolonging her suffering... At the final stages of her illness she was living with me and my parents, and I remember that she never said a bad word, never complained on anything (although my mother hated her and treated her like an unwanted stranger in the house, which was breaking my heart). She was just laying in bed all day, listening to the radio, trying to read something, she ate when it was time to eat, asked me to help her with her bath, she was coming to my room to watch tv because she knew that she wasn't invited to the living-room when my mother watched tv.

Then things went really bad and she went to the hospital, where I visited her once or twice, but she didn't want me to come and see her in that state. And one day the battery on her heart stopped and she died.

They said that just a few minutes before she passed away she asked them to call me because she wanted to see me for the last time. But then it was too late...

About 10 people came to her funeral. Most of her side of the family and neighbours were either already dead or lived too far away from Warsaw, and I think she wasn't a very sociable person to develop a net of friends. She lived for her husband and her son, then for her granddaughter.

She was the warmest person I've ever known, the best Grandmother I could imagine, a very crafty and imaginative woman. I miss her a lot in my life now, although I believe she watches over me somehow and helps me a bit. I think I inherited some of her genes, her talents and I'm trying to use them wisely.

After my Granny died I took a few things from her flat - the wooden box (she used to keep medicine there, and I put in it all my sewing threads), a fox collar (very stylish piece of accessory), Grandfather's bowtie, and the last treasure - two big envelopes full of embroidery patterns. My mother took a beautiful huge mirror and an art nouveau vase (yes, she grabbed what she could...), father took some photo albums and documents, the rest was given to some distant family living in the countryside (furniture, clothes, kitchen utensils, ect) before I was even aware of that.

I wish I spent more time with her when I didn't.

I wish I gave her more help, attention and support in her illness and in her everyday struggle with my mother when she had to live under her roof and be treated like a stray dog, instead of being a stupid teenager occupied with my stuff.

I wish I showed her more love and gratitude for what she did for me all those years.

I wish I was at her bed in the last moments when she was dying, because we didn't say 'goodbye' and 'see you there', and maybe my sight would make it easier for her to leave.

All those wishes cannot be fulfilled now because I don't know how to turn back time. Nobody knows. I will always live with the feeling of unfulfilment and guilt, and unfinished business.