Long awaited FOs!

Time seems to pass so much faster when I'm home. Which is a strange thing considering I do nothing but sleep, eat, shop and knit.
I managed to get my friend to take some pictures before I left. I beg you to ignore the background, since the only places in my hall with decent lighting are the loo and the kitchen, the former is closer to my room, nuff' said.
Again, picture quality isn't that good, since these are taken with my camera phone, so please bear with me.

Remember this?

Deep V Argyle Vest
Pattern Source: Eunny Jang
Yarn: RYC Cashsoft DK
Comments: You might recall I started this baby back in Feb 2006 for the Knitting Olympic. It's my first ever big colourwork so I was proud enough to finish the knitting in the 16 days deadline. However, when it comes to steeking, I gave up.
Since my yarn of choice wasn't pure wool, and it's not going to felt, I have to machine steek it. I did some messy job with my college's old sewing machine, but at least it doesn't show from the outside. Then it comes knitting
the ribbing bands, and somehow the armholes seemed way too big. So back she went to the drawer unfinished inside a ziplock bag. Since one of my new year resolution is to finish all my knitting, I made myself finished it up.
So now I have a vest with bunchy shoulders, but I think it looks great anyway. The V-neck is definitely a winner.
All I need now is a nice shirt that doesn't look like it's going to pop open at the bust area.


Sporty Cardigan
Pattern Source: Lang's Filato A Mano pattern book
Yarn: Lang Silk Dream
Comments: I fell in love with the pattern and the yarn at Ally Pally. The yarn was truly a dream to knit with, soft and "crispy". Everything was nice and easy, and I think the whole knitting was done in about 2 weeks or so. Still, it took me 2 months to get it done because I was waaaayyyy too lazy to seam it up. I'm quite happy with the cardigan although the size is too big. It has about 8 inches extra around the waist compared to my vest! So, another new year resolution of mine, always knit waist shaping!

I didn't bring much yarn back home with me, only enough for 2 plane rides. Instead, I'm planning to use up yarns I have at home. They're my "less-loved" yarns, but I have tons of them perfect for small projects. So for another 11 days
of holiday I have, I'll try to knit up as much of them as possible.
Hopefully I'll have more FOs to show next time!

Italian goodness

Hmmm....where to start??
I came back from my holiday on new year day, but have been busy(lazy) to update. And to think one of my New Year's resolution is to blog at least once a week!

Ok....let's move on to the holiday....scenery first or yarn first?? Let's do both instead!

First stop, Rome.

These irresistibly cute little balls of yarn were found in a little shop called Lana della Vecchia. The red, white and black yarn are yummy wool/cashmere blend that I just couldn't resist. I'm thinking they'll make a gorgeous fair isle hat. So I almost left the shop with only those....but then the owner called at me and pulled out boxes of pure angora and pure cashmere, that shrewd lady! She doesn't even speak much english! I could resist them only because they were in rather unappealing colours. But then she pulled out another box and say "This is cashmere and silk". Honestly, who could resist?? So I got 2 little balls of them in this gorgeous deep green colour and squeezed them all day.


These are from another yarn shop in Rome called Filati Filpucci. They are run by men and looked more like a hardware store than a yarn shop. The first 3 hanks are 3-ply pure wool at a price too good to pass. But when I ask the guy(the only one in the shop who speaks english) about the yardage, he shrugged and said "Don't know, maybe about 5000." Now, he might be right, but my logic tells me that's just not possible. We'll see. The 3 bright fushcia balls are super soft 70% angora yarn that were on sale. I'm thinking they'd make a cute beret.



Second stop, Florence.


The shop is called Campolmi Roberto Filati. It's a kind of shop that insist on 1 on 1 assistance and would only let you touch the shade cards. Still, they have tons of yarn at amazing price. I got a bag of natural alpaca yarn, 200g of lightweight baby alpaca(the vintage pink one), 50g of kid mohair yarn, and a huge 400g hank of pure white wool. I'm thinking of using the wool for felting. The hank is so big it's troublesome to bring around on the trip, but the price was just impossible to pass.


From Beatrice Galli Yarn Shop, the owner of the shop, Beatrice Galli herself I presumed, actually told me this "Touch, but not too much". It put me off a little, but I still couldn't resist all those cheerful colours.

Ugh.....Blogger won't let me upload more pictures, I've been trying for two days!
Anyway, I've finished 2 knits since the new year!! They should've been done ages ago, but I'm proud of myself for finally finishing them. I really want to show them to you, but lack of proper camera and proper photographer mean you'll have to wait till next month! Next month because I'm going home today(yay!!) and I'm not taking my winter knits back to hot and humid Jakarta.
There's a little problem for my in-flight knitting though, since it's safer to bring circular bamboo needles to get through the security, but most of my circulars are Addi Turbos! I do have a 4mm bamboo circular, so hopefully I can find a perfect little project with that.

Well....next time I talk to you, hopefully I'd be able to share more pictures and have more knits to report!