De-stashing

It comes time to face my worst nightmare, the dreaded word; De-Stash! Since I've been back in Hong Kong, I've been trying to clean up my life in general, and to adhere to the idea of living simply, (so that others may simply live), which brought me to clean up my stash. Lots of time was spent in finding all the yarn I had hidden all over my apartment, and then re-winding it for center-pull balls. That got me through a lot of Lost, which I am trying to re-watch for the new season in January! You would be so proud of me now, its all organized and safely on the shelves in my cabinet, and I even managed to get a callus from all the winding. I also have a lot of yarn that I have no idea what I got it for, so it comes time to get rid of it, so I can be more properly organized about what I want to make with what.
So it comes time for the stash-busters:

• 2x2 ribbed scarfs
• Cabled hat from Stitch'n'Bitch books
• Scarp yarn blanket
• Dr.Who Scarf

I've finished one, which is going on the present shelf, to possibly handed out for a Xmas present or it might go to charity. We shall see. So right now, my socks and Shetland Shorty are on hold until I feel sufficiently de-stashed, or until I finish re-watching Lost, whichever happens first. I would love to take pictures to share with everyone, but the LCD camera on my screen is broken. For those of you living in HK, does anyone know where I can take it to be repaired? Not having my camera is making me sad.

Just monkeying around.

I have two days, just 48 little hours to finished the second sock of Monkey, by Cookie A. I'm on the 5th out of 6 repeats for the leg, but I'm starting to get intimidated by all that I have left. How will I ever turn the heel in time. The short amount of time is compounded by the fact that this seems to be the week that everyone wants to see me, since I'm going back to Hong Kong in 10 days. Maybe if I call sick into work, I can have this finished in time.......

This all started out innocently enough as a present for a co-worker, in lieu of giving her gas money for carpooling, which I was more than happy to do, considering gas prices in the US right now, and how little I'm earning this summer. So last week, she tells me that her last day is this Wednesday, which I was ok with, since I thought that I would have plenty of time this past weekend, which turned out to be quite the ironic notion. Between baking, movie dates with friends, and quality time with the nephews, (who are a very energetic 6 and 4), I managed to get 5 rows done. Now, all of a sudden, its Monday afternoon, and I am still working on the leg section!!!!!! The second sock seems to be going faster, and I thought that by taking it to work I could get some more done. Nope! So tonight, I will be up past my bedtime, watching Law and Order, trying to defeat this darn sock. Wish me luck!

Bad Dogs

Summer 2008 104, originally uploaded by yummystitch.

God knows that I love my dogs, to an insane degree, but they are walking on thin ice right now, especially my dearest Bertie. Last night, while working on a difficult part of my current sock project, she decided that it was the appropriate time to jump into my lap for cuddles, causing me to slips about 15 stitches off the needles! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I immediatly shoved her off, while continously shouting the F-Word. I managed to recover the dropped stitches, and after about a half hour, said sock had fully recovered. But the icing on the cake was when I went upstairs and found the beagle with my ball of Noro in his mouth, getting ready to tangle it, with several other balls of yarn at his feet, ready to be destroyed. Not a good night for anyone involved.......
Now I have no idea what is going on with my babies, but I think that they are getting jealous of the yarn. Bertie often gives me the look featured in the picture ABOVE: the ever-pathetic, "Why are you playing with the yarn instead of rubbing my tummy?" To make up for it, they both licked my face off as soon as I sat back down, but I still had some yarn to de-tangle that evening. I love my dogs, but sometimes I think that they know exactly how to push me. Much smarter than they look at all.....

Malabrigo Smiles!

This was the expression on my face after a pleasant Saturday spent with a friend, Herman, who took me to two new LYS, Lovely Yarn, and A Good Yarn, and bought me some nice yarn as a belated birthday present. He bought me three skeins of this gorgeous hand-dyed Malabrigo in a deep spruce color. Its a little bit hard to see in this picture, but its lovely in person. This will probably be made into something for me, because I love love love blue and green in anything. I also picked up some lovely Ultra Fine Alpaca in peacock blue, which I also love. I have no idea what to do with it, but I had to have it. I've also inherited a lot of yarn from my mom, mostly Lion Brand, and a ball of Noro leftovers, but I will always take free yarn! I'm glad there is going to be room in my suitcase for my new and improved summer stash. The real question will be what do I take back to HK with me in 3 weeks, and what to leave behind for another day.

