FO updates!

This blog is sadly outdated! I've been busy knitting for my project but there have been other knitting going on as well.

Shalom Cardigan
Pattern: Shalom Cardigan by Meghan McFarlane
Yarn: Rowan Cocoon, 4 skeins
Needles: 7.00 mm
Comments: I finished this a couple of weeks ago. It was a really quick knit, took me about a week. The yarn is sooo soft and a pleasure to work with. I made a few changes to the pattern, cast on more stitches, put more buttonholes, and made the armholes less wide. I love the end result, it's so wearable! I'd love to knit a couple more cardigans in this kind of style.

I also knitted another beret.

This is Porom by Jared Flood, lovely, super easy pattern. The yarn is RYC Silk Wool DK in Geranium, gorgeous to work with, I might need to stash up some!

And there were some socks too...

This is Hopscotch Socks by Anna Bell, one of the Socktopus 2008 Sock Club socks. The yarn is AMAZING! It's Brooklyn Handspun Soft Spun Plus. It's so soft everything I touched afterwards feel rough. Not only soft, it's also bouncy and cushy and smooshy and awesome in general.

These bedsocks are hanging off my bed frame so I could pull it over my feet whenever they get cold at night. The yarn is Cleckheaton Country Prints, one of the yarns I got from my trip to Australia last year. They are just simple toe up socks with 2x2 ribbing, with short row toes and heels, easy peasy.

Next up, spinning updates!

Pretty please?

I've started a new blog for my final project, please take a look and let me know what you think!
It's here. Please help me graduate! I need a degree to support my yarn buying habit in the future!

Spinning in the snow

This is what I was doing yesterday

It's my first snowman ever! I've never seen this much snow in London EVER and it's quite scary, the weather all over the world is going mad. Well anyway this meant I couldn't go out and had to cancel all my plans. But fret not, because I have a new toy to play with.

Yep, it's my new spinning wheel! Well, it's not new, but it's new to me. I was carrying it on the bus, tube and train on Sunday to get it home safely. Imagine the stares I got, people were turning their heads and had that "what the heck is that!" look on their faces. Anyway, it's a single treadle Ashford Traveller, and I'm still trying to spin on it. My hands-feet coordination sucks, which is why I never mastered anything that requires it. But I'm determined to be a good spinner. Heck, I can foresee it taking me ages and loads of practice and frustration but no way I'm giving up.
But for now, I definitely won't be starting with these.


The top one is Merino and the bottom one is Falkland. I think I'm getting slightly better at this dyeing thing, and I'd love to dye some more. Problem is, I can't spin the fast enough.

Yes this is a knitting blog!

Yay! Finally some knitting!

Knotty Gloves
Pattern source: Knotty Gloves by Julia Mueller, Ravelry download
Yarn: Malabrigo sock
Needle: 2.5mm
Comment: I started a pair of gloves some years ago, but never managed to get them finished. I was pretty convinced that I simply have no patience to knit fingers. Hence the many pairs of mittens and fingerless gloves coming off my needles. But then it gets really cold, and I need my dexterity, and the pattern is so pretty and I had the perfect yarn that it simply was meant to be. I really had to push myself through knitting all those fiddly fingers, but I think the result is well worth it. I made a little alteration to the pattern though...

So now I can do this!

I'm feeling all smug and clever now that I've find a way to not having to take my glove off every time I need to use my beloved iPhone.

About 2 weeks ago I got this book in the mail. Even though I'm not interested in any of the patterns, but the technique was so intriguing that I had to try it out.

I used some yarn I had dyed with kool-aid a couple of years ago. Since I wasn't sure how the yarn would knit up, and I was worried the colour would muddle up, so I paired it with some cream coloured merino yarn. This technique is so much fun and so easy to do! It works really well with those variegated yarns to break up the pooling and create some really cool effects. I can't wait to think of some other way to use this technique.

