Little Purl of the Orient

A series of WIP photos

A vote is a vote and I went with the general consensus. The vest for JY will be a V-neck although it has been a tough decision for me as I really, really like Veronique's idea of a deep-U neckline plus two buttons down the front. Maybe I should go knit such a vest for myself this Fall. I've just managed to join the front to the back, that's about all the knitting (plus the black socks) I did these days.

Why the radio silence? And I've been poor with emails too. The first week of school for the elder one (meaning new schedules, a bit hyper with all the happenings) and an irritable (but still darling) terrible-two-turns-three who is cutting two molars at the same time don't quite bode well for any quiet time at home. So I'll show you more WIP photos as nothing gets quite done here.

The crochet top/dress is taking ages to get completed. Can you stand another photo of it? At least the buttons are now sewn in. Looking at the photo, I realise how much the buttons resemble the flowers on the fabric for the skirt. If you are bored with this, do check out this very lovely creation.

Here's the Short 'n Sweet bolero which is still rather like a limp rag around my shoulders. Target finish date was mid-August and look where it is now.

On Saturday, I went to the main uniform shop at Jordan to do some last minute school uniform shopping for JY and it was a really nice surprise to have found out that the shop is located just down the street from Kam Wah, the nicely stocked notion store. So naturally, I had to drop by and I found some fleece batting which I'm going to try out for the floral quilt. I had wanted to buy trims, buttons, ribbons and bag handles, and what-nots but stop myself short when I reminded myself that I shouldn't be stashing. And so you might have guessed I wasn't a bit annoyed when the uniform shop told me that the library bag is still out of stock and I would need to go back again. Ah, and winter uniforms too. Thank you, uniform shop, for being located so close to Kam Wah.

Have you seen Vanessa's beautiful red Swallowtail Shawl? And Brooke's earlier red Icarus Shawl? Both so rich, so elegant and wonderful. I'm looking forward to see Kathy's Shetland Triangle. I've now on my mind a deep red shawl for myself but unfortunately there's no suitable yarn in stash. Anyhow, I'll be a very good girl and stay focus on my stash reduction. Red. shawl. next. year.

Life is hectic*

So I borrowed Erin's title, life is indeed hectic around here. Lots of before school errands to run before the start of the new school year next week and still JY is stilling lacking some school uniform. Two days were taken off work and boy, was I tired. I was knocked out of my wind on the first day of the two days off at 8 pm, just couldn't move. Two days without computer and news. This morning, when I returned to the office, I had to look a few times at the calendar to make sure I've got the right date.

Crafting has been done in small doses, mainly on the husband black ribbed socks on the bus in between errands. Last night, I had a great urge to start something new and I did. There is just an exciting air of freshness around here. JY's school has moved into a brand new premise and she's thrilled after the induction and couldn't stop telling it to her grandparents. She can't stop jumping about, too excited to sit still. And her energy has rubbed a bit onto me. After the children went to bed relatively early yesterday evening, I sat down, took out the bright pink ribbon yarn and started knitting a top-down vest for JY.

When I bought the yarn from the old lady stall in Causeway Bay, I had wanted to knit a tank with spaghetti straps for JY. However, a summery tank in a thickish ribbon yarn doesn't really quite make sense, it'll be too warm for Hong Kong summer but too scanty in the cold weather, so I decided on a vest which would be a useful garment for layering in Fall. Besides, maybe this vest can divert JY's attention away from the crochet top a bit. There's still one more armhole band to go but I can see that it will be too small for her. However, when I told her that, she's not liking the idea of me giving it to her little sister. Aye, can I call it sibling rivalry?

Haven't decided what to do for the front of the vest yet though, maybe V-neck or a deeper U. What do you think? What would be considered becoming styles for girls this Fall?

Ebony and ivory

New bus knitting: black socks for the husband. Got to start preparing for the coming colder weather this year. This pair is meant for the husband to wear on his trips to colder parts of China so that he'll be constantly reminded of his knitterly wife and remember to look out for exotic Chinese yarns during those trips. Just kidding, I really don't need anymore yarn (this must be the greatest understatement of this blog). Let's see how long this leg of yarn acquisition control will last.

I'm using black Lang Jawoll sock yarn, which comes with a spool of reinforcement thread neatly tucked in the centre of the skein. And the white Bryspun needles are from Grumperina, the queen of knitting needles. They are great to knit with. Do you recall the regular bamboo sock needles becoming all bendy after a pair of socks is completed? Mine always do. Well, these Bryspun needles are naturally flexible and they just bend ever so gently according to your grip. I don't remember myself knitting much on this sock on the bus last week but I'm already up to the heel flap.

The pattern I'm using is the Lichen Ribbed Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush. I asked my husband to choose a pattern from that book and he nonchalantly pointed to this when the book conveniently opened on that page. Not trusting him, I asked JY (on a different day) to go through the book and she ended up choosing the same one too so I'm sticking with that.

Discussion about black ribbed socks definitely is not the most interesting topic. Why don't visit MJ's for her more exciting saga on man socks?

