Even Hipster Scum Need Hats

I have a few friends who sometimes qualify as hipsters, minus the overwhelming sense of irony and superiority, and decided its time to deck them out with the requisite knitted hipster garment. No, not an ironic false mustache or wool PBR cozy, but the ever-present slouchy hat. I have a lot of yarn where I only bought one or two balls, just because that was what was left in the shop, fully intended to buy more, and then just didn't......... So now ironic hats are flying off the needles like MadMen DVDs on sale!


My two favorite patterns for said hats are Felicity over on Knitology and Spring Beret by Natalie Larson. So far I have knitted two of each and more are planned for the future. Both patterns are easy to use and go fairly quickly. I work full time, but I managed to crank out one of these hats using the Felicity pattern in two days of commuting, which I feel pretty pleased with. So if I know you and you have either:

A. Told me music was "too mainstream"
B. Judged my taste in TV or films (Some of us like Demolition Man, thankyouverymuch)
C. Worn unnecessary glasses while looking incredulous
D. Drink PBR at any time, EVER!
E. Watched "The Room" while quoting along with the film

Look forward to getting your hat in the future. Wear it with pride my darlings, because it means that even though I can never be as organic-buying, free-trade supporting, indie music listening as you, I still care about your head being covered in fiber!

Let's Stare at the Crazy Lady

Since I switched jobs, I've been traveling a lot more via MTR, and thus doing a lot more knitting on during my commute. Recently I've been working some Christmas projects, which entails bulkier yarn than the average HKer would expect to see in summertime. This has resulted into me becoming somewhat of a sideshow on the morning train rides. Most of the time it doesn't bother me, but there are few days where I would like to ask the creepy strangers, "Don't you have anything else to look at?" or the classic, "Take a picture, it'll last longer." Is watching someone knit that enthralling? Maybe I should start staring back at people who are doing normal activites, like reading their books, or the elderly man who picks his nose- that guy is a charmer.
And of course with planning knitted Christmas presents comes a severe case of castonitis! I have started at least 4 new projects this week that I want to have finished by Decemeber, plus some last minute finishing details on the baby stuff for my sister. (My neice is making her big appearence at the end of August!) The baby is get a lot of gear from me, and the family is thrilled because its the first grandbaby!

I did get a two hour break today because of a student cancellation, so I walked over to FiloKilo and picked up a second ball of Diakeito Rocco in the rainbow colorway. I know that this statement might cause some shock and awe amongst my fellow knitters, but I prefer this yarn so much more over Noro. There- I said it! Now I'm going to run for the hills!

Drama, drama, drama!

You guys should know that I haven't be around that much do to lots of drama in my life the past month, but it seems like most of it is coming to an end. I have great friends and wonderful family who haven been right here by my side, and I want you all to know that you are magical people, and I greatly appreciate your love and support. Everything is mostly ok now, and life should be returning to normal soon. I have been keeping up with the knitting, but not the posting and blogging. More to follow soon, I promise!

Oh Baby!

I found out a couple of weeks ago that our department secretary is having a baby girl, due in January, which will be her second child and her second daughter. Of course, that provides a good excuse for any knitter to go a little crazy in the yarn shop and with patterns. I bought about ten skeins of Katia's Baby Fantaisie in white sprinkled with dots of pink to make a blanket with, and maybe some other accessories for the new bundle of joy.
So I've started the blanket, and it just won't end!!!! Granted that I am using sock yarn and fingering weight yarn, but I feel like this blanket is going to be a challenge to get through. I'm using the Pinwheel Baby Blanket pattern from Genia Planck. So far it has sucked up 3 skeins of yarn and a second pair of needles. It is soft and snuggly, but I'm ready for this to be done. The baby isn't due until January/February, so I still have plenty of time to get it done. Mindy suggested that I start doing eyelets for a couple of inches, and then call it done, but I have yet to find anything that I like. Suggestions?

