Little Purl of the Orient

My blankie lies over the ocean

All is serene. Click on the picture to see what happened in the next minute.

Boy, this afghan weighs a ton! Maybe not a ton but close to 2 kg as I used over 30 balls of Jo Sharp wool. I was an afghan novice and was in a dilemma when choosing for yarn. I'd thought that this will be something I'm going to knit for a long time (it took me 20 months!) and to keep for a long time so I'd better use something of good quality. Little did I think about the after-knit care. Now I seriously have no idea how I'm going to wash this.

Another thing is the joining, the squares are crocheted together and I did it too tightly so there's some bunching up at the borders. For the overall border, I just did a round of dc.

I enjoyed knitting out the different stitch patterns, actually the squares are big swatches to me, I didn't take care to centralize the stitches on the square. Project details are over at the SAL album at my sidebar.

You know some things just jog your memory and bring you back to a certain moment in your life. This afghan brings to me so much memories. When I look at it,

I remember knitting on the sofa with Chung Yi in my tummy and Ji Yuan sitting beside me watching Barney.

I remember the fears and despair during the SARS outbreak last Spring and being worried sick it might affect my then unborn baby. I'm thankful that she's now able to jump all over the blankie with her big sister.

I remember feeling shock and heavy-hearted that my favourite Canto-pop singer and actor, Leslie Cheung, decided to end his life on April Fool's Day last year by jumping down from Mandarin Hotel.

I remember crocheting the borders around the squares like crazy on the bus journeys.

I remember knitting a square while waiting to see the Chinese physician back in Singapore in July to cure my never-ending cough.

I remember knitting squares for Sarah's baby together with fellow SALies.

I remember contemplating where in the world am I going to have the time to knit and blog at the same time but still went ahead to start a blog though.

I remember starting to assemble the squares at Eva's house togther with her and Marjorie.

I can go on and on but I'd better stop my rambling here as it's already 1 a.m. in the morning and I'd better go and get some sleep.

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.

Square 41

Oh I really want to start that 3/4 sleeve cable sweater. But talking about the Sampler Afghan-along reminded me that I still have just two more squares to knit. And it would be nice to have a warm afghan to snuggle into this winter. So yesterday, I finished the 41st square in the Little Wave pattern. It's a simple twist stitch pattern from Barbara Walker's second knitting treasury. For the last one, I've decided to make a cabley square and promptly started it. It's about 2 inches from completion but no knitting was done today as we took one of these bum boats to the beach!

This time we went to a proper one, the Hap Mun Bay Beach one of the beautiful islets off Sai Kung. Go see the pictures at Mamatok.

Coming together

We had a great finishing party at Eva's house last Saturday afternoon. Marjorie brought her Big Wool project to finish while I brought all my samplers to assemble. And, oh, those squares are heavy. It was my first time at Eva's house and it's like going to a knitting library. She has a great collection of knitting books of every kind and I haven't even got to the yarn part. Happy time passes just too quickly. So I didn't managed to get a lot done. Go take a peek at the pictures at Eva’s blog.

The cable-y sweater (design 11) from Rebecca 26 caught my eyes and Eva magically whipped out two bags of the GGH Davos yarn that's called for in off-white and blue and insisted that I take the off-white. The yarn is very cuddly and I can't wait to start knitting this. She's also bought some cute Hello Kitty and My Sweet Melody buttons for my daughters and a purse snap from Japan. Thanks a lot, Eva, you are so generous!

I continued a bit with the assembling yesterday afternoon and am very pleased that they are finally coming together after over a year of knitting. Here are all my blocks laid out on the floor.

I could only manage this while the two girls took their nap. See, three empty gaps and I thought I had only two more squares to go. Is my memory failing me or what? Thank goodness I took notes for this project and I quickly identified the missing square as the 'Knit-Twist Lattice'. Got to go and locate it and knit on the last two squares.

Square 40

Square number 40 of the Sampler Afghan in the Anemone Stitch (Barbara Walker Book 2, Page 131) is done. All the light-coloured squares are now completed and I had just enough yarn, whew. The square turned out 2 inches too narrow. I had initially cast on more stitches but pulled it out after two repeats as I thought it was too wide. This kind of thing always happens to me, and how glad am I that this is an afghan so gauge doesn't really matter that much. To make up for the short fall in width, I've added single crochets on both sides. So here is the not-so-square square.

Two more dark-coloured squares to knit plus lots of edges to crochet. Tomorrow, Marjorie and I are meeting up at Eva's place. And I'm going to lug all the squares there to assemble because it will be impossible for me to do that at home with the two girls running about. I'm looking forward to feast my eyes on Eva's stash and her collection of knitting books. I sure hope such knitting meet-ups will not happen once in a Blue Moon.

