Little Purl of the Orient

The completed Pee Wee

I really didn't forsake Pee Wee and the horrible chuncky chenille. I've been working on it faithfully on my bus journeys to and from work whenever my hands are not too clammy. It's now completed. This one is kind of an anti-climax; it didn't give me the satisfaction or thrill at all. After a good wash and drying flat, the unevenness didn't smoothen out very much. Does it still look rag cloth-ish? I've thrown in a scarf for the photo shoot for good measure.

My husband good naturely commented that it looks chucky and nice and it'll go well with a pair of jeans. Of course he'll say that because he's the one who asked me to make it in the first place. Ji Yuan didn't want to try it on at all. She said it is ugly. Nowadays, everything has to be either pink or pastel, otherwise it is ugly. It'll still fit her this fall/winter. Hopefully, by then cream won't be ugly anymore.

These are some things I learnt from knitting this sweater:
- Chuncky chenille doesn't agree with me. It is the most inelastic yarn I've worked with so far and my wrists hurt every time I work with it.

- All the unevenness of my knitting gets magnified in reverse stocking stitch.

- I had big-time problem casting on with the chenille. My initial endeavours resulted in ugly puckers. I started with the sleeves and tried more than 5 times. So I didn't frog them anymore but did some engineering. I unpicked the cast-on row and then sewed cast-off the live stitches and hemmed it in. For the back and the front, I settled on picking up the stitches from a crochet chain, one of the provisional cast-on methods taught in Japanese books. At least the puckers are gone now and the edge is relatively flat.

- Pee Wee is a boy's sweater and in my attempt to make it more feminine, I decreased 1 stitch at each edge every 12 rows to get a slightly tapering body.

And some vital statistics:
Pattern: Pee Wee from Rowan #19 or Tadpoles and Tiddlers
Yarn: Rowan Chuncky Chenille, Cream Colour (3 balls)
Needles: 5 mm needles for the body and 4.5 mm for the neck band

I'll be visiting a new yarn store tomorrow after work! My friend is working there on Tuesdays and I can't wait to see what they have on offer.

I'm Marlin

I was super edgy yesterday, guess it was a culmination of weeks of anxiety at work. Today, I buried myself in the work at hand, and hey, managed to accomplish a fair bit of work, and I could finally make peace with myself today. Guess this quizz says it all about me.

What Finding Nemo Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I made peace with the cotton chenille too. Casting on with chenille for Ji Yuan's Pee Wee sweater is a big headache for me. No matter how I tried (like using larger needles, etc), I still ended up with ugly puckers at the edge. I just don't like the look of it, so I undid the cast on and sewn cast off it. The result was too loose and I had to turn in it and hemmed it.

Look at the puckering edge

A reasonably flat edge

The sleeves are done. For the back and front, I'm going to try a provisional cast on, then sew cast off the live stitches to get an elastic edge. Seems like double work though. Let me know if you've got an alternative solution.