Little Purl of the Orient

Foot Note

I've finally arrested my procrastination and finished the first Mad Color Weave sock. Not that I'm not enjoying the pattern or the yarn (delish Sundara yarn) but knitting the toe involved Decision Making, having to make up my mind if the foot length is now long enough to begin the toe. Being one who is not very good with measuring, coupled with too much thinking during the day for work led to a stalemate and the poor sock-to-be just sat there in the pile for months. Now that one is done, the second sock hopefully could be knitted in a relatively shorter period of time, provided that I don't stray.

It looks like it might be a difficult task. I've added more WIPs to the already ample pile. Here's one lonely slipper waiting for its mate. I was thrilled to find a simple enough pattern to showcase the lovely Brown Sheep Handpaint Originals (this is the Sunbaked Earth colourway).

And the pattern is from this lovely little book which has 8 irresistible footwear patterns like these:

And in the earlier book that contained the crochet scarf pattern are these slippers. The Japanese just seem to have a thing for these foot warmers.

These slippers also attracted me to add this book to my library.

Now that we've reached the 'foot' of the year, (and what an eventful year this has been) hope that you'll enjoy viewing these knitted/crocheted footwear as much as I do.

Happy 2008!

Cosy Tank Top

Another FO that I've failed to blogged about earlier. And I'm taking the opportunity of this Boxing Day holiday to organize some photos in the camera before I next resurface again here, hopefully not before too long. There are some odd balls of colourful yarn here and there that are not scrappy enough to be classified as leftovers for the miter squares that I'm knitting from time to time (don't count on seeing an FO yet, maybe it'll be ready in a few years' time). So I cast on something for CY.

The inspiration came from the vest Diana knitted for her LL as seen here. And CY's just a reverse of her colours (copy cat me). Here is CY trying to do the 'V'.

CY just has this thing of making the V sign when her photo is being taken. I wonder where she caught the bug.

Now she got the 'V'. The pattern is the Cosy Tank Top from Lucinda Guy's And So to Bed. More photos from the book here. The red is Bouton D'or DK yarn in the colour Azteque (2 balls) and the orange is Adriafil DK (2 balls). Needles: 3.75mm and 4mm.

CY absolutely loves the hood. But as this vest has no hood, she always wears it with her bright pink hoodie.

The top has a simple design with interesting stitch patterns to play with. It has an nice cast on edge pattern too.

There should be a row of crochet around the bottom which I did and the armholes which I didn't do. Plain laziness on my part.

I did crochet around the neck and it gives the vest more structure. So I may just crochet round the armholes one of these days.

A real last minute gift

My days blurred into each other and I'm completely spent and exhausted these past weeks from work. How uninteresting compared to the holiday buzz going around. The slew of WIPs that I started a while ago meant to be Christmas gifts never quite got done. And it dawned on me that it'll be the second year in a row that I'd wanted to make something for the girls' piano teacher but didn't. She always has kind comments when she sees me busy knitting/crocheting away while waiting for the girls. So I decided to start immediately.

It's a scarf from one of the new Japanese pattern books that I bought. This one. Some more pictures in the book here. The books are some self bought presents for myself for the long hours I've been putting in at work lately. I'll try to show them here later.

Chunky yarn (about 1 and a quarter ball of Jaeger Como), big hook (Clover 10/0) and a scarf is born.

It didn't turn out as long as in the pattern (no time to check gauge) but still good.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Minimalist Cardigan

A crop of the earlier subway photo with Tania and Momo. This is me wearing my Minimalist Cardigan.

This is my newest favourite cardigan and I've already wore it many times before I have time to post it here. True to its name, it is a Minimalist Cardigan. Minimal shaping, minimal trouble when knitting it (actually nil to speak of) but maximum style and comfort.

The above outfit was for the office and it was my first experiment with the cream-yellow-grey colour combination inspired by the Satorialist's this post.

The first time I wore this was with an old camisole with jeans for the weekend.

And yesterday, I wore it with dark brown corduroy jeans with off-white T-shirt to our knitting gathering. The cardigan is really very versatile and comfortable, and I simply love it.

I did some very minimal adjustments to the pattern. Just making sure that stitches at the side seams and the sleeve seams will match up as invisibly as possible when sewn together.

Oh yes, and the deets. 9 balls of Jaeger Merino Aran in cream. Clover 8 (4.5mm) bamboo needles. Pattern: Minimalist Cardigan from the Fall 2007 issue of Interweave Knits. And I think, by far, this is one of my favourite issues.

Meetings and Knitting

Big thanks for the warm reception to JY’s Brambling and husband's stripy scarf from both old bloggy friends and new visitors/commenters alike. I would love to reply individually to you all but time seems to be slipping by so quickly. I am now so far behind in my blogging that I have already another 2 FOs and scores of WIPs to show. And I'm missing blog reading too and keeping in touch with you all. How I wish time could be stretched further.

It is amazing the friendships made via this humble little blog. We've now a group of local friends who gather at least once a month to knit together and our chats very often go beyond just knitterly topics. Recently, I've had a delightful few weeks of meeting with crafty friends visiting from round the world.

Lily Chin was here in Hong Kong and via Emy, she 'found' me. I was completely, pleasantly surprised that the world's fastest crocheter who is also a top knit and crochet designer actually wrote me an email! Lily is so nice and easy to talk with that I quickly forgot that she's a celebrity. We went for breakfast and then had a great time yarn shopping at my favourite yarn store, Cheer Wool in Wan Chai.

Tania of Chocolate a Chuva dropped by Hong Kong too, check out the beautiful photos from her blog and Flickr account. We met also Momo (Candlelight Momo) at the MTR station. Unfortunately, we couldn't meet on a weekend and could only managed lunch and some fabric shopping together in Central. How I wish I could take the afternoon off to go shopping with Tania. I would have done that if I weren't in this new job. And thanks to Tania, my girls have a beautiful new softie while I have some lovely yarn made with milk protein to try. Can't wait.

Those eagle-eyed might spot an FO in the above photo. More to come when I organized my photos.

Busy Needles, Anne, came too. This is the second time we met in Hong Kong. And we went for Singaporean lunch in Central. Look at the lovely RYC book she gave me. So many cool designs in there but I really have to not buy yarn for those and concentrate on stash.

Here are the gifts from Tania and Anne.

And then I enjoyed a wonderful evening with Eva and Marjorie who gave me a belated birthday celebration and we caught up with the latest gossip around town. All these would not have happened without this blog.

Knitting wise, this WIP has already become another FO. No decent photos yet though.

And look at the bunch of WIPs that I recently started. So much fun!