Little Purl of the Orient

Fingerless rib gloves

Just when I needed to find a solution for the fingerless mitts, I got the pattern used by Eilene for a pair simple and stylish rib gloves. And they took just the amount of yarn that I have. Here they are, modeled by husband. The ribbing provides a flexible fit and it seems to eat less yarn than garter stitch. The specs are: 1 ball of Ruby Tweed Aran (95 yards), 5.1 mm dpns and a couple of hours. As prompted by Ei, I knitted 9 rounds for the hand part instead of 4 as stated in the pattern, which gives a roomier look. One more pair of socks to go and this package will be enroute to the UK.

Thanks for helping me to decide on which sweater to knit next. Seems that 2818 is getting most of the votes. I'll work on this turtle neck as soon as I finish up with Delta, after I finish the socks, after I finish CY's cardigan, after I finish the flower basket shawl, after I ... ...

And for Kormew who left a comment the other day about the Christmas lightings. Here are some of lights that are already up in Central. A giant Christmas tree about 10 storeys high at Statue Square. Another view of the Christmas tree and the brightly lit up HSBC building designed by Sir Norman Foster in the background. There's also a story behind the new illumination of this building.

Fingerless mitts... almost

Can't believe it's already Thursday. Where has the week gone? My knitting has been reduced to garter stitch and a button hole. I knitted up one fingerless mitt from Weekend Knitting and judging by the amount of yarn left, I was pretty sure it's not going to be enough for the second one. However, the pattern called for 1 ball of GGH Via Mala at 77 yards which knits at 4 sts to an inch, so my ball of Tweed Aran at 83m (91 yards) which knits at 5 sts to an inch should be a safe bet. So I chugged along anyway. This yarn is really good to knit, soft and springy, and I wish they had more at the lys but this happened to be the last one there. And run out of yarn I did, with another 1/3 of the mitt to go. Does gauge matter when it comes to the amount of yarn required? Now I have to think of something.

Talking about mittens, everyone's knitting them. They really are fun to make, just that we don't need mittens here in Hong Kong. Otherwise, Cassie's target to knit a pair of mittens for each day sounds like a great idea. Check out her discussion on mittens and the links she posted to free mitten patterns.

While you are here, please help me decide which sweater to knit next with the cream GGH Davos yarn that Eva gave me. Should I make the beige cably sweater from Rebecca 26 (design no. 11) or the yellow turtle neck from Rebecca 28 (design no. 18)?

2611

2818

I'll name them 2611 (beige) and 2818 (yellow) after the fashion of director, Wong Kar Wai, naming his movie 2046.

Typepad has once again baffled me. It has decided to turn my centre column to grey while my 'general settings' meant it to be white. Do you see grey too? Or is it just my browser? Time to send another help ticket.

P.S. Thanks for leaving your votes on the sweaters in my comments. That made me realized that the poll box didn't work so I've removed it. And viola, the center column becomes white again, hooray.

Sunday no knitting

We brought the kids to Central yesterday. Actually we all went to my office notwithstanding that it was a Sunday. I woke up with a premonition that I didn't lock up the office properly on Saturday (I was the last to leave) so I told my husband that I needed to go back and take a look. My husband, knowing what a worrier I am, said let's all go together and we'll take the children to the park afterwards. The door was firmly secured and so we wandered about a bit in the city.

Seeing that the malls are all decked with Christmas decorations made me realize that the holiday season is really just round the corner. I still have some gifts to be knitted and sent to the UK for our friends who have moved there. So off I went to the yarn store during lunch and picked up yarn for some quickie projects. The Tweed Aran would probably end up as a pair of fingerless mitts. The self-striping yarn, a pair of child-sized Dream Socks by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts using short-row heels and toes, pattern is available online from the IK's subscribers' corner. Seeking the kind advice of sock knitters out there, do you think 150m would be sufficient for a pair of child-sized socks? As for the ball of Diacoolpalette DK weight yarn, I may use it with another colour and knit a pair of striped mittens for a special baby.

Talking about socks, Chie finished a pair of lovely any yarn, any size crochet socks. Here's the pattern and I may try to make a pair for Chung Yi to wear at home. I haven't touched any crochet socks before but they seem to me to have greater friction and are less slippery, which may be more suitable for her as she's still toddling.

Before going off, here're the two sides of the fairisle scarf done on Saturday at Eva's house.