Many thanks for your lovely compliments on the Ribbed Wrap Top! I do like this style though it is not one that I wear often. However, sad to say that this knitted fabric is not wearing well; after a whole day's wear last week, it became rather saggy. Anyway, it is just knitting and if it would become unwearable one day, I'm all prepared to rip it out and reuse the yarn for something else.

Let there be light

I had thought that I would finish up JY’s crochet top dress, to be followed by my crochet Short 'n Sweet bolero but in the end, work on the Debbie Bliss Ribbed Wrap Top gathered momentum and got done.

First of all, the colour of this Anny Blatt Luoxor yarn is 'Lumiere', the palest, prettiest shade of yellow. Although I don't normally wear yellow , I like this shade. It doesn't show up well in the photos and always appear as off-white instead. And luckily there is light at the end of the tunnel for this project. I got pass the endless ribbing in this thin cotton yarn and the short-rows.

The suckage I mentioned in my earlier post was the floppy back neck. I've already cast off ribwise, I can't imagine how floppy it would be if I had did it knitwise as called for in the pattern.

See the bulge there in the middle of my back, it must have been my camisole. I haven't fixed the back neck problem yet; surprisingly, it didn't flop very much when I put it on this morning so I eagerly wore it to work.

I'll wait and see how it'll withstand the wash to decide how to fix it. You must have thought how casual this is for the office. We have this casual Friday thing going on at our workplace for a while and nowadays for Thursdays, people (actually, I) started to dress down a bit too like I've done today. And don't you think my new camisole is just perfect for this top? Thanks again to the end of season sales at OZOC.

The backdrops of the photos don't look too appealing but they are authentic street scenes in Hong Kong. My colleagues and I took the tram (just a 5-minute journey) to Mak's Noodles in Sheung Wan for lunch, and this eatery has undoubtedly one of the best wanton noodles in town. Read what this blogger has to say. There's a picture of what it looks like too.

Something new, something blue

Late to the party as usual, here's my rather tardy start for an Orangina. The ribbon yarn I'm using is between DK and worsted, so I'm knitting only 8 repeats across. I'm not sure if it'll really become an Orangina, I do like working this easy lace pattern, which is called Vine Lace in Barbara Walker's Stitch Treasury. It looks great both rightside up or down, and is the same as the lace as for Victoria Tank of an old IK. A friend wrote to warn about the possible 'big poof' where the lace meets the ribbing, from what I gathered from the other knitters who attempted this, it might be due to the negative ease of the lace. Last night when I put this against my favourite black T-shirt for sizing, a mistake down at the third inch stare right back at me. It is not very noticeable and I've thought of letting it be, just put it behind my back and call it 'character' of the handknit, my mistake did not cause any knitter any bodily harm, right? However, it keeps nagging at me and I'm just not motivated to work on it right now.

See the blotch on the blue floral sail? I know that new fabrics should be washed before using for sewing. My mother always does that, all her fabric goes home straight into the basins before joining her stash. I usually follow this too but I think I must have missed the blue stripey fabric the last time. My husband consoled me and told me the sail could be changed later on. So, to save yourself any of such agony, do remember to wash all your fabrics before using them.

The Debbie Bliss Ribbed Wrap Top is all done, all ends hidden, ribbons sewn, ready to be worn, well almost. Suckage struck. Thanks to Claudia who coined this term. What an appropriate phrase to describe what happened to me. There's a minor glitch at the back neck that needs to be fixed, it's too floppy. Stay tuned.

Eye Candy Friday

The beautifullest*, gorgeousest self striping yarn in robin egg blue, brown and green, dyed specially by Ms. Eye Candy aka Sundara aka Purly Whites.

And equally beautifullest and gorgeousest Sundara sock yarn in colour #17. Just which socks should be they become?

In other news, lost ground on the Ribbed Wrapped Top has been recovered, I'm real close to being able to cast off for the back (the fronts and the sleeves are already done earlier), must go now to knit some more. I'll just ignore that ache in my right wrist for the moment. Who knew tedious ribbing in small gauge would be so engaging?

*In the words of Tweenies Fizz.

Big plans but ...

I had big plans for the 2 days off work that I took to accompany my little one on her first days at summer school. I would have to wait 3 hours for her; and 3 hours times 2 days, I would most probably have the Ribbed Wrap Top to wear by this week. If I'm lucky, I might even whip up an OSW, doesn't it take just a couple of hours? Anyway, I had better start swatching for new bus projects when I return to work on Wednesday. I can't decide if the pale pink ribbon yarn should be a Green Gable or Orangina. It's close to a DK weight, so for either top, I would have to re-calcuate. Orangina would be easier to figure out though.

