Heirloom Knitting

I know, I know, it's a difficult economy and everyone's suffering. But I know I got a secure job and so I should spend more to awaken the economy, and through the whole planet! That's why I bought a lot recently. (Is it a good excuse to the shopaholic thing?)

Anyway, it's my recent purchase from Sharon Miller, the Heirloom Knitting website.

I got her book, Heirloom Knitting, Shetland Hap Shawls, and a set of patterns at beginner's level, Stunning! I do not think I have any courage to cast on any of them yet, but the books are truly informative and described a lot of shetland lace skills and its history. It's already an enjoyment through reading it, of course, if sometime later, I would have to cast one on.

The hap shawls seem easier to do right? ;)

Sundara Seasons

I love Sundara! I've subscribed to 2 seasons club in Sundara Yarn and look! these two lovely sock yarn arrived my home some days ago!

Autumn - Brambleberry

Winter - Night Blossom

I can in no way resist her yarn! I just love it. As usual, some people may get disappointed by the relatively dark colour of the yarn in this posting, I still love it. I just love it.

I am still wondering what I should do with these two skeins. Among the many sock yarn / sundara I received, just one skein in the previous seasons posting (roasted persimmon over green papaya) has been knitted up and became a clapotis scarf. No socks has been knitted throughout my life and I was wondering whether I should start one?

Clementine Shawlette

The Clementine Shawletter has been waiting on my queue for quite some time and yet I have so many projects in hand and could not kick a start of it. I got a good chance this Christmas and decided to start knitting it for my friend Amy, for her loss of bag"s" of yarn in mail during the holiday seasons.

The pattern is simple yet beautiful. The short repeats of the main body makes it a perfect TV project. The little knot at the very beginning is lovely and make it convenient to tie the shawl around your body even with heavier yarn.

I chose ColourMart Cashmere 2/7NM DK Weight for this project in a pink colour. The outcome is soft and squishy and warm. I wish it can comfort my dear friend a little bit and COME ON! LET'S BUY MORE YARN!

A footnote for my Hemlock Ring Blanket. It's finished and we just need "some" blocking, some aggressive blocking actually. I am still looking for a possible place to block it.

Sundara Love

I have to formally announce, I fell in love! with Sundara Yarn. I will devote all my earnings to her, and her yarn.

Ok, it should be enough for a crazy vow. I've recently subscribed a lot of yarn from Sundara which was quite impossible to get before. I've been eyeing her website since a year ago but have never ordered a thing because I thought my crappy knitting skills will inevitably ruin the beautiful yarn she dyes. Then when I improved a little, it became so popular and cannot be obtained a few minutes after she posted the yarn on her web.

Anyway, the Fingering Silky Merino of the Seasons subscription has arrived yesterday! It usually takes shorter time to ship and it takes approximately a week more possibly due to the peak mailing seasons. These are what I have got in the mail:

Carmel Apple for Autumn





The Life Aquatic for Winter




I just love them. The colours are so nice and the yarn base is so attractive. I have a minute of hesitation before I ordered extra skeins of FSM but for sure I am glad that I did that. My mom greedily rubbed MY Carmel Apple against her neck and said, "It's so soft and not itchy at all." and commented, "Can you make a smaller scarf for me? The shawl you made last time is too large to wear sometimes." Um, I think one of the skein will be given to my dearest, lovely mother in the form of a scarf, or a cowl. (Well, a cowl will use less yarn right? That means I can keep more of it for the greedy me? ;) )

Hemlock Ring Blanket (Part 2)

My Hemlock Ring Blanket goes incredibly fast, here comes a photo.

I used a very creative way to present this, can you see where I took this photo? Yes! on my head! And if you see more carefully, you can see a little pinky row counter nearly falling out of the blanket. It's tied at the yarn end of the CO, a very convenient way to keep your row counter with your circular knitting without losing it.

The progress of the blanket is far more than what is shown here. I've completed row 46 of the Feather and Fan Section, which means I have one and a half more pattern to go if I do not add extra repeats to that advised in the original pattern. I still have a lot of yarn left so I will probably add 3 or 4 more repeats as told by fellow ravelers! (Thanks to the magic of internet!)

I should have worked more yesterday night, but a tragedy happened. My Knitpicks Intergeable Circular was broken!! To be more precise, it was the plastic cable detached from the metal connector piece. As I read from Ravelry, it is not an uncommon thing for Knitpicks. I have known this and so I took extreme care while sliding the stitches from one needle to the cable and then to the other needle... but, you know, accidents are accidents.... -_- who can predict?

I will probably go and grab another pair of 6mm addi turbo circular needles to continue. I hope the addis will be more durable.....

Hemlock Ring Blanket

It has been a long time after my last posting. I hope people will not blame me. (Well, are there still people reading this I suspect.) I drafted quite a number of blog post for my knitting in 2008 so updates are coming.

I finally started casting on something that I bought from the Jimmy Beans Wool some days ago. I thought I bought a lot. The very first initiative to make me start casting this on is that I claimed to one of my knitting friend+yarn buddy "I am on a yarn diet and I got to use up 500g of yarn before further purchase". At that moment I was crocheting a lace shawl and there's no way I can use up 500g of yarn at that time.

