Little Purl of the Orient

Last minute knitted Necessities

Some last minute knitted necessities. We are leaving for a few days' holiday to Tokyo tomorrow and my kids do not have proper winter accessories, as usual. So I'm whipping up these pairs of mittens in Madelinetosh worsted. They are in the Magenta colourway but obviously of different dyelots.

Pattern: Basic Mittens from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns
Yarn: Madelinetosh Worsted
Needles: For JY's pair (top) 3.6mm and 4.2mm, for CY's pair (bottom) 3.5mm and 4.0mm

CY has outgrown the hats I knitted her previously so I made her this one for this holiday.

Pattern: Felicity (Ravelry link) (I cast on 80 sts instead of 70sts)
Yarn: Madelinetosh worsted, Magenta
Needles: 3.6mm and 4.2mm

And we receive this lovely gift from Joy! Just in time for our winter holiday. Thanks, Joy! I really miss her blogging. I'm lucky to be able to see her on our monthly knitting gatherings and know from our emails that her knitting is very much in action!

Pattern: I believe it is the N-cap, or a variation of it.
Yarn: Noro Bonbori

Last but not least, I've knitted this baby hat for the Knit One Save One Campaign which is collecting knitted hats here in Hong Kong for the shipment to Nepal in February. I hope to knit a few more of these to catch this shipment.

Pattern: Shadow Stripes Hat (pdf), middle size
Yarn: 1 ball of Darumaings baby wool
Needles: 3.75mm dpns

Now, I'm going to do the packing, go out for some last minute shopping, and try to whip out a scarf for CY (I'll crochet, maybe it'll go faster :)), seems that she hasn't got a proper scarf, oops. So long, until next week, or so. Meanwhile, here's wishing you a very good New Year and be it be filled with Good Health, Happiness and Joy!

Little Fish with her Red Cardigan

Happy Holidays everyone! It's already Boxing Day here in Hong Kong and December seems to have almost gone by without me realizing it. I'm officially on vacation from work now until the start of the New Year and it feels great! We are going with the kids to Tokyo for a week and I'm really looking forward to it. There's also a chance to meet with other knitters there (more on that later), and meanwhile I'm trying to knit some winter accessories for my kids to use in Tokyo, it should be cold there.

I finished the red baby cardigan for my friends' new born too. Long-time visitors may remember them, they are my colleagues from my old work place, Shrek and Princess Fiona. We witnessed their dating, their marriage (when I gave them the Flower Power quilt) and now their first born.

This must be the sweetest baby cardigan I've ever knitted! And I love it so. I'm so tempted to size it up with thicker yarn for my girls.

Pattern: vintage Patons and Baldwin booklet #6042 that Joy lent me.
Yarn: 2 balls of Rosarios 4 Happy Baby #49, a gift from Tania.
Needles: Japanese #5 (3.6 mm) and #3 (3mm)

And here you have Little Fish modeling it here for us. Photo taken by her parents and posted here with their permission. I definitely think she's a great model for handknits, don't you think so too?

Everything I do, I do it 2 times - Kids Cardigan Edition

Many thanks for your compliments on Flo! I really love it and have since worn it a few times. Like one of the commenters said on my Ravelry entry, "Those frills though - I bet they used up some of your patience stash.". How right she is! My subsequent knits are of smaller in sizes (for my kids), in chunky yarn, top down and seamless. And what a breeze they are to knit. In fact, I've already finished two.

So here goes another "Everything I do, I do it 2 times" post. Actually, you have to sing it to the tune of Byran Adams' song, Everything I do, hehe. Same pattern, one long-sleeve in yellow for JY, the other short in grey for CY.

The first one is for JY, details as follow. Doesn't JY makes a simple cardigan looks like the coolest thing to wear.

Pattern: Knitting Pure and Simple no. 249 (biggest size)
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky (col. 13) - This yarn pills like crazy after just 1time of wearing
Needles: Clover Japanese 15 (6.6 mm) and Aero 6mm

She chooses what she wears nowadays. And I can say she has a knack for styling.

The other one in grey, in the middle size, is for CY using the grey Mongolian cashmere leftover from husband's Morris. I intended to make it short-sleeve following a style I saw in H&M. However, I ran so close out of yarn that cap sleeve is all I can managed to squeeze out.