I'd dye happily

First, let me tell you all that my dissertation is DONE! c'est fini. la finito. Thank you for your *ehem* gentle encouragement, I'm just so happy that it's out of the way. Well I have another presentation in 2 days, but this uni thing is really just never ending. Well, there's one thing I didn't share here. Other than knitting and spinning while I should've been writing, I've also been dyeing.
First I dyed some yarn.

It turns out quite blotchy, guess I need more practice. The dye I'm using is Sugarflair food dye, the colours are nice and vivid and sticks to the fibre easily.
Then I tried dyeing some fibres, this one is BFL.

I didn't put enough dye and ended up with a lot of white spaces, but it looks quite nice spun up.

I navajo-plied it to a bulky weight, but it's still quite inconsistent, I'm just not used to spinning thick. My original intention was to knit another Wham-Bam cowl with this, but now I'm worried there won't be enough yardage, so I might just do a normal cowl. It's really soft and squishy though, I'm liking it a lot.
Next I tried dyeing some Corriedale

Then some brown BFL

When it was wet I couldn't even tell if the colours are there because it's all so dark, but when it's all dry the colours became so much clearer. I'm liking this one, it's so dramatic.
Dyeing is so much fun even though the whole house did smell of vinegar and burnt hair. Thankfully my housemates didn't complain much. I'm looking forward to dyeing some more since I just bought more colours of the dye, but I'll need to buy GALLONS of vinegar first!
There should be some actual knitting progress next time I blog, really!

Knitting Masochist

Is there such thing as a knitting masochist? Because if there is, I must be one. Why else would I do this?

This is a swatch that I knitted way past midnight 2 days ago. It's for the Après Surf Hoodie by Connie Chang Chinchio. I fell in love with this pattern immediately after it came out last summer. The yarn called for in the pattern is RYC Cashcotton 4ply, and I knew immediately that mine would be in RYC Cashsoft 4ply. Then I saw the yarn on sale on John Lewis' website, and I knew it was meant to be.
And if you're wondering, yes that's the EXACT same yarn I used for Flo. And yes I did say I won't be knitting that kind of project in a long time. Well it's not even been a month yet since I said that and here we are. This is why I don't do resolutions anymore.
In my defense, I resisted the urge to cast on immediately. I'll try to be good and finish at least one of my big WIPs before I start this. And this one has got lace pattern, so it won't be as boring as all stockinette, and let's hope it won't be as endless.

In other knitting news, I actually have an FO!

Wham Bam!
Pattern: wham bam thank you lamb! neckwarmer, found over at Ravelry.
Yarn: Rowan Big Wool, leftover from my Alpine Shrug
Needle: 8.00mm
Comment: This is such a simple and clever pattern, and supposed to be quick. But somehow it seemed endless to me. Somehow that 20", 30 sts of garter stitch took me over a week to knit. That's pretty much how knitting has been for me, endless.

Spinning, on the other hand, I've been doing a lot of that.

This thick and thin yarn was harder to spun than I thought, I'm not very good at being sloppy, I guess. But it's ooooh so squishy, I'm having fun thinking of what to knit with it, any ideas? Oh this is more roving from Jo at Lime Green Jelly, it's super soft merino and I think the colourway is Union of The Snake. While this one only took me about 3 days to spin, my new spinning project will take a while.

This is BFL and silk roving from Shunklies, and as you can see I'm spinning it very thin. I think my spindle is too heavy for this, so I just bought a new, lighter spindle, can't wait for it to get here! So then I can have my only spindle back and spin some more thicker stuff.

The dissertation is still not going, which is a really bad news, at least for me, because I only have 4 more days to finish it. And I also have to prepare some concepts for my final project, which I want to be about knitting. But what about knitting? I have no idea. See, I knew this is a bad idea, ugh. But while I'm procrastinating, I've not only been knitting and spinning, but also listened to a lot of back episodes of knitting podcasts, and browsing around the net for pretty spindles to buy. They get quite expensive and I'd love to be able to afford them. I was also seriously considering buying a loom at one point, which is just ridiculous and is probably a cue for me to stop or otherwise this procrastination thing will ended up costing me a lot more than my grade.