Summer of Socks

This will be the summer that I will master socks, or at least the easier types of socks. I've been avoiding doing this for as long as I've known to knit, but now is the time. For too long I have feared the socks, but no longer!

I picked out some cheap wool/acrylic blend from Jo-Anne's and got down to work with a pattern suggestion from one of my HK knitting friends, Ingrid, who I consider a Jedi-master of socks. Its going well so far, and the pattern is easy to read. The one problem here is that the back of the ankle and the heel have turned out to be freaking HUGE! I need a friend with unusually large heels and ankles, which made me think of my friend Big Tom- A sweetheart of a guy who is 6'7" and over 300lbs, easily. Not fat, just.....BIG! So they might go to him.

The other possibility is my friend Jason, living and working in St. Louis. He has unusually large feet as well, so they might work for him. I'm almost finished with the second one of the two, and I'm debating about agitating it in some warm water to get some shrinkage. I'm going to use the same pattern for the Vanna's Choice yarn that I picked up as well. I just couldn't resist, since it is Vanna White, and it was only 87 cents a skein. So sue me.....


So here is a picture of the socks in question. The pattern is Beginner Socks, Magic Loop Variation by Liat Knits Oh, double-plus bonus about knitting socks? I've learned, and become a huge fan of magic loop. Take that DPNs!

My mother is my enabler!

For most of the month of February, I've had visitors in my apartment. I've had 2 friends from school, one fellow teacher, and my mother, which was the best part of my month. My mother and I have been knitting for about the same length of time, but she is so much better than me. (Keep in mind I taught her how to do it) So since she came to visit me, we both thought it was a great idea to visit every knitting shop in HK that we could find within 9 days. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because she came at the end of Chinese New Year, when every shop decides its a good time to close down.

We did find plenty though, that I had no idea were here. Outside of the yarn shop just down the street, we found a huge one in Causeway Bay, run by very sweet elderly men, one in my town center, and 3 in Mongkok, in addition to the various street stalls. The result of these trips is what you see in the picture folks! 705 of that was not bought until my mother and I went shopping! Here is how most of our conversations went, instore:

Me: "Oh look Mom, don't you think this color is pretty?"
Mom: "What would you make from it?"
Me: "No idea"
Mom: "You should just get it, it would cost at least 5 times more in the states."
Me: "Well, ok!"

And this is why I have more yarn in my living room than I have rug! I have some sort of general idea of what I would like to do with some of it, but for about 80% I have nothing planned. She was laughing at me once we got it all home, but then she realized that she needed another suitcase because she had bought a whole bunch of yarn and needles too! Needless to say, we both felt a little sheepish at the end of the week. Now that she's gone, I'm determined to get it all organized in some way. Most of it is still sitting in bags/boxes in my living room. The good news is that one of my friends knows how to weave baskets, so I might get her to make me some containters or something for this.

So in other news, I've gotten on ravelry.com, the facebook for knitters. I've been trying to get things set up nicely, but its a bit hard with my computer down. There is a computer in the office, but its shared between 6 people, which can get a little tricky at times. My co-workers have been very considerate and understanding about this problem though. They are so nice!

Finished projects and computer woes

So I've managed to finish my unshaped shrug in my red bulky yarn. I would love to share it with all of you, but this is the week that my computer has decided not to work, period. I think that I might have to journey off to Sham Shui Po in search of a new hard-drive. :( No pictures for now, but I'm hoping to have this problem solved soon, because I am going crazy without my computer!

Anyway, the shrug turned out quite nicely, though a bit longer across the back then I hand intended. This was also my first time picking up stitches to create a border. The 2x2 ribbing turns in a little bit, but I think with some blocking that it will work out nicely. Its very warm, and I think that it will suite my mother when she comes to visit during Chinese New Year. I've also been very busy working on my Very-Cropped Hoodie, from MagKnits. This one I'm making for a friend is in tones of brown, from Vintage ColorMulti. After about 3 weeks of knitting, I'm working on the second sleeve, and the hood is all that remains after that. I've made some adjustments to the pattern for yarn and needle size, mostly repetition of some rows and knitting the sleeves in the round, versus flat like the pattern calls for. Its worked out nicely, especially with the yarn picked. It should be perfect for the recently chilly Hong Kong weather. Hopefully pictures will come soon!