Husband Sweater

Please excuse me, if you keep seeing this blog bold up at bloglines but with no new posts before this. I have been fiddling with the codes trying to centralize my pictures. Given my limited knowledge of HTML, I could no longer centralize my photos after the upgrade to WYSIWYG. Finally, I sent a help ticket to Typepad and got a response very promptly which really impressed me. So now you can again see pictures in the middle.

When I showed my husband the afghan, his comment was "I could get a lighter and cheaper one at IKEA. My husband just likes to say things like that but I know he doesn't mean it one bit. In fact, he's really a great and caring guy. Some guys like to play football, go to the gym or meet up with friends at the pub for a drink after work but I can say that every minute of his spare time is spent for the family. For me, I have my knitting time, my blogging time but him no. If he wants to see friends, he would bring our girls together to some kid-friendly place.

The other day, he called me up at the office to tell me that a yarn store near our place is having a sale. There means he has come to terms with my knitting. And that it's high time I knit him something. The last sweater I made him was 5 years ago. So yesterday afternoon during lunch, I picked up some of this chunky light grey wool, Madil 'Galles', which knits to 14st for 10cm. Once I finish up some of my WIPs, I'll swatch for this blue sweater from Rebecca 28.

I knitted nothing these past few days as I've been feeling really tired, probably got the cold bug from the girls. After work this morning, I went over to Eva's house to meet up with her and Marjorie. And you know what? I felt better after that. The stitching and bitching really did marvels.

Rabbit Scarf

Receiving all your positive feedback on my recent FOs really lifted my spirits in an otherwise stressful week, many big thanks to you all! What stressed me out is that last week left me with serious doubts on my home-making skills, I really wonder if I can ever make it as a stay-at-home mum. Anyway, things are more or less back to normal this week, back to work, FIL is back home and is making good progress on the road to recovery but the girls are sick again. Nothing serious but just colds and coughs as the weather has not made up its mind whether it wants to be cool or warm. Actually, it is perfect weather for a cotton sweater, just like Delta, and I should really be working on that. Instead I started a new project.

Rabbit ears.

Twisted ears

Finally, spirals.

After seeing the lovely creations of Lisa and Claudia, I've decided to jump on the bandwagon to start the Ruffles Scarf from Scarf Styles for myself too. The yarn here is the Cleakheaton Angora Supreme from stash and my short sock needles are perfect for this job. The pattern is easy, only 4 rows but involves a lot of turning because of short-rowing. Hence I find 'knitting in reverse' or knitting backwards from right to left comes in very handy. No need to turn to purl when there are just four stitches left. I first read about this interesting technique in IK Winter 2003 and this scarf seems to be a good practice piece. It's good bus knitting but that reminds me I've got to finish Chung Yi's cardigan first.

My blankie lies over the ocean

All is serene. Click on the picture to see what happened in the next minute.

Boy, this afghan weighs a ton! Maybe not a ton but close to 2 kg as I used over 30 balls of Jo Sharp wool. I was an afghan novice and was in a dilemma when choosing for yarn. I'd thought that this will be something I'm going to knit for a long time (it took me 20 months!) and to keep for a long time so I'd better use something of good quality. Little did I think about the after-knit care. Now I seriously have no idea how I'm going to wash this.

Another thing is the joining, the squares are crocheted together and I did it too tightly so there's some bunching up at the borders. For the overall border, I just did a round of dc.

I enjoyed knitting out the different stitch patterns, actually the squares are big swatches to me, I didn't take care to centralize the stitches on the square. Project details are over at the SAL album at my sidebar.

You know some things just jog your memory and bring you back to a certain moment in your life. This afghan brings to me so much memories. When I look at it,

I remember knitting on the sofa with Chung Yi in my tummy and Ji Yuan sitting beside me watching Barney.

I remember the fears and despair during the SARS outbreak last Spring and being worried sick it might affect my then unborn baby. I'm thankful that she's now able to jump all over the blankie with her big sister.

I remember feeling shock and heavy-hearted that my favourite Canto-pop singer and actor, Leslie Cheung, decided to end his life on April Fool's Day last year by jumping down from Mandarin Hotel.

I remember crocheting the borders around the squares like crazy on the bus journeys.

I remember knitting a square while waiting to see the Chinese physician back in Singapore in July to cure my never-ending cough.

I remember knitting squares for Sarah's baby together with fellow SALies.

I remember contemplating where in the world am I going to have the time to knit and blog at the same time but still went ahead to start a blog though.