Dissertation? What dissertation? Give me fibre!

I've been spinning a lot lately, instead of writing my dissertation, of course.
This is my finest (in term of thickness) spinning to date.

The fibre is BFL, colourway Bohemian Rhapsody, from the amazing Jo at Limegreenjelly. I followed this video to navajo-ply it, thanks for the link Jo! Since the video is for navajo plying on the fly and I've already spun my singles, I had to kinda wing it, but I think I got it right, at least I have 3-ply yarn as a result, so I can't be far off. This was a lot of fun to spin, even though it took me ages. But I did enjoy spinning this while listening to Bohemian Rhapsody, one of my favourite songs ever.
After spinning such thin yarn, I needed some instant gratification, fast. So I spun this.

The fibre is Falkland by Spindlefrog that I purchased at Socktopus. I love spinning with the fibre! It's soft and squishy but not as short stapled as merino.
Next, I'd like to try spinning thick and thin slubby yarn with some merino I've got. This will be challenging, I think, since it goes against the little perfectionist inside of me.
Knitting has been slow, and I doubt there'll be any FOs for show anytime soon. But I do have something to share

It's my first darning attempt! I found a hole at the bottom of my Hedera sock. After overcoming my initial shock and fear of moth attack, I decided this is the perfect time to learn how to darn. Hopefully this is not a skill I'll need often in the future.

First of the year

Happy New Year everyone! Can you believe it's already 2009? And the 4th? I can still hear the new year's eve fireworks in my years for goodness sake.
I feel like I haven't had a proper holiday, mainly due to bad company. But it is the new year and I'd like to start positively. Well, having to squeeze out 5000 words in 11 days doesn't sound like a good start, I know, but maybe I'll start my year in February instead.

Despite a not-so-pleasant end to the year, 2008 had been a great year for me. Especially travel-wise, I've been so blessed and got to visit Switzerland, USA, Australia and Scotland all in one year. Which is a good thing, since I don't think I'll have the time and financial means to travel as much this year.

I'm excited and scared at the same time to face this year. It'll be a turning point in my life since I'll be graduating (or at least I should!) and will have to take the first step towards "real life". And I don't know what the heck I want to do with my life. But hopefully I'll be able to figure it out eventually, fingers crossed.

Every beginning of a new year in the past couple of years, I've made it a habit to write a resolution. Last year I shared my knitting resolutions here,
1. Do at least one colourwork project. Ivy League vest, still a WIP, almost a UFO.
2. Get rid of stash yarn that I don't even like. Complete failure.
3. Stop buying yarn I'll never use just because it's on sale. Yeah, right.
4. Blog about ALL my projects. I'm sure there's an unblocked cardigan lurking around somewhere...
5. Deal with UFOs. .....
6. Actually wear my FOs. I did manage to wear a lot of my hats and scarves lately, I even wore my Henley Perfected yesterday and loved it!
7. Attend a knitting meetup. Yep!
8. Do more designing/thinking in my knitting. Didn't happen last year, will carry on trying this year.

See? Mainly I don't stick to resolutions. And that's not even my resolution in LIFE, which if I remember correctly had 52 in the lists las year. Let's not go there, shall we?
So this year I'm giving up on resolutions, no matter how tempted I am to start making a list (because I love lists). I'll just go with the flow, learn as much as I can, enjoy life, and see where I'll be this time next year.

The bells aren't jingling...

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all had a great one;)
I'm currently in Edinburgh and finding decent food on Christmas day proved to be a challenge. We were lucky to find a good pub that was open nearby though. I'm looking forward to my first boxing day sale tomorrow! Can't wait for the new year to come and for all this craziness to pass and start afresh. Sorry I don't have any pictures, will need to find out how to post pictures using an iPhone!