The crochet shawl was completed, finally, after 3 weeks hard work. And, I bought yarn, well, I should say, I joined a yarn club from dkknits. It's equivalent to 12 skeins of 100g sock yarn, beautifully hand dyed, and dyed personally, i.e. for me, and myself only. How can I resist the temptation? And I just received some yarn from Sundara, and will receive more in the coming weeks before the holidays. OH MY GOD. What commitment I have done. I was ashamed by looking at the yarn and I decided a good way. Do something bulky and consume more yarn as soon as possible.

After working on the crochet shawl, I made a small cowl using bulky thick and thin yarn which will be posted later. Ok, time to go back to the topic. I have just started that Hemlock Ring Blanket, which I adored for quite some time and is on my Ravelry queue. I have bought 2 skeins of Cascade EcoWool (250g each) which is explicitly used for the pattern. Using 6mm needles which I am not familiar with after knitting a lot of fingering weight yarn, I hope this blanket can be finished within 2 weeks. And I can consume a total of 500g of yarn that I committed! yay!

Just cast it on and started working it using my KnitPicks Intergeable Circular, it's my first experience to use Magic Loop. I felt that I am learning a new skill and I have modified it a bit now because my cable is not long enough for a complete magic loop. I just pull one loop out near my right hand needle and continue working without much problem. It is expected that I can work in a round without making any loops soon. I am at Row 21 now after a hour of knitting. It's fast in the first few rows, which is quite understandable for this sort of knitting. I will upload the photos when I finish the first part of the blanket.

Yay! I finally type something!
(and I gave up writing Chinese in the blog, it's too time consuming.)

ISE6 Finished!

Pattern: 素敵なかぎ針編み
Yarn: Nine Colourful Deer 100% Cotton
Tools: Clover Crochet Hook No.3/0
Time：20/04/2008 - 10/05/2008

This shawl, not scarf, is made for my ISE6 pal!

It's soft and lovely! I was quite surprised with the texture of the yarn and wonder why they can make such a good quality yarn with that price! (~HK$8 / 50g)

The pattern is fast and the result's perfect! I hope this would fit my pal's black outfits she normally wear to work. :)

Robin 帽子

花樣：Robin by Kim Hargreaves
毛線：Rowan RYC Cashsoft 4 ply
工具：Addi 兩頭直針 2.25mm, Addi輪針3mm
完成時間：22/02/2008 - 25/02/2008

Pattern: Robin by Kim Hargreaves
Yarn: Rowan RYC Cashsoft 4 ply
Tools: Addi DPN 2.25mm, Addi Turbo 3mm
Time：22/02/2008 - 25/02/2008

太累了，中文後補吧！

This pattern was purchased as a kit from the Kim Hargreaves web site from UK. They were arrived 5 days after my order and wrapped so beautifully which made my brother so jealous! I felt like unwrapping a gift box from my very best friend when I untie the ribbons in the box.

I ordered 2 kits and one book "Heartfelt" from the website and all of them are so gorgeous and left me nil disappointment. The yarn's nice, and the patterns are simple yet elegant, which were really MY STYLE!

Anyhow, I gotta report the FO. It's beautiful, the yarn's nice, but, it's too small for me, I don't really understand. Does it mean that my head's far too bigger than normal people? My SIL, whose head's much smaller than me, would become the recipient of this project. And, me, gotta find another beret pattern which can accommodate a big head...

Since the pattern's simple, the FO is so wearable that people can just go with it in any clothes. Kim's patterns are mostly in this style, very simple, but really show the beauty of the yarn. I strongly recommend everyone to go to her website and have a peek. You would surely in love with them like I do!

我的毛線 My Yarn Collection

這是我現時擁有的毛線，不知道要多久才可以把這些線都耗掉了呢？

This is the yarn stash that I currently have..... Well.... when can I finish all these yarn??

手套

花樣：Maine Morning Mitts by Clara Parkes (The Book of Yarn)
毛線：Noro Silk Garden
工具：Addi 雙頭直針 4.5mm
完成時間：21/02/2008 - 22/02/2008

Pattern: Maine Morning Mitts by Clara Parkes (The Book of Yarn)
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden
Tools: Addi DPN 4.5mm
Time：21/02/2008 - 22/02/2008

這是我第一次作的手套，也是我第一次用這個毛線。我只可以說，我不會再用這毛線了！因為雖然這個叫作silk garden，所以用料也比較高貴，可是對我來說這真的是不可以接受的扎人。而且我還找到了一個顏色不能配上的結呢！

This is the first pair of fingerless mittens that I made, and my first exposure to noro yarn. I must say, I would not use this yarn again. Although silk garden was claimed to be more delicate and decent and luxurious, it is still unforgiveably itchy and unmatched knots were found!

可是，這花樣很美呢！而且用的時間很短，只用了兩晚就完成了。這真是最好用來送禮的東西呢！
Well, the pattern is great, lovely, and easy to do. It spent me approximately two nights to finish a pair, and the result was good. It is surely a nice last-minute knitted gifts!