I remember starting to assemble the squares at Eva's house togther with her and Marjorie.

I can go on and on but I'd better stop my rambling here as it's already 1 a.m. in the morning and I'd better go and get some sleep.

A sweater that fits

I heaved a sign of relieve when the 3/4 sleeve cable sweater actually fits! I did swatch and it worked this time.

A recap on the vital statistics. Yarn: Jaeger Chamonix (colour 901 Lille) 7.5 balls. Pattern from Puppyarn Teami Volume 2. Needles: Clover size 15 (6.6mm) The sweater is completed in a reasonably quick time (compared to my other WIps) because I cabled without a cable needle. Thanks to Wendy's great tip. However, in some cases, I do find myself needing a cable needle, especially for finer gauge work or even for the Inishmore that I'm knitting with Jaeger Merino Aran. I just couldn't do it without a cable needle.

And this really is a warm sweater and I wouldn't get to wear it until it gets colder. It's warm and humid again these few days. The humidity went up to 90%.

Thanks for your kind regards for my fil. He's discharged yesterday and is temporarily staying in my sils' apartment so that he can rest properly and not disturbed by the two kids. I had meant to finish assembling the afghan this morning and work on the border but I couldn't get away from the computer. And I'm feeling guilty giving Chung Yi Teletubbies on the VCD instead of my motherly love. Got to check out all my favourite blogs and most essentially I couldn't tear myself away from the excellent debate at Kerstin's blog. Remember to check out all the comments too.

Not so airy scarf

While waiting for the second sleeve of the cable sweater to dry, I've started and finished a scarf yesterday. It's a vairation of the Airy Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gift. This book is available in the bookstore near my workplace but I didn't get it though. The Airy Scarf in the book is knitted using Rowan Kid Silk Haze which produced a very light and airy effect. I have an odd ball of Filatura Di Crosa Sympathie and thought it may make a nice airy scarf. The yarn is heavier so the fabric produced is of course not as airy. Essentially, it is a garter stitch scarf with a row of eyelets every 6th row. The finished dimension is 5.5 inches x 42 inches.

I've taken the rest of the week off from work to look after the children as my father-in-law is in hospital convalescing after a surgery and Mil is busy keeping him company and making sure he's well taken care of. I'm trying to keep my sanity as full-time home-making is a TOUGH job compared to office work. Hopefully, I can get some knitting done in between. Here are some coming attractions.

Right Front

I interrupt the knitting of the cable sweater to bring to you the right front of Chung Yi's stripey cardigan. So I stuck with the colour combination of pink, purple, blue and cream, and got a bit of progress. I've decided to knit the fronts and back all in one piece and divide at the armhole so as to avoid sewing up and most important of all, ends. Like this, I have only one side with ends to weave in instead of three. This knitting is brainless enough and more so is the knitter. I got the number of stitches for this completed front wrong and realised only when I'm left with a couple of stitches too few for the shoulders. Guess what I'm going to do? Please don't do this at home though. I'm going to fudge around the armhole and re-distribute the stitches for the back and left front. Please turn a blind eye to it.

There's still half a sleeve to go for the cable sweater and I'd planned to finish up yesterday morning while waiting for Ji Yuan to have her ballet class. Then I remembered that it was open day and we could go peep into her class. My husband got to work so I was entrusted the job of capturing her in action. So I was armed with video camera on one hand and digital camera on the other. As a result, the photos turned out blurry. This is a better one, so you can imagine how bad the rest are.

Feline trivia

There's no way for me to concentrate at work earlier today. There's this big meeting which took me more than half a day and thereafter I sat at my desk, alternating my screen between CNN and Reuters as the election results came in state by state. Still no results as I'm typing this post. So here's something frivolous to take off the steam for our American friends. I hereby present to you the favourite feline of our household, Hello Kitty, who has turned 30 recently. I didn't know that she's actually born in Britain. Hmm, 30 years and still meowing strongly. She's an all-time favourite here Hong Kong. Both my girls absolutely love her, even little Chung Yi goes 'itty, 'itty every time she sees her. I make sure that Ji Yuan doesn't see the Hello Kitty knitting book or else there'll be nothing I can knit except the kitty intarsia.

So which Hello Kitty am I? Here's a quizz.

I'm Hello Kitty Water Fairy! made by: Jen

And I'm sure Hello Kitty will approve of my cable sweater. Here's the first sleeve, almost ready for the sleeve cap shaping. It badly needs a block though.