Finally Flo

Flo
Pattern source: Flo by Kim Hargreaves
Yarn: RYS Cashsoft 4ply, Rowan KSH
Needle: 3.5mm, 2.25mm
Comment: If you remember, I started this back in summer during Ravelympics. Most of the knitting got done back then, however the finishing took so much longer than the knitting. Back when I purchased the pattern, it was only available in kit form, but now you can get it in the book. It was the first and only kit I've ever purchased, everything came beautifully wrapped and looked so special, and the pattern was perfectly written. I'm not sure why I was so attracted to this pattern, but I'm guessing it's because of the styling in the photograph. I'm such a sucker for such thing. It was like, I must have THAT cardigan, in the same colour, and maybe then I can look like the model. I'm deluded, of course, but I can't help but think that all I need is a blue corsage, ruffly shirt and blue polkadot pants.
I think it's safe to say that this is a labour of love. I've done 4ply cardigan before, but all those stockinette, not to mention the ruffles, I don't think I'll be tackling more of this sort of project anytime soon.


Not-quite-a-princess mitts
Pattern: Princess mitts by Jennifer Hagan from The Knitter's Book of Yarn
Yarn: RYC Cashsoft DK
Needle: 4.00mm
Comment: This is a last minute Christmas knit, done in two evenings. It's for a friend's mom who I really like. The pattern was a bit confusing for me, like how the stitch count suddenly miss out 1 stitch, and how the pattern tells you to do k2,p2 rib for the thumbs but the left thumb has k2,p1 after the increase. I guess I'm just a perfectionist when it comes to this kind of thing, it bugs me so much when a pattern is not clearly written. But all in all it's a pretty pattern, and I think the end result looks really sweet. Oh, and I changed the direction of the cables, instead of criss-crossing like in the pattern I made them mirroring each other instead.

Spinning has been going slow, since I'm trying to spin really fine.

My plan is to try out 3-ply since I heard it's supposed to make the yarn rounder. Plying shall be interesting. I'm missing the instant gratification of spinning heavier yarn, and I'm considering getting another spindle. See, monogamy in fibre craft might just not be my thing.

Anyway, Christmas holiday will be crazy, I'll have 2 cousins coming to stay with me. A 5000 words dissertation to write. And some design concepts to come up with.
Well if I don't get to blog again before next year, which might well be the case, I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and keep sane!

Spinning and procrastinating

What? Another post within less than a week? That's what happens when I'm procrastinating from doing uni work, I guess.

You guys probably have predicted that I've been bitten by the spinning bug, hard. Here's my third skein of handpun, again BFL from limegreenjelly in colourway "Something About You".

My main concern about building up all these one-skein-handspun is finding a project for them. Sure, they look pretty enough just so, but it'll be nice to be able knit with them as well. So the first thing that come through my mine is, of course, a beret!

One Day Beret
Pattern: One day beret by Kirsten Kapur
Yarn: My own handspun, from last post
Needle: 5.00mm
Comment: This pattern is simply perfect for those one skein of precious yarns lying around in your stash. It's top down so super easy to modify. Instead of doing the decrease gradually as in the pattern, I did one row of (k1, k2tog) instead. I had about 20 cm of leftovers.
I've been trying new things with my spinning as well.

Here's some low-twist singles, it is quite tricky for me to maintain the tension, so I had some thick and thin spots. I split the roving in 2 instead of 4 as usual to get longer colour sections. Wow look at me doing the spin talk!
Anyway the roving is again from limegreenjelly but this time it's merino. It was my first time spinning with merino, and oh the joy. It's soooo soft and squishy and just makes me one happy bunny. The colourway is Dancing In The Moonlight. Have you noticed that I only buy from this seller? There are a few UK based etsy seller, but somehow her colourways spoke to me the most. Guess it's my love for deep, rich colour. I still have another 3 braids of her roving in my possession, the next one up is called Bohemian Rhapsody!
I'm wishing Santa will bring me a spinning wheel this year....or I'll just have to get one for myself, we'll see...

