Little Purl of the Orient

Meet Kate!

Kate is done! Here it is looking kind of strange on my bay window.

I knitted the neckband in the rounds and reduced a total of 10 stitches as Clara has mentioned that there are just too many stitches to fit the cast-off edges. I had to sew on the neckband twice as I made a mistake with the neck shaping and one side turned out longer (probably due to late night knitting) when I tried it on. And what horrors confronted me when I had it on. Even though I knitted the smallest size and the gauge was right, it still looked loose on me. Nothing close to the beautiful fit of the other knitalongers.

For the brave hearts, click here.

So, who was I trying to kid when I thought I could pull off in a halter top? It really tested the patience of my husband who tried so hard to get an angle that didn't expose my awfully bony shoulders in the photo. Having said that, I still love the design and the ASC. Give me another chance, I'll eat more and fatten myself up. I'm wearing it today safely under a cream colour cardigan and it's better that way.

Great evening of meet-ups

There's nothing better than to have a nice, relaxing evening chatting with friends, especially if it involves knitting as well. I met up with Eva and Majorie for the first time yesterday evening. We had an enjoyable time pouring over pattern books and discussing yarns. And I got my Gedifra Highlights #41 and the Great American Aran Afghan pattern books from Eva who has kindly included them in her own order. It's amazing those girls have almost every pattern book and yarn you can name, wow. We didn't knit a stitch though but I left them having more ideas in my head than before.

After the knitting chitchat, I headed off to the restaurant next door to meet up with my husband and an old friend, Guillaume, who is visiting from France. He's such a sweet guy and knowing my love for knitting, offered to get me some French knitting pattern books when he return to Nantes. And he kept persuading us to visit France especially, Paris and Nantes this summer, and tempted us with his lovely description. My husband studied in Paris and I flew over there to meet him in my undergraduate days whenever I had holidays and could scraped together enough airfare. Needless to say, we have special sentiments for that country. It'd be wonderful if we can make it there this summer with the kids and meet up with old friends. Moreover, we haven't had a real holiday since the kids were born.

Not much progress on the knitting front this week. I managed to crochet these flowers and leaves that will adorn little Chung Yi's pink dress. Three more flowers are needed. Kate is going along well and I'll be sewing on the neckband tomorrow as soon as I have a minute.

A Good Yarn Week

These yarns are recently added to my modest stash.

Filatura Di Crosa Dolce Amore, 100% cotton. Soft, soft cotton yarn in the softest pink that got the 'approval' of Ji Yuan. I'm going to crochet her the Brice cardigan from Bouton D'or Hors Serie #12, hopefully on time for the start of the new school year this September. Both Wai Lung and I took Monday off to go to her kindergarten to get her first report, which is excellent. I just can't imagine that the tiny, howling, baby that came out of my tummy is almost four and has gotten her first school report. The newly bought ball of purple Jaeger Baby Merino DK will be knitted with the noodle-y pink variegated and cream colour yarn into the Lolita sweater for little Chung Yi, also from the same book. The pinkish noodle is actually Jaeger Baby Merino DK being ripped from the modified Busy Lizzie cardigan from Tadpoles and Tiddlers I knitted for her last year. It came out so small that she out grew it before I sew on the buttons. Something for myself. Blue variegated cotton blend Lana Liza. It has a kind of cable construction and has good yardage. 120m for 50g. Here's the close up. My friend, Connie, who works for the distributor said that this yarn came from the same mill and is exactly the same as Richmore's more expensive Sfumato yarn. Eva recommends it too. Probably, I'll knit it into a lacy tank using the pattern from Richmore's Spring magazine.

And this bundle of joy, delicately wrapped in purple tissue paper, arrived from Threadbear last night! I can't resist taking this photo a la Kerstin (18th May post). I wonder how much longer can I hold on to starting Charlotte's Web. Got to go and finish up my Kate first.

