Little Purl of the Orient

Angels

I made it! Angel, my July Stashbuster, was finished on the very last day of July, all ends hidden, buttons sewn on and stationery shots taken.

This morning, having got to rush for the bus as usual, I entrusted the job of taking some modeled shots, without flash, to my husband. When I reached the office, he reported that the little one gave him some good actions, crying and wriggling on the floor but without the cardigan. So I rushed back right after work to catch the last bit of sunlight and tried to take some pictures. Nothing beats mummy power, she cooperated alright. Just that Chung Yi couldn't stay still and the photos turn out super blurry. I'd thought that the sleeves are too long but they turn out to be just right. Wonder if it'll still fit her this fall/winter.

She likey! Chung Yi's favourite part of the cardigan: cool buttons of a cross-armed teddy in sunglasses.

The July yarn hiatus has also been strictly adhered to too. No yarn bought. It was a close shave. I nearly caved in and bought Opal's Rainforest Collection. Now that it's August, I can seriously give it a thought. But first, on to the August stashbuster project.

Another 3 nights

So I got drawn into this sewing and stuff all because I couldn't buy yarn this month. That's just the lamest excuse. The real inspiration came from seeing all the lovely crafty projects over blogsville, and if you haven't already seen some, check out the Back-tack ones.

Remember I tried to sew a simple tote with the 'toy' sewing machine and failed? I picked up the pieces again and use my new proper sewing machine, and viola, it worked like magic. Well, like the first-year-at-Hogwarts-type of magic. I still haven't tamed my machine and it still took me 3 (or was it 4) nights to finish it.

I took some pictures at my brother's wedding and after a look, my husband remarked that it was a good thing my brother didn't hire me as his photographer. So, these are some rush-morning-before-catching-the-bus photos of the small bag. (In fact, most of my photos are 'rush-photos'.) Anyway, reds are so difficult to capture. I added interfacing to the front and back as well as the handles. Now it seems to be a more usable bag as the cotton fabric is now 'reinforced'.

I added a magnetic snap too.

And also added a crochet patch for a front pocket. This pocket, I'm quite doubtful to its aesthetic value for the bag but it's just the right size for a library card or the Octopus card. My husband thought I might want to rip it out. Or I might just leave it there and decide which side to show depending on the mood.

So smitten by this new hobby that I got myself another two crafty Japanese books. This first one (see left side bar) is this, which was reviewed by Amy of Angry Chicken here and here. The second one is Vol. 20 of Cotton & Paint, a review of which can be found here.

Another 3 nights to the end of July, time to buck up on the Angel cardigan.

Weekend!

I had another action-packed weekend which left me with little energy to even turn on the computer. Saturday was a very fruitful day for me. It started off with work followed with our July knitting gathering. Jeanne joined us for the first time, Marjorie was there and her friend Vivian, joined us just when Jeanne had to go. The high point of the meet-up was when Jeanne's five-year-old said she wanted to knit and pulled out her yellow piece which is going to be a scarf. Go take a look at the photo on Jeanne's blog. And Marjorie just posted pictures of our June gathering too.

While Vivian was knitting away on her Ava poncho from Rowan's Ribbon Twist book, she mentioned that she's on the look out for a sewing machine to make bags and had bought tons of books on that subject during her recent trip to Japan. Hey, same idea here. In fact I just checked out some machines on Friday evening after work at Jusco and Uny. So we shared notes on where to get a machine, where to buy fabrics and notions, etc. And so with about a couple of hours left to spare before my tennis lesson, I rushed down to Kam Wah in Jordan, the notion store recommended by Joy that Vivian goes too. Didn't know that I could lose myself in a notion store too, bought some knick-knacks, more than I needed, then rushed back home for tennis.

That's not the end yet of my Saturday yet. After tennis, zoomed to the neighbourhood library and hung out until it closed. Borrowed a stack of craft books, lugged them to the supermarket and shopped for food for dinner. Luckily, hubby cooked dinner. After which I still managed to settle down for some needlecraft despite the aching muscles. I just had to, my head is bursting with one thousand and one crafty ideas!

So where are the kids? My in-laws brought them to their cousin's house to play. They had lots of fun and so did mummy.

There's knitting (and some hand sewing too! More on that later.) all this while. Both sleeves of Angel are now done and a-blocking.

The needles needed for the body of Angel are freed up as the ribbing of the Tweedy Aran cardi is now knitted up. Thanks for your reassurance; the fancy ribs really did pop up in the tweedy yarn.

And here is the Tumbling Blocks cushion with the backing done. Click here for front view. The alteration shop sewed the zipper in the wrong orientation, boo, if only I had a sewing machine to do it myself.

Got to start somewhere

Here we are, well into July and time to start my stashbuster project. I need my 3.75mm which are stuck on the Tweedy Aran Cardigan. In order to free them up, the fancy rib's got to be worked. The back was cast on earlier on but the little voice has been nagging me. The stitches knitted in the tweedy Beaverslide Fisherman wool are not very well-defined compared to what I'm used to and I wonder whether the cables will stand out. However, the pattern did called for a tweed yarn, so am I just worrying too much? To play safe, I tested out the fancy rib pattern. So what do you think, are the ribs popping up well enough or obscured by the tweed? I love this yarn but not sure if it is right for this pattern. Otherwise, I can use the yarn for the Blissful Cardigan in the latest IK (Fall 05).

I did manage to begin Angel but with a sleeve instead that starts with 3mm. I found another 40cm 3.75mm circulars which should work for the sleeve but not for the back. No wonder Joy loves Wool Cotton so. The yarn is lovely to knit, it gives sort of a matt finish and the stitches look really nice and clear. Even my ribbing doesn't look as bad as usual. How I wish the local lys can carry this yarn. The DK weight and fibre content should make it very suitable for Hong Kong weather.