Classy is my name

Happy Forest Shrug
Pattern: Dream In Colour shrug
Needle: 5.00mm
Yarn: Dream in colour Classy "Happy Forest"
Comment: First, I fell in love with the shrug. So when I was at Socktopus grand opening I spent quite a while trying to pick a colour. Then I wound the yarn up, and the magic began. The yarn felt soooo good sliding through my fingers. Nothing fancy, just pure soft, squishy merino. Knitting with it was also a joy and the shrug grew quickly. I cast on for it when I was on my way to Socktopus for a knit night the day before I left London, knitted it on the plane all the way home, then cast off the day after. So really the whole thing only took me 3 days to knit.
Not too shabby, right?

I bought 2 skeins of it and there were quite a bit of leftovers, so I made this.

Classy Meret
Pattern: Meret, available as Ravelry download
Needle: 5.00mm
Comment: I cast on for this last Wednesday night and did 5 rows of ribbing, took it with me the next day to uni and knitted through presentations for the whole day and basically got the whole body done. Went home and knitted the decrease and a beret was born! It was such a quick and easy pattern. Not to mention pretty. I only did 3 lace repeats for the body for fear of running out of yarn, but looking at my leftover I could've squish in an extra repeat, but I like it anyway.
Oh, those checkered bags you can see in the background is all yarn.

I'd love to wax some more poetics about this yarn, about how I want to sleep and roll nekkid on it. But I shall refrain myself and go back to doing my uni assignments. It's really hard to concentrate when you're surrounded by fibres and all you want to do is play with it. But I still need that degree, so I have to put away the knitting (Cardigan for Arwen!) on my lap and do work. Ugh.

Spinner yet?

As I said in my previous post, I went home for 2 weeks and just came back last week. I told my tutors that I was going to my sister's wedding, but in truth it was my cousin's engagement party. The wedding is this Sunday, and I could've gone to the wedding instead but I thought that I'd be too busy by now, turns out there's really no difference, ugh. But it's always nice to be home, especially if it's only for a short period so I get to skip town before everything drives me crazy. The party was great fun though, and I enjoyed meeting families and relatives. Here's me and my cousin (the bride-to-be).

The party was done with a modern oriental theme, it was really quite cool, I'm glad I didn't miss out.

Meanwhile, ever since I came back last week, other than being swamped with uni work, I've been spinning too!

Let me present to you.....my first hank of handspun ever!! I'm so thrilled with this it reminded me of when I finished my first knit. The fibre is some handpainted BFL I got at Ally Pally. As you can see it's still quite slubby, but I still think it looks pretty cool. As soon as I finished this, I ordered some more roving from this etsy shop. And I have this in 2 and a half days!

It's gorgeous if I may say so myself. The colourway is called Angel of Harlem, and I've got another one called Something About You that I can't wait to start spinning up!
And don't think that because I've been busy spinning there's no knitting done.

Bayerische Socks
Pattern: Bayerische socks by Eunny Jang
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Sheperd Socks Solid colourway "Firefly"
Needle: Addi Turbo 2.5mm
Comment: This one certainly has been a long time coming. According to my ravelry record I started it back in June. The pattern wasn't hard, but it does has LOTS of stitches, and knitting every stitches through the back loop also means it goes slower. And I couldn't for the life of me memorise the 16-rows pattern repeat (that's the fancy one at the side). It was a lot of fun though, and I think that the yarn works really well for this too. I love how "crunchy" Shepherd Sock is. And since it's incredibly stretchy it fits perfectly too.

Well, there's been more knitting done but I have some blocking and more pictures to take! Keep in tune!

