Little Purl of the Orient

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.

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.

I've got a back

Thanks to fat needles and an easy yet engaging pattern, the back of the ¾ sleeve sweater is completed. It had its bath and is now sunning on the bay window, with lots of strings attached. That's because out of the three balls of Chamonix I used, two of them had knots. Yucks. Other than that, the yarn is a pleasure to knit. Here's a review. There's no space in my apartment for all the pieces to be blocked together at the same time so it has to be blocked piecemeal and Bonne Marie's tip is really great. To the horrors of blocking purists out there, I have to confess that this is the first time I block before seaming. Blocking really work marvels. Before, this piece looks like it's in Ji Yuan's size. Oh, looks like I still need to block out that column of cables on the right a bit more though.

I finally got my hands on Puppy Teami Book Vol. 3. The issue is below my expectation. There is nothing that I would want to knit immediately and a lot of designs seem influenced by Rowan.

I initially considered knitting the stocking stitch cardigan (first from the left) but Mary Beth had me tempted to order some Peace Fleece. So maybe I'll knit a cardigan in Peace Fleece yarn instead. Although I've come across Peace Fleece and the Everyday Cardigan last year, I didn't read about the story behind the company. Reading about it brings to my mind the sad tune of Song of the Volga Boatmen, a Russian folk song that Ji Yuan has been practicing on the piano yesterday. She's learning only the simplied two-line version from John Thomson's Teaching Little Fingers to Play. And she loves to hear about the story accompanying the music. Although it's not really related, I'm going to tell her about the Peace Fleece yarn too when we practise next time.

Here comes the rabbit sweater

What a way to start the day. This morning the bus I took broke down. Actually, the aircon broke down. It's one of those big, new, double-deckers that have no openable windows. Imagine 150 morning commuters jammed pack in the bus with no ventilation? The driver let us get off just outside the Tate's Cairn tunnel and we had to hop on to other buses going to Central which were already very full. So I had to endure an hour's bus journey standing on my high heels. Right before reaching my destination, the driver from another bus shouted across to the driver on my bus. Apparently, the bus I'm on had a puncture. Just the perfect way to end the journey. Fortunately, it was already close to my office building and I just had to get off and walk a short distance. Anyway, the incidents didn't dent my mood. I've got a new WIP to show. Ta da ... ...

Here's the start of the ¾ sleeve cable sweater in Chamonix. It has a turned in hem. I couldn't read Japanese so I don't know if the pattern tells us how to knit it. I made a provisional cast on using the crochet hook method, knit the required length, then unravel the provisional cast on and knit together with the stitches on the needle stitch by stitch, thereby getting a rather seamless look. The yarn, which I have in stash for two(?) years waiting to be matched with the perfect pattern, is heavenly to knit, very soft but with very good stitch definition. The angora didn't shred very much. And one ball goes a long way. The knitting in the photo took about one ball even with all those cables. Didn't realize until now that the cable on the right looks wonky but in real life it's okay. I've got to go back to knit it.

The last square of the afghan is completed too. I chose two cable designs, Looping Wave on the right and Double X Cable on the left. Both patterns are from Book 3 of Barbara Walker's knitting treasury. Now I've to wait until the next knitting meet-up with Eva and Marjorie to put all these squares together. I can never do it at home with my two daughters walking all over them.