Little Purl of the Orient

Bad things, good things

I looked at my reflection in the mirror this morning and realized that I lost some more weight over the weekend. The tension at work has been giving me gastritis and I haven't been eating properly. I don't have to go the scales to know that I'm below my pre-pregnancy weight. I also know I'm looking terribly washed out and am getting sick easily. So first priority now would be to get my body in shape in order to cope with work, take good care of my children and knit. I'll take it a step at a time and stop pushing myself too hard.

Something to cheer me up though. My eldest sister-in-law went to Singapore for a 4-day holiday with her family and came back with loads of goodies from my parents. My mum sewed some clothes for the children, packed some chillies, green limes, and spices that are not readily available here in Hong Kong. She also bought some brown rice cereal for little Chung Yi. I don't know why, but Nestle doesn't distribute the same products, like the brown rice cereal in Hong Kong. Whenever there's someone coming from Singapore to Hong Kong, my parents are sure to ask the 'courier' to bring us some goodies. Their thoughts just make the presents extra special. Ji Yuan's so happy with her new dress Granny sewed that she refused to change into her pyjamas just now. Chung Yi is too little to express herself but I'm sure she'll love her cereal.

Just a still life shot of the Thinking Dress.

Read that Rowan's children patterns are usually generously sized. This one seems to fit just right. I wonder how much longer it's going to last?

A post blogging FO

Finally, a post blogging FO! The Thinking Dress is fresh off the needles today which coincidentally is the first month I'm using Typepad. Hope that now I'm more familiar with Typepad, I can allocate more time for knitting.

Ji Yuan is not fond of photo taking and after much ado, these are some shots of her in the Thinking Dress.

It is overcast today and the lighting really is not good for photo taking. Here's another blurry photo. She's wearing the dress to her cousin's house so I can't take any still life shots. Well, next time.

The Thinking Dress is a straight forward and easy pattern. It is also a quick knit on Japanese size 10 (5.1mm) needles and the All Seasons Cotton is easy to knit. I made only a few adjustments.
1) Work the decreases 1 stitch from the edge so that the mattress stitch seaming is smoother and uninterrupted.
2) Right-hand side decreases are worked SSK and left-hand ones are K2tog instead of K2tog for both sides as written in the pattern.

After I finished the front, I came across a Meg Swansen article in the Spring IK about SSK. She mentioned 'Dee's method' which is to slip the second stitch as if to purl. Working the SSK decreases this way gave her a smoother finish. As I also get a 'fat bump' for my SSKs, I tried it out for the back and it did yield a cleaner look.

What next? I couldn't wait and cast on the 'Gingerbread Castle' square. I'm making it in King Cole Anti-tickle superwash wool.

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.

Thinking Dress, here we go!

Well, the back of Pee Wee is done and I promptly started the Thinking Dress this morning. Look, l made some progress.

It's in Rowan All Seasons Cotton, colour 'Kiss', the same as the picture in the book which is a nice fuschia. This's the first time I work with ASC and I really like it, in contrast to the cotton chenille. I got gauge on my first try, which is really rare as I'm a tight knitter. The yarn is easy to knit and the stitch definition is great. I got a pack of 10 from the recent Colourway sale and would probably have 6 balls left for another project as this dress calls for only 4. Too bad this yarn is not readily available here in Hong Kong. There're only colours 'grape' and 'sunburst' in the 'printed' version. I bought 3 balls of 'grape' last winter intended to knit something for the kids.

The 10th season of ER started in Hong Kong tonight and Wai Lung huddled on the sofa with the blanket to watch it as the weather has turned chilly again. It would have been nice if the sampler afghan is ready. At my pace, looks like it may only come in handy next fall.