Lady in Red

My best friend/college roommate was just here for a three-week visit and wanted to bring me presents, so I asked for yarn dye. Vira brought me lots and lots of Kool-Aid from the states, so we had to have a dying party. Even though we had five different flavors, they were all various shades of red and pink, so we decided to go for some of the most intense reds that I have ever seen. I'm still really new to hand-dyeing, but its amazing what I can do with a pitcher of hot water, Kool-Aid, yarn, and a bathtub. It didn't take that long, but the result was three beautiful skeins of red, in some subtle varieties. All the yarn came from Ingrid over at Yarn Workshop. The few times that I've attempted hand-dyeing has been with her yarns, and they are so user friendly and absorb the dye really nicely. I think that I might be hooked! Vira helped a lot, and it was her first time dyeing yarn, so I think that I am going to use one or two of these to make something for her. She just moved to NYC, so she is going to need fabulous knitwear come winter.

Instead of just taking a plain picture, I was really inspired by the reds in the skeins to find all the favorite things in my life that are red, which turned out to be a lot! My favorite cookies come in red package, one of my softest scarves, cranberry juice, nail polish, and my MAC lipstick. I really like how this photo turned out, so this could become a regular thing. I will have to expand more on my stock of hand-dye as well then!

Forays into Welsh Yarn

So even though I spent six weeks in the UK, I managed to restrict myself to only buying four skeins of yarn. (Having a strict budget also helped) Even though I bought 2 skeins in Edinburgh and Whitby, both yarns turned out to be Welsh. If it came down to yarn over food, I think that there could have been a couple of times on this trip where I would have been happy to go hungry.

The first place I found beautiful yarn was in a shop in Whitby, on the north-east coast. Whitby is a great little seaside town itself, and its claim to fame is, if you have read Dracula, the town where Dracula's boat ran aground in the novel. Ontop one of the cliffs is a ruined abby, which gives Whitby a great deal of spooky charm. Add in all the Dracula fans and gothic kids who make pilgrimmages there, great fish'n'chips, and you have a good day on your hands. On the side of the town where the abby is, there is the knitting shop. It looks like it was a church hall at one point, and right on the outside was a sign that said "Knitter's Paradise" I of course, entered to test this assumption. The store itself is actually called Bobbins, but it is indeed a knitter's paradise. Inside, it was just one giant room full of yarn, books, and some of the most intricate sweaters I've ever seen. Instead of having neatly organized shelves, yarn was inside great wooden seacheasts, and I wants to dive right in and roll around in the yarn. The ladies there were really fun, helpful, and great to talk to. I found this great wrinkley yarn in all my favorite shades of blue and green there. I could have bought every colorway, but that would have meant living in a cardboard box for the rest of the trip. This is one of the yarns that I think will have to go on the shelf just for me, and I'm thinking a delighfully snuggly shawl or scarf. The pictures I've taken don't do justice to the range of blue and green in this yarn, but if you know me, its every color that I love to wear and work with. This yarn is the Colinette Zanzibia in the Velvet 114 colorway. It feels so soft on the skin and slick to the touch, so I cannot wait to make it into something lovely and cozy. Now I just have to find the perfect pattern.......

The next skeins of yarn I purchased were found in Edinburgh, Scotland, on a street just off the Royal Mile. I really loved the time I spent in Edinburgh, and it was topped off with find this great shop, k1 Knitting Boutique. The vibe of this shop is liking being in an old 1950s ice cream palor, because its filled with bright colors and comfy couches to sit and knit on. The lady there was one of the nicest women I have encountered from all the yarn shops that I have been into. She took a great deal of time to help me find the perfect yarn, and also just spent a lot of time making small talk, If you ever go to Edinburgh, you must go here! The yarn I picked up here was Fyberspates Scrumptious, in this great green/grey/bronze wool and silk blend. Once again, pictures do not do this yarn justice. Even just in the skein, it shimmers. This is definitly going on the shelf until my skills improve and I find the perfect pattern. I am going to be selfish and keep this one for my own, but I feel like it deserves to be made into something spectacular. For now, I will be content with occansionally petting it, and sighing. I do think that I am in love with this yarn.