Pattern: Knitting Pure and Simple no. 249 (medium size)
Yarn: 2.5 balls of Mongolian Cashmere
Needles: Clover Japanese 15 (6.6 mm) and Aero 6mm

The big smile is for the pack of new Pokemon cards that she's hiding behind her back.

I followed the pattern as it is, except for knitting all the edges in garter stitch to match the collar and substituted button bands for the zipper. One small detail is the yellow cardi has grey pocket lining and the grey one, yellow

I'm attacking even bulkier yarn next. Just started a Big Wool cardigan for myself.

Flo!

Finally! Done after too-many-months to-count but all well-worth the effort! I so love Kim Hargreaves designs but the finishing for this piece really kills. I think you're tired of the WIP photos by now.

The fit is great (I made the smallest size). Although you might still see some bagginess in the photos, like my husband would say, the problem is not with the garment but with my body shape. I'm just too skinny in the torso.

Pattern: Flo from Thrown Together, by Kim Hargreaves
Yarn: 8 balls Rowan 4 ply soft (#392 - Sandalwood); 1 ball Rowan Kid Silk Haze (#590 - Pearl)
Needles: Japanese #4 (3.3mm) and #3 (3mm)

Thanks to my daughter, JY, for the photos once again. Maryann once asked where I find venues to take FO photos in Hong Kong. We (meaning my family) do it everywhere at our convenience. If I'm posing, the photographer could be my husband or JY. Nowadays, it's usually JY. LIttle CY wants to have a go too but most of the time, I ended up with half a body. In this instance, it's outside our district public library, after a leisurely Sunday there to pick up some books. Thanks to the brick walls of government buildings that provide a nice simple backdrop.

One step closer

Still working on Flo.... Yes, still. It is in 4 ply yarn nevertheless. With sleeve cap and one more frill to go.

I can't wait to try out the buttons. These are the 2 sets of buttons that I have in stash that I have at least 10 of, as called by the pattern. I'm quite sure I'll go for the small pearly ones. Do you think so too?

I sewed all the pieces I have on hand during the weekend instead of waiting for a whole sewing party at the end, I prefer to steam block with an iron and sew some as I go. Here's a peek at the inside of the garment.

I should really be concentrating on Flo as it would be the perfect sweater weather in Hong Kong next week. However, I started a new project. My good friends are having a baby very, very soon and I just have to start the sweater for the baby girl. The pattern is from a vintage Patons and Baldwin booklet that Joy lent me. It is seamless and topdown. Hooray. Hope to finish this soon too.

2 Scarves

No chance to knit a stitch on Flo during the action-packed work trip. Instead, I have 2 other FOs to share that was meant to be used in Seoul but I ended up bringing my old Clapotis instead. The weather in there has been fantastic while I was there and I ended up not using even the Clapotis.

First is the Lacy Baktus (the pattern, an adaptation by Terhi on the original Baktus, is avaiable here). Knitted with 1 skein of Madelinetosh Sock in the Butter colourway with 3.25mm needles. How I love this yarn. Soft and squishy but not overly so. I definitely need more of it. And I'm sure I'll use lots of this scarf this winter, starting next week as the temperature is forecast to drop.

And it could be worn longways like that too which I really like.

Here's the other scarf. A Silk Kerchief (link to pattern in pdf) knitted with 2 balls of Noro Silk Garden in #47 originally meant for mitered mittens. Figured that I would make more use out of a scarf than a pair of mittens in Hong Kong weather.

Once again, the photo credit goes to my 9-year-old daughter, JY. Someday, she's going to thank her mother for putting up a knitting blog and giving her lots of opportunities for taking photos, :D).

Flo WIP

While packing for my work trip tomorrow to Seoul, I simply can't find a decent sweater to wear. So I dug out this Flo WIP started I-don't-know-when. The parts are at various stages of progress, can you stand it?

Partly knitted, partly sewn. Cuff half done, some ruffles completed and I just couldn't wait to see how they would look so I just sewn them on first....

Yes, I knit in such a disorganized manner. Sometimes even I wonder how I can get the knits completed but amazingly they do get done :)

And I think I just might be bringing the ruffles to knit over there. I'm sure they'll help me go to sleep in the hotel.