Another interesting and happy development in my life recently is that I have been included into some wonderful knitting groups with some very talented ladies! They are all incredibly talented and interesting women. I've included some of their blogs in my links now. You should check them out! I enjoy their company and I think that I can also learn a lot from them. That's all the knitting news from my corner!

Sweater Frustrations!

So the baby sweater was going good...until I reached the part where you do the neckline shaping, and then it all just went wrong! The body of the sweater didn't seem like it was going to be wide enough for any baby that I've seen and the sleeves seemed to be a mile long. I stuck with it for a little while, and then just got so frustrated with the damn thing, I frogged it all! Now the yarn and needles are sitting in a corner, thinking about what they did. I think that I also might need to find a different pattern, or go out there and get a pattern book.

For right now, I've moved on to the unshaped shrug project for a little. I found this great bulky yarn in these beautiful variations of red. Its a little bulky, and I'm using the measurements for the largest one, but I think that its going to be lovely and less frustrating. When I saw and felt this yarn, I knew that it had to be made into something soft that you feel luxurious wearing. Here's to times of less frustrating knitting!

Madil-Sophy Yarn Project

I've recently gotten inspired to step outside of the scarf and hat box and attempt my first sweater.....baby sweater that is. Within the past 4 years, two of my older siblings have gotten married, and I know that babies cannot be far off. I've decided to get a little ahead of the game for when it actually starts happening...

The yarn I picked for this project is Sophy by Madil. Made in Italy, this 66% fine Merino, 34% acrylic yarn is a dream. It looks like a basic white crinkled, but the suprise is the little swaths of bright colors that appear at random. Now I am a sucker for anything veregrated, but this is a treasure. I think that it could be made into anything, its just that lovely and versitile. The colors might look a little dull in these pictures, but that is due to the dimness of the lights in my apartment. They really do pop!

The first part of this project/set is a little newborn baby blanket, that I finished last night. I used the standard "Feathers and Fan" pattern that can be found almost anywhere. I found mine on KnitPicks, in the free pattern section. (http://www.knitpicks.com/ ) I've used this pattern for several projects already, and it works out so nicely. Its one of those patterns that everyone thinks is harder than it looks, but just one row is worked in pattern. The finished blanket measures about 14 inches wide and about 3 feet long. I think that it can qualify as something unisex in todays world. This is a photo of what it looks like on my off-white couch. I think that next time I use this pattern to make a blanket, I'll do it a little wider, maybe 20 inches.

The next part of this project is one of the 5-hour patterns that are floating out around there. I found mine by browsing through Bev's Country Cottage and her list of free patterns. Its a very simple, hooded sweater in seed stitch. Not only will it be my first sweater, but also my first time attempting a hood. I started it this afternoon, and I have about 4 inches of seed stitch done. You can see the pattern here- http://www.knitlist.com/2002/FransHood.htm The next part of the project is going to be some booties, but I haven't found a pattern that I love yet. I'd be grateful for any suggestions!

Yarn-shopping Karma

So my knitting shop lady is wonderful to me, and I mean really incredibly wonderful. She remembers every ball of yarn that I've bought, what projects I'm working on, and has even offered to teach me to crochet. With all that going for me, why did I think that it was a good idea to shop at other places? Now I have been driving myself nuts trying to find a decent pair of double-pointed needles here, and that's the one item she doesn't have. So I go off 'round Hong Kong trying to find some shops I've seen on the Internet, pretty much unsuccessfully. One of these places was downtown in a shopping plaza. I dropped my friend off at the doctors, and then went off to find this place. I find the shopping center, but no knitting shop. I look on all three floors, but no such luck. Meanwhile, I've getting death glares from all around me. Its then I've realized that, in my casual shopping, I have stepped into a front for a brothel! It took me about 2 seconds to realize where I was, and about 1.5 seconds to book it out of there. I think that the yarn gods were punishing me for neglecting my knitting shop lady. So, lesson learned, try to shop someplace else, be surrounded by hookers.