Even though that is all the yarn I bought on my travels, I did encounter a cute shop while staying in York, down the Shambles. I believe that it is the last yarn shop in York, and the staff there were great. If I had a little more time and money, I probably could have bought a lot more, but then I did have to think about suitcase space. All-in-all, yarn shopping in the UK was a huge sucess!

Knitting in Yunnan

So I just go back from a trip to Yunnan, and I was shocked, truly shocked, at how everywhere I went, there was always a lot of women knitting! Even in Shangri-La, high up in the mountains, there were people knitting. I hardly saw any when I was in Beijing, but you can't swing a yak in Yunnan without hitting a knitter! The interesting thing about the knitting is that everyone was using long, about 12 inches, double-pointed needles for everything they were making. My friend Megan must have gotten sick and tired of me stopping on the street and exclaiming "She's knitting too!" over and over again on our trip. Strangers also were a little perturbed when I would stop on the street and watch them for a few minutes, but they were creating some of the most intricate knitted items I've seen. I even got Megan to pester a couple of women about where they got their yarn, but it was fruitless.

I did managed to pick up some yarn goodies through other ways. In Shangri-La, I spotted women weaving on home-looms to sell in souvenir shops, so the light bulb above my head went over. Weaving = yarn, which I might be able to purchase. Using my very best pointing and gesturing skills, I walked up to this woman and gestured to her pile of yarn on the floor. She then smiled at me, and gestured to the scarves for sale in her shop. I firmly pointed at the yarn on the floor, and said "I want this." In return, I got a great "there must be something very wrong with you" look. Even though this woman clearly thinks I belong in the insane ward of the closest hospital, I did manage to start bargaining, and bought three balls of yarn off of her, ever though I have no idea about length and content, but I really wish that I had gotten a picture of the look on her face when I told her I wanted her yarn. The yarn itself is very slick and shiny, and I will be posting pictures soon as I can borrow a camera. I bought the green and blue that she is using in this picture, and a large bundle of a bright pink. It feels very soft, and and when I briefly swatched it, it had a great flowy drape to it. I'm going to bring it to knitting group and hopefully get a consensus on what it might be.

The other yarn-related coup of this trip was during our last days, in a town called Dali. The original plan was to ride bicycle around the lake and into some villages, but a rainstorm ruined that plan. So instead Megan and I spent the day exploring the old town, their coffee shops, street snacks, and doing some shopping. We had just finished our soft-serve ice cream from a street vendor, when I literally skidded in my tracks, just like a cartoon character. My friend Megan looked up at me questioningly, and with amazement in my voice, I said, "I think we just walked past a yarn shop." Her reaction was to sigh, and humor me by walking back down the street to see if I was just hallucinating, or if there was indeed a real yarn shop in this tiny little town. We found two huge open shops directly across the street from each other! I was fairly giddy, and Megan decided that needed a photo. Now, its not the nicest picture of me, but I think it does a great job of conveying my level of happiness in randomly finding this shop. I picked up some shiny soft stuff in beautiful jewel tones, with no labels. The women running the shop told me that each skein is 150 meters, and for 20 kuai apiece, I picked up 5. My intentions are to make a lap blanket or big shawl. Most of the yarn in these shops looked kettle-dyed in big batches, and not like they were all commercially dyed. If I had more room in my pack, I would have brought a lot more back with me since there were some lovely colors and it looked like she was selling yarn for pretty cheap, compared to Hong Kong.......oh well- that just gives me an excuse to go back to Dali someday! So yes knitters of the world, if you go to Yunnan province, there will be yarn in strange places, and you will be happy with what you find!

Vests

This week I have started three new projects, all of them being vests, all of them being pullovers, and all of them bottom-up. Two of the patterns I'm working on are from CanaryKnits, and so far I am loving her patterns. Most of them are free, easy to read, and would look great on most body types. The two that I have cast of her's are the SexyVesty and Corona, and both are coming along quite well. I've finished the main part of the body of the SexyVesty and gotten a good solid 6 inches of the Corona knitted. The other vest that I'm working on is Green Day by Mari Muinonen, for which I found a translation of.