My colleague, Terry, has something to share. Look at these sparkling purses of assorted sizes she crocheted. Aren't they cute?

Talking about purses, Joann from Manila sent me this link to a free pattern for a cool retro bag at Retro Knits. She made a very pretty one and one day I'm going to make myself one too.

Butterfly lovers anyone?

The hospital stay was a pleasant and uneventful one. Only that I had to do the mammogram 3 times. I'd thought jokingly to myself that I must have too little boobs to be squeezed hence they can't take a proper image. Then the doctor ordered a ultrasound (sonogram) for my breasts too as the results showed that my breast tissues were dense and they want to rule out the c-thing. Luckily the sonogram results turned out okay. All the tests were completed in the morning but I had to wait until the evening for the test results and the doctor's consultation. It turned out that I'm slightly anaemic. I would have to take another blood test in a month's time and in the meantime, I would have to pump in those iron in my diet.

The more I wanted to finished the crochet motif top, the more it eluded me. I left the pattern at home, argh... I worked as much as my memory could take me and did make some progress. See here, all the ends so far are woven in, the bottom ribbing done but still no front neck shaping and armhole and neck bands.

Thanks to my tendency to over-estimate the amount of work I can do, I readily had other projects at hand. Out came the Jo Sharp wool for the Sampler Afghan and I cast on my 40th square in the Anemone pattern from book 2 of Barbara Walker's treasury. It turns out to be a tedious stitch pattern with all those K4tog and P4tog but the effect is quite pretty, somewhat like crochet.

After a while, my hands hurt and I switched to yet something else. I saw Chie's beautiful butterfly bookmark and had to make one myself. The pattern can be found here. Mine was crocheted from a thin cotton yarn from my stash. However, it is still not thin enough and it came out much bigger than the one in the picture. Although it may not be the right size for a paperback, it is a good size for marking the pages of a knitting book. I'm definitely going to make some more as gifts for my knitting pals.

Square 39 and Thinking

Argh ... I had a terrible bout of stomach flu and fever on Friday. I don't why but I seem to get sick easily. Probably I'm not getting enough rest or maybe because I ate too much durian recently. Wai Lung's entire family was here yesterday to celebrate his birthday which is actually on the 18th. His elder sister's family is going to Singapore for holiday next week so we are celebrating in advance. Actually birthday celebrations nowadays are mainly 'cake and candles' events for all the children to sing at the top of their voices and fight to see who get to blow the candles first.

Ji Yuan and her daddy went to the Moscow Circus yesterday afternoon and had a great time. I gave it a miss as I prefer some quiet time at home before the family arrive.

I finished up the 39th square in Optical Illusion pattern and it is now blocking. The pattern was not as easy as it seemed. It has a 30-odd row repeat and I had to follow the chart all the way. The size of my square is too small to capture the pattern well.

I'm going to take a short break from my own sampler to work on the Secret Project. I've already in mind what to knit and am getting excited about it. It'll be in the Gingerbread Castle pattern from one of the Walker treasuries, and will probably be in cream or yellow. Part two of the Secret Project will likely be in Little Hobbyhorse from book 3.

Meanwhile, the Thinking Dress is cruising along nicely. The front is done and the back is almost there. I'll try to finish it for Ji Yuan to wear to school next week after Easter break. What a big difference when you are enjoying the yarn. The ASC is a real joy to knit compared to the cotton chenille.

Today's weather is warm and sunny, perfect for an outing to the beach. We'll go to Sai Kung to catch the breeze.

Assembling

I started to put the squares together and this is how it looked on our sofa. I'm crocheting them together instead of sewing as I'm not really fond of sewing. Crocheting also allows me to hide in the ends as I go along. Didn't get much done today as a friend came to visit, managed only to post the remaining square photos and put together a cover page for the Sampler album.

Photo Day

My husband is starting to think that I'm becoming a recluse. I refuse to go out today as I wanted to work on the blog. Took lots of pictures but also deleted lots, so many that the digital camera battery went flat twice. I posted pictures of some ancient projects and more photos of my sampler squares. It is really not easy for me to get good shots. Just take the sampler squares, they are knitted in 2 colours, lilac and maroon but the photos show a number of different shades. I gave up and left them as they are, if not I'll never get any sleep. Still a few more squares to document. I'll try to get that done tomorrow and start a new square, or maybe try assembling them.

I swatched the Dune yarn yesterday night on 5mm needles. Not bad, just a little stiff but should work for the Rambling Rows Afghan. I didn't really check my tension though, as it's an afghan and I don't mind a little variation in size. Did some calculations and found that I would need at least 15 balls for the baby-sized one that I intend to knit. I'll go down to the yarn store to select the colours next week but I'm forcing myself not to start until after I finish either all the sampler squares or the Pee Wee sweater.