Giant Granny

What else have I been up to recently? Meet giant granny. In the mood for crochet but not knowing a lot of crochet stitch patterns, I picked up some leftover yarns and started making a granny square. I started with the candy coloured, bright pink and orangey yarn in the middle left over from Ji Yuan's scarf some years back. Then I picked up some cream colour yarn ripped from a shrug I made for myself. It's too thin, so I doubled it with a 4-ply pink wool. The pink picks out the darker shade in the middle nicely although it's not so clear in the picture. I've no idea yet what to make with the giant granny but it certainly is very soothing to work. What stocking stitch is for me in knitting, granny squares are for me in crocheting.

As the cream/pink portion is essentially in 'one' colour, I needn't fasten off after each round and I had to slip stitch to the next gap to start a new round and the slip stitched part is kind of thick. As you know each gap is filled with 3 dcs (or is it called 'treble' in British English), I experiment with starting with 3ch as the last dc instead of as the first dc. That is to say, after the 3ch, I jumped straight to the next gap and make 3 dcs there, crochet the round as usual until I arrive at the the first gap with that 3ch and make 2 more dcs, slip stitch them to the top of the 3ch and I would have arrived at a gap ready to start a new round. Oh well, I'm not sure if I'm making myself clear. It's just the way I'm making this giant granny. Maybe pictures would have spoken better than words.

Look, this site has got lots of interesting crochet squares to make. Wish I had found this earlier.

Back to the Pink Dress

Not much progress has been made on Chung Yi's pink dress. I'm knitting it in the round and there are 200 stitches on 3.75mm needles. Rather small gauge compared to Kate which is a breeze to knit on 5mm. Also, I can't knit at all on the bus these days as the humidity is making my hands drip like crazy. The dress starts with stocking stitch right away and is to be finished with a crochet picot edging. I couldn't stand the bottom that is curling a lot and had to crochet the border last night. Here's a close up of the picot edging.

Meanwhile, I'll wait patiently for the 'Painted Lady' to arrive.

Gingerbread Castle

Some lovely Koigu is coming my way via the famous Rob. I've finally succumbed to the magic of THE WEB, and ordered the 'Painted Lady' colourway. I'll see if I should join the knitalong hosted by Sandy. I'd love to but I really don't know when I can start and feel really bad if I join and cannot knit it until everyone's done with theirs. Also added to my modest stash this week are some pastelly cotton yarns for myself and my daughters. And I'm contemplating some more which are on offer at a good price. How I wish I have an extra ten pairs of hands. Sorry, the husband is still not in the picture yet, maybe this winter. I'll get a photo of the yarns together with the Koigu which will hopefully arrive next week.

Just a picture of the Gingerbread Castle to share.

Like the well-dwelling frog in the Chinese proverb, I have only a limited view of the (knitting) sky. This pattern is really is a fabulous piece of picture knitting. It's just fascinating that different stitches can be combined to create a castle. There are faggoting, twisted stitches, eyelets, and a bobble to top the turret. It's lots of fun to see how the castle unfolds before your eyes, row by row.

Actually, the square came out smaller than 12 inch. Width-wise, I've blocked it to size (almost, you can tell from the wavy edge I'm not too good at it); length-wise, I added some rows and a sun. Hope the sun shines always on the recipient.

This is the first part of the secret project. For part 2, I'd wanted to knit the Hobby Horse in Book 3 but it'll be another building this time. I'll go for the Enchanted Cottage, also from Book 2 of the Barbara Walker Treasuries.

The completed Pee Wee

I really didn't forsake Pee Wee and the horrible chuncky chenille. I've been working on it faithfully on my bus journeys to and from work whenever my hands are not too clammy. It's now completed. This one is kind of an anti-climax; it didn't give me the satisfaction or thrill at all. After a good wash and drying flat, the unevenness didn't smoothen out very much. Does it still look rag cloth-ish? I've thrown in a scarf for the photo shoot for good measure.