SexyVesty is going along really well for me- finally I've found something that is worthy of my green malabrigo that I have been saving forever. My favorite thing about this pattern is the lace pattern; it looks like its argyle, but without all the tedious colorwork that you would have to put into an argyle sweater. Now that I've reached the point where it comes time to do the front piece, I find that things are getting a little sticky. I need to put it down for a while so things can click in my brain.

So then we can move on to Corona, also designed by CanaryKnits. I would consider this more of a hoodie than a vest, and the cable details on the collar make me so happy. I'm a simple kind of girl, and this little bit of detail is just perfect for me. Right now I'm knitting it in red, using two balls of red sock yarn held together. I'm really loving the fabric that is being created by doing this, and I can see myself using this pattern over and over again.

The vest from Mari Muinonen is progressing, but not as quickly as I would like. I think that I got caught up with the other two projects, and I've ignored this one for a little too long. I'm also not as happy as I could be with the cable details on this one, but not unhappy enough to frog it. But its also simple enough to put off to the side for a little. Its what I like to do, have several projects going on at once so I can move around when I get bored. I'm a bit of an ADD knitter. As soon as I can borrow another camera, pictures will follow.

Mo Rocca and Itchy Sweaters

Every Sunday morning, I like to sit with some coffee and knitting and listen to one of my favorite radio programs from NPR, Wait Wait....Don't Tell Me The past week featured comedian Mo Rocca stating that he never wore handmade sweaters because "they are always itchy". As a knitter, I was defensive, but this week's program is currently an apologetic Mo Rocca reading a prepared statement after being bombarded by knitters up in arms, and I nearly shot coffee out of my nose from laughter. I think that it is a testament to how we take things too seriously sometimes, but it is nice to know that many knitters have decided to convince Mo wrong, and are making him some lovely hand-knit sweaters. At least we know that the knitting community welds some power in the world of mass communication.




So I feel this this photo of my stash is a fitting commentary on where my life is right now. If you compare it with my past one, you can see that things are a bit more organized and co-ordinated, but still with a little chaos, which I need my life. On the bottom shelf, I keep most of my FOs that have yet to find a home, and the top shelf contains most of my craftyness tools. WIPs are scattered around the apartment, some on my nightstand so I can finish a few scarf rows before bed, or the pair of socks next to the TV, so I have something to do when I watch bad television. Everything is a little bit scattered, but I like it like that. Organized chaos and all...



My favorite project at the moment is a pair of socks that I am making for my friend Heidi from some lovely hand-dyed Footscray from Ingrid over at Yarn Workshop. A few of us gathered around her yarn-dying kettle a few weeks ago, and these beautiful yarns came out of that. It was my first time hand-dying anything more than a tie-dye t-shirt, and I must say that I am hooked. Since then, I've been perusing the asiles at Jusco and Japan Home Center, musing over the rows of stainless steel cookware, mentally justifying the money it would cost to buy myself a shiny kettle of my own. I keep telling myself that as soon as I finish my TEFL, I can reward myself with the kettle and some dye and then just go to town. The thought of all the colors that could come out of my kitchen makes the 4 hours of coursework on verbs and conjugation a little less daunting, but still tedious none-the-less.

5 Months?!

Aiya! 5 months have passed by without one post on either of my blogs! People must think that I have fallen off the edge of the planet..........but I haven't.

Lack of posting is due to several factors in my life, including, but not limited to:

• Flexible work schedule that has me running all over this S.A.R. that I call home
• Insufficient amount of pictures to do knitting projects justice
• Earning online certificate for TEFL
• YouTube........it will suck you in and never let you go.

But seriously folks, I have been slacking off in the online posting department, and I'm going to remedy that by re-instituting my Sunday rule; Sunday evenings are for getting caught up with emails and blogging, and other such correspondence. Things work out much better for me if I schedule them into my calender and have a chunk of time blocked off for any activity. I'm also the person that needs to have everything written down, otherwise I probably won't remember. So, starting tomorrow night, things should start to become more regular in the blogging universe for me and for all that read this. Until then, happy knitting!

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.