Never too late for socks

I seem to always fall into a crack unconsciously, how could it be almost a month since I last posted?
Life has been hectic due to uni assignments, but I still manage to find time to knit, though not as much as usual. There's not much progress to be shown, really. The Cardigan for Arwen is going well, one sleeve is done and I'm working on the body in one piece with about 10" of progress. I've also managed to finally finish a pair of socks

Socktoberfest Mystery Sock
Pattern: TTL Mystery Sock by Kirsten Kapur
Yarn: Posh Yarn Lucia
Needle: 2.5mm
I only managed to finish it 10 days after Socktoberfest is over, but at least the socks are pretty :)

In other news, I went to the brand new, shiny and lovely Socktopus London shop yesterday and bought a high-whorl spindle. Remember that spinning class I took last year? Well it's all slowly coming back to me, I haven't been able to stop spinning since last night.

It's not much for about 3 hours worth of spinning, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it.
Too bad I'll have to leave it for about 2 weeks since I'll be going home again today.
Yep, I'm going home again! The home that's 7279 miles away that I just came back from not too long ago! I'll only be away for 10 days to attend my cousin's wedding. I'm having mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I'm always happy to go home to see my family and the glorious food back home. But the guilt of leaving uni work behind while all my other classmates would be working away is almost killing me, agh.

Well, I'm trying to be positive since I'm lucky enough to get this unexpected holiday!

Slump

Please tell me you've all been there. When every projects just seem so...NOT RIGHT. I know a lot of people like to modify patterns, but for me, when I'm following a pattern, I'd want to follow it blindly. But sometimes when things are just not working out I'd have to suck it in and ACTUALLY USE MY BRAIN.
Remember the February Lady Sweater that I started?

This has since been frogged. The pattern itself is simply gorgeous, but I've had my doubt from the beginning about how it will suit my body shape. The yarn is looking gorgeous in garter stitch that made me almost want to close my eyes and just knit away. And the old days I would've done just that, and stuck the FO somewhere unseen. Maybe I'm growing up as a knitter, just maybe.
Then there's this

This is 15.5" of the back of Cardigan for Arwen. I've since frogged it back down to 5", did some waist decrease and bust increase and frogged it all. Now, I think the cardigan looks gorgeous in the magazine (why else would I want to knit it?), and look great on the other knitters' projects I've seen in Ravelry. But a square back just seems wrong for me. The cardigan is meant to be loose fitting, but loose fitting garments make me feel frumpy and chances are I won't be wearing it much. And the drop sleeves? I can't even think of how many years it has been since I last worn drop sleeves. So it's frogged and I'm back to square one.
And remember this? You haven't seen it for a long time, have you?

Yep, it's my Ivy League vest that I started...uh...some time ago. So when I went home for summer holiday I brought tons of WIPs and new projects with me because of course I thought I could finish 3 pair of socks, a vest, a cardigan, two tops and a shawl in 3 months. My luggage on my back was mainly filled with the same WIPs. Anyway, the vest is still a WIP, however I left the IK issue that the pattern is in back at home. Which is not the problem since I was being "clever" and took high resolution pictures of the pattern before I left. Problem is, I forgot the last page, where the instructions for the neck shaping, steeking (eek!) and neck and arm bands are.
But no worries! I'll be going home AGAIN next month for my cousin's wedding and with some luck we might have a finished vest by 2008.

At least I DO have some things to show

I'm enjoying this Mystery Sock KAL very much, and how often have you seen me take so many progress pictures?

And here's the stunner, if I may say so

Ene's Scarf
Pattern Source: Ene's Scarf by Nancy Bush (Scarf Style)
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace, 1.1 skeins
Needles: 4.00mm
I finally got around to blocking it last week and took some decent pictures earlier today (my housemate saw me taking pictures outside and she positively thought I was mad). The pattern was really simple but highly effective, although it did took me quite a while to cast on 375 stitches. And the yarn...mmmm.....it was delicious to work with. So soft and light. I have almost a whole skein of leftovers, it really goes a long way. One thing I've always admired from this pattern is how the lace patterns cleverly meet in the middle and create those arrows. Gorgeous. Now I think I want a thicker shawl, or a wrap that I can actually wear without being concerned of spoiling it. This one is so delicate that I feel slightly unworthy.

pointy!

Ally Pally 2008 Yarn P0rn!