My husband good naturely commented that it looks chucky and nice and it'll go well with a pair of jeans. Of course he'll say that because he's the one who asked me to make it in the first place. Ji Yuan didn't want to try it on at all. She said it is ugly. Nowadays, everything has to be either pink or pastel, otherwise it is ugly. It'll still fit her this fall/winter. Hopefully, by then cream won't be ugly anymore.

These are some things I learnt from knitting this sweater:
- Chuncky chenille doesn't agree with me. It is the most inelastic yarn I've worked with so far and my wrists hurt every time I work with it.

- All the unevenness of my knitting gets magnified in reverse stocking stitch.

- I had big-time problem casting on with the chenille. My initial endeavours resulted in ugly puckers. I started with the sleeves and tried more than 5 times. So I didn't frog them anymore but did some engineering. I unpicked the cast-on row and then sewed cast-off the live stitches and hemmed it in. For the back and the front, I settled on picking up the stitches from a crochet chain, one of the provisional cast-on methods taught in Japanese books. At least the puckers are gone now and the edge is relatively flat.

- Pee Wee is a boy's sweater and in my attempt to make it more feminine, I decreased 1 stitch at each edge every 12 rows to get a slightly tapering body.

And some vital statistics:
Pattern: Pee Wee from Rowan #19 or Tadpoles and Tiddlers
Yarn: Rowan Chuncky Chenille, Cream Colour (3 balls)
Needles: 5 mm needles for the body and 4.5 mm for the neck band

I'll be visiting a new yarn store tomorrow after work! My friend is working there on Tuesdays and I can't wait to see what they have on offer.

Tanks, shells, tanks

On my mind these days are tanks, shells and more tanks. Bought the Spring/Summer issue of Vogue Knitting the other day and fell in love with the designs. The cover page tank by Adrienne Vittadini is lovely, the diamond patch sweater would be fun to knit, the lacy shawl-collared jacket and the shell in wavy lace pattern would just be perfect to wear to the office. And I am attracted to the interestingly constructed one-shoulder halter top featured in Gedifra's latest Highlights #41. I've got to get this magazine too.

Meanwhile, Kate is going along very well, thanks to the support of fellow knitalonger, Clara who is really kind in sharing her experience in making her Kate. I've finished the back. As my edge stitches are always rather uneven, starting from the raglan decreases, I've decided to go for the chain selvedge by slipping the first stitch purlwise and knitting the last stitch. The right-hand selvedge looks neat but the left-hand side didn't work as nicely. Probably it's because of the slip 1 purlwise follow by a purl stitch. I'll try to work figure it out for the front.

Half Back of Kate

Presenting the back of Kate in Grape ASC.

Well, uh, actually just half of the back. It looks a bit different from those knitted in solid colour, yes? The ribbing by the side is not quite as obvious but I kind of like it like this too. I've used the tubular cast on for the ribbing which gives an elastic edge. I normally need to go down one needle size for the first row to get a neater look and I forgot that for less elastic yarns like cotton, I should have used needles two sizes down. At this juncture, I am trying to work out the raglan decreases. Oh dear, do I need to work in a chain selvedge?

Bonjour Kate!

Bonjour Kate!
I've joined the Kate-Along!

Both kids went to bed early last night and I had some quiet time and worked on it right away in the purplish Rowan ASC. The 11 cm of ribbing was all done and I'm now at the body part. This is my first foray into French knitting pattern. Going through the pattern, my French took me only to the point before the raglan shaping, anything beyond that is still a mystery to me. But feeling unusually courageous and motivated by Clara's beautiful finished tank, I plunged in right away. I'll try to figure it out as I go along, that's the fun of knitting, isn't it? Had wanted to snap a quick shot of the WIP this morning before going to work but the memory card is full, so I'll try to do it tomorrow morning.

This is the second time I'm working with ASC and can't stop singing praises of it. The handle is marvelous and doesn't split like the Online cotton yarn I'm using for Chung Yi's dress. While I knit, I was already pondering whether to buy the remaining 5 balls of ASC in an orangey 'printed' colourway at the LYS.