self striping fun

Thank you so much for your kind comments on my socks. I was not able to reply to most of you because Yahoo mail kept giving me delivery failure notices and in the end I gave up trying to reply. I would like to respond to Teresa from Sweden who asked whether the Japanese puff sleeve pattern from one of my previous posts came in English. Unfortunately the answer is 'no'. I was going to give you the link to another cute puff sleeve sweater but while editing this post, I hit the wrong key and deleted the url (sob!) It is from a Danish website I believe. So now I cannot even think of translating the pattern, sigh.

Anyway, I have a new project on my needles. It all started when Regg mentioned the fun of knitting with variegated sock yarn and that reminded me of some stripey sock yarn that I had in the UFO pile waiting to be frogged. Next I saw Ruth knitting this cute piece. Then I stumbled on this pattern and I couldn't resist. The photo above shows how it looks like now. As you can see I am knitting across the top of the piece. Please excuse the poor quality of the photos. I took them at night and there was only a ceiling lighting in the room. Next time I should bring the study lamp to provide more light close up.

This second photo shows how it looks like when folded. What you see is the left part of the cardigan. I'm enjoying this project because it is so fun to see the stripes emerge. I just hope that I have enough yarn!

birch leaf socks done!

My 5 month socks that took forever to knit. Cast on in March and only finished in August. Socks are such teeny things compared to sweaters, but it doesn't seem to take less time, for me, at least.

Pattern: Birch Leaf socks from A Gathering of Lace
Yarn: cygnet woolrich sock yarn
Needles: Japanese clover bamboo size 0

Taking the FO photos were a breeze. There was no need to get into contortionist poses or place the camera on the floor (like I did once before) and take a hundred photos. The sock blockers that Maryann made for me, did all the hard work of showing off the socks. I followed the pattern exactly. The 2X2 ribbing has 72 stitches and the rest of the sock is worked on 68 stitches. I was trying to use up as much yarn as I could, so the leg ended up being 11.25 inches long. I still have yarn leftover. Please ignore the uneven stitches, as I didn't wash and block the socks.

These are special socks because it is made from sock yarn that my husband bought for me when he was on a working trip at Newcastle upon Tyne in England, 2 years ago. He is not the kind of shopper who would hunt high and low for something, but he took the effort to hunt down this sock yarn for me. He found it on the last day of his trip at the third yarn shop he came across. He was so excited, he called me on the handphone to tell me the colours and ask how much yarn to buy. I will always remember that moment because it was the first time he showed enthusiasm and interest in my knitting and it's just so nice for me to know that he accepts my love for knitting, even though, being a non-knitter, he doesn't completely understand it.

String bag

I have not been motivated to pick up any of my existing projects. In need of a quick fix, I decided to crochet something small. I rummaged in my stash cupboard and found one skein of leftover cotton yarn. I have been looking high and low for cotton string to crochet bags. I have tried string that I found in a hardware shop, but I found it to be too stiff and hard. This Butterfly yarn is a good substitute and it comes in many colours, so note to self: use this yarn for crocheting bags. The bag turned out big enough to hold a copy of Keitodama knitting magazine.

I'm beginning to like the pineapple motif after all.

Pattern: Japanese magazine ISBN no: 978-4-529-04357-1
Yarn: Super 10 Butterfly cotton 1 skein
Crochet hook: Japanese size 4/0

Iris and Areli nominated me for the Rocking Girl Blogger award. Thanks, ladies, it's such an honour and I feel so cool! It comes with a pink button, which I don't know how to download, and I am at a loss about nominating a number of rocking bloggers because it is impossible to choose only five. So I will take this chance to mention a few of the local bloggers that I have begun reading recently, and hope you will enjoy reading them too. The local Rocking Girl Bloggers are:
Jackie
iroiroknits
Lis
Regg
hooknneedle

My kids and I are looking forward to watching 'The King and I' at the Esplanade tonight. Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend too!

blessed by my blog friends

I mentioned in my previous post that I had some sewing to tell you about. I cut out the fabric pieces for this top (from a previous issue of Cotton Friend) in June. I really should sew it up soon before it gets stuffed into a bag somewhere, forgotten and abandoned. But I am having a problem trying to figure out the sewing of the yoke. The yoke comprises 4 pieces, top and facing, front and back to be sewn to the gathered bottom pieces. The pictorial instructions show that the shoulder seams of the front and back of the top and facing yoke pieces should be done first. Then the instructions indicate that I should sew the neck edge of the yoke (top to facing). Final step is to sandwich the gathered piece between the top and facing of the bottom curved edge of the yoke. That's what I can't figure out - how do I do that? Do I pin the bottom curve of the 2 yoke pieces together wrong side facing and attach to the gathered part? Seems like a challenging thing to do and if that is the only way, I might hand sew first before tackling it with the machine. If you sew and can give me any advice, I would really appreciate it.

As you can see I have no knitting progress to show you because I have not knit a stitch this week. But I wanted to post because I have something personal to share with you. I had a very bad day this week, having to cope with unsolicited hostility and negativity and I was feeling downright miserable. I can’t begin to tell you how much your comments and e-mails, expressing your usual friendly words about knitting and things in general, cheered me up, reminding me of all that is good and positive and chased away all the bad hostility and negativity. I can only say thank you, you’ve been a blessing to me. Kind words cost so little yet they mean so much.