So it is now Wednesday night and all the aforesaid plans have become fat hopes. Plagued by the Clammy Hands and now compounded with a splitting headache, I knitted but a few rows, well maybe about twenty in all of the past weekend plus 2 days on the back of the Ribbed Wrapped Top. And definitely no OSW is in sight, I didn't even have a chance to take those yarn out from the cupboard. My days off have the amazing ability to just sizzle away. However, I did have a wonderful night out with Mimi and her family who is visiting Hong Kong and Eva. Before dinner, I took Mimi yarn shopping at Cheerwool and now I can't stop thinking of the bamboo yarn that she bought and how good an addition it would be to stash. Speaking of which, I've completely blown stash control, a staggering 21 balls of yarn were added to stash in July.

I'm glad that one more of my WIPs has been cleared with the completion of the Rainbow Cardigan. Next up should be the crochet top plus dress for JY to be followed by the Short 'n Sweet Bolero. Just that I'm loosing a bit of steam here and can't seem to finish the few rounds for the neckband and armhole bands. Maybe I should go start something new and humour myself.

Rainbow Cardigan, check

The storm and the gusty winds from the typhoon have subsided and it's time to come out and play. JY models the Rainbow Cardigan. She seems happy to have a new cardigan.

Oops, the sleeves are riding up, I'll unpick the cast offs and add another inch or two to them. I still have the purple yarn anyway.

The back is a bit puffy though. I remember that too small needles were wrongly used for the lower ribbing causing the tighter than intended ribs.

Although it rained, the weather is still incredibly humid and warm. It's no wonder she can't wait to take it off.

Little sister has something new too. Hello, hello kitty!

How I did the Counterpane Bag

I burnt out after the spurt of craftivity and posting of last week. The Rainbow Cardigan is now finished and waiting for a good occasion to take some FO shots. However, the weather has become wet and dreary once again and the clammy hands have returned making bus knitting non-existent.

My husband and I took the kids and their nephew to Disneyland on Sunday and Monday and went back straight to work the day after. I'm still very exhausted right now to do anything else and am trying to recuperate from too much heat at the park and my mental state after the near accidents on the highway on our way home. I'm so thankful to all almighties out there we were able to return home in one piece.

So this will be a photoless post, and I'll talk a bit more about the Counterpane Bag at Lolly's request. This would not be a line by line pattern (I'm not that systematic when it comes to knitting) but just a narration of what I did.

I started off by searching the web and found this counterpane pattern. It is written for fine cotton yarn and the counterpane square would turn out huge if I had followed the instruction using the aran weight All Seasons Cotton. Please also note that the pattern has 2 edge stitches incorporated on each side.

Let's start with the geometric aspect of the counterpane. Each is made up of two triangles, the lower triangle contains the embossed leaf and the top triangle contains the thick ridges (please see the first photo of this post). You would start the lower triangle with 2 stitches cast on, 1 additional stitch is increased on the next right side row and thereafter, 2 stitches will be added at every right side row (one at each edge) until the triangle is now half the size of your desired square. The embossed leave should fit into this triangle. The increases used in the counterpane pattern is M1, I paired my increases M1R and M1L. However, after taking a closer look at the Marie Claire Idees photo, the increases seem to be YOs so you might choose to do them that way to achieve the same look. Now that you have reached the desired diagonal length, start decreasing 2 stitches on every right side row, one at each edge until you have three stitches left, then on the next row, reduce to 2 stitches and then cut yarn and draw yarn through these last 2 stitches to complete the square.

Now the leaf motif which has its own set of increases and decreases to achieve the embossed look. If you haven't knitted an embossed leaf before, you might not have a clue to what I'm talking about. This embossed leaf pattern has 8 rows of 'holes' (actually the YOs) before the decreases. (The chart in pdf for the pattern might give you a better idea). I started by simply following the pattern as written until the 5th row of holes by which time the proportion of the leaf seems big enough for my yarn. I then started decreasing for the leaves until the leave is completed. I added a couple of rows in garter stitch which is the background stitch pattern until the desired diagonal is reached. I remember that by that time, I had 29 stitches. I switched to the thick ridge pattern which is 2 rows stocking stitch, 2 row reverse stocking stitch and at the same time started my decreases for the top triangle.

One trivia, after I finished the first square, I weighed it and found out that it is 11g. All the 3 balls of ASC I had were 47g instead of the official 50g but I still got 8 squares from 2 balls and used the third for the side panels and the base and the top edging.

Side panels: After assembling the squares, I picked up on the side 41 stitches and work the thick ridges for 7.5 thick ridges (that is, I started with the 2 rows of st-st and ended with 2 rows of st-st). The stitches were cast off and that edge sewn to another 2 squares that will make up the back side of the bag. Repeat for the other side panel.

The base was knitted in plain garter stitch (I can neither recall how many stitches I cast on nor how many rows I knitted but I could go and count later) and sewn to the bag top. As for the top edging, I had only enough yarn left to pick up the stitches and then cast off.

So, here's the rather confusing account of how I did the counterpane bag and I wonder if anybody would continue reading up to this point. And it does show a bit how haphazard my mind works when it comes to knitting. Nevermind. Hopefully, I'll get the Rainbow Cardigan photos for the next post.