Knitting on the go

Mid-term break for my girls starts today. Husband and I are taking 2 days off work and we are off to Disneyland Hong Kong with the kids and in-laws to celebrate JY's birthday.

We also had a magnificent, fun-filled barbecue party at the country park with a few of JY's classmates yesterday. It was the first time we organize a proper birthday party for any of our girls.

On the needles is this rustic Silk Kerchief in Noro Silk Garden #47 (I need to check). Hope to finish it soon for the work trip to Seoul next week. The temperature should be cool over there. I have a Lacy Baktus on the needles too, in a completely different colour tone, will decide which to use.

Many thanks, too, for your compliments on the Noro tank top. The wonderful colours of Noro are indeed good for the knitting soul.

Noro Matsuri tank top

With the extreme humidity easing these days, I'm slowly getting my knitting fingers back.

The simple tank top in Noro Matsuri is done! And I wore it to Mongkok today with JY to get stuff for her birthday barbecue. It goes well with the green cardi that I bought last summer but never worn. It always seems far too bright to go with the other things in my wardrobe.

It feels so good that I didn't run out of yarn too.

And thanks to JY, the budding photographer! She's got a great eye for shots, doesn't she?

Venue: Train station platform

Pattern: Adapted a pattern from a Japanese pattern book and converted it top down

Yarn: 4 balls of Noro Matsuri #3

Needles: Clover bamboo #8 circulars (4.5mm)

BTW, I finally found the way to file a Help Ticket with Typepad, now your comments should be notified to my email. I always appreciate hearing from you all!

Scrap Management

I've been procrastinating this post for a while because I haven't the time to take decent photos, but since it is Scrap Busters Month at Sew Mama Sew, I thought it seems now is a good time to share my scraps projects too.

The first time I came across this term 'Scrap Management' was while I was searching for samples of postage stamp quilts on Flickr. I love quilts made out of scraps, somehow it seems more fulfilling to me than making quilts out of new, pristine fabric. And I do dream that one day, I'll have a truly scrappy postage stamp quilt.

I am attached to scraps and leftovers, be it fabric or yarn. And I have a problem disposing them, even if their size is next to nothing. So I find the idea of Scrap Management very useful. And Management is really what I need.

For the fabrics, those in stripes (e.g. those I got when I trim the quilt top) will go to the stripes bag. Hopefully, they'll grow up into a string quilt like this. Interested? You can find a tutorial here. Want a smaller scale string scraps project? Mai at Mairuru, has a great tutorial to make patchwork strings. Love it!

Leftover fabrics that are not long and thin will be cut into 4-inch squares, then 2-inch, then 1-inch. These itsy bitsy 1-inch ones are really so small. To prevent me from loosing them, I sew some of them together, and they grew even smaller especially when sewn up with a quarter-inch seam. Not yet decided what to do with them. They are much too small for a postage stamp quilt.

A few months back, I had the impulse to start an all-pink pinwheel quilt out of existing stash. It didn't make much progress, it is still looking like this. I still love it, what I lack is time.

Then I have some assorted 4 inch squares bought from Ebay long ago. I've been hesitating putting the squares together as I don't have a design wall to lay all of them out. So I'm organizing them into 16-patches and see how they will go together eventually. And before I knew it, I assembled a quilt top! It still has to grow some more, husband is liking it and wants it to be Queen-size. Well, one day, some day.

For yarn, the DK weight ones are being made into mitred squares. I'm not feeling the love for it right now, maybe I will just make 16 to assemble as a floor cushion for the living room.

Yarn of any other weights are knitted into 4-inch squares and assembled into what is known as 'Scrappy' now. It is growing but slowly. One square added now and then. And thanks for your comments, a border there will be!

Do you love scraps and leftovers like me? If yes, what are you doing with them, it would be interesting to know your projects and ideas!

**There is one problem about comments, I'm not getting the email notifications anymore after the migration to the new Typepad. I've checked and I did choose this function in my settings but it is not working. Has any other fellow Typepad users have this problem too? I would appreciate any help, many thanks in advance! And I don't even know how I can send a Help Ticket to Typepad anymore.**