ABC-Def-Ghi

The Alphabet Blanket

I started the alphabet blanket from Debbie Bliss's Baby Knits books last Sunday night. I really wanted to start Martha from Rowan 37,

Get rid of that sash!


but I couldn't find the Phildar Plaisance that I have in stash. It's around here somewhere, but for the past week, it has eluded me. Rather than start with some other yarn (I have rather a lot of Rowan 4 ply cotton in stash), I thought that I would start something else instead.

Now, this baby blanket is in lieu of a christening shawl. The Tina Shawl is stalled, I haven't picked her up for 2 months and at the moment there's so much that I want to start, no NEED to start, that I thought a pause might not be altogether bad.

The Alphabet blanket is supposed to be a *special* blanket for a special baby. I dug deep into my stash and unearthed a vintage pack of Jaeger Pure Cotton in Frosting, a very pale blue. Now the meterage and tension matches the Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton exactly and I'm thinking that with 10 balls, and a simpler edging, I'll be fine (eventhough the pattern specifies 11 balls). I know, living life on the edge. Worst case, I'll just a darker shade of blue for the border. I bought rather a lot of the Pure Cotton years ago. It was being discontinued, offered at a great price and having used it once, love it, eventhough it has the annoying habit of splitting if you pay more attention to the tv than to the knitting.

Rowan 37

I know, Kim Hargreaves is gone, but I thought Rowan 37 has improved a lot from the last summer magazine. There's quite a few things that I want to do, although that whole story line with the ginormous pockets and ungainly buckles is in a wordy.... scary.

So what else from 37?

Love it and in a DK weight, it would work up quickly too.

I would do this slightly longer, with long sleeves and add buttons. I love the stitch but an XL is only 40 inches in the bust.

Would make a nice cardi, minus those pockets

On first glance, I thought, too fussy for me. Yet, I keep finding myself drawn too it. Maybe if I ditch the beads and work it in a stronger colour

... and this is the wish list without mentioning RYC and the new Jaeger booklets.

Magic

Lion Brand Magic Stripe

On Seventh Avenue heading downtown from 32nd Street, I found a little craft shop. I noticed in the window... yarn, so I went in to investigate. There wasn't a lot of stuff and most of what they had was novelty and acrylic. I don't have anything against acrylic per se, but I'm not much of a fan of knitting with it and I don't tend to wear anything 100% acrylic.

I did get a lovely scarf for Christmas in 100% acrylic. It doubles as a cowl/hood and it's very stylish and cleverly designed. It also makes all my hair stand up on ends and gives everyone that I touch electric shocks. So, clearly I'm not an acrylic kind of girl.

Then I noticed, Lion Brand's sock yarn, Magic Stripes. I *had* to buy 2 balls, one for me and another for a friend to try. For the whopping price of $6.50, you get 100g of 75%wool/25%polyamide sportweight (300meters/100g) sock yarn. I swear it this one looks just like Regia's Provence colourway. It's manufactured in Italy, just like regia.

I let my mom chose which colourway and she preferred to have the purple one. I want my mom to test the wear and tear because she's very hard on socks. She can wear through a pair in one season. I think because she has very rough heels and refuses to go to get a proper pedicure on the grounds that she doesn't like her feet being touched. She also wears them on carpets and tends to drag her heels as well. So, I'll let you know how the trials go.

I'm hoping that they would go well, because at these prices, even the snobbiest of yarn snobs can't really turn their nose up at it.

Old Bean Hat

The old bean hat went down a treat with my dad. It's in a conservative (boring) colour. It's warm. It's soft. Only problem is, it arrived after the cold snap broke, so it didn't get any wear at all by my dad when I was in town.

It did get worn by my nephew, who refused to give it back to my dad, eventhough it was far too big for him. Now if I can only get him to start calling my dad coconut (in cantonese, grand-dad on father's side is called Yea-yea which sounds just like coconut). My sister-in-law calls my dad Lo-Yea which sounds just like old coconut.

My mom said that I was a very bad influence. Well, that's true too.

Here's a bit of fun, courtesy of The Wizardly Knitter

Your Brain is 93.33% Female, 6.67% Male

You have the brain of a girly girl Which isn't a bad thing at all You're emphatetic, caring, and in tune with emotions. You're a good friend and give great advice.

What Gender Is Your Brain?

Now, I went back and did it again, and ended up being 100% female. Well, it's blatently obvious, isn't it? I mean, I paint my toenails!

Do it again

Kiri is done.. blocked and all the ends have been stitched in. The feel of ths shawl changes when you work it in the heavier yarns. It's warm and also a fast knit, cascade is definitely an easier yarn to work with than the kid silk haze. Cascade is also wonderfully soft and comes in about a gazillion shades. There were at least 3 shades of red to choose from. I want choice but too much choice can be a bit overwhelming and in the end, I asked a 10 year girl to pick 2 skeins of red cascade for me. In case, you're probably interested in the provenance of the yarn, it's from Yarn Connection, across the street from the Pierpont Library in New York. I always try and work in a visit here when I'm in NY. It's not the biggest shop, doesn't have the most stock, doesn't have the most interesting stock, but it's got a good mix, friendly and knowledgeable sales people and location-wise very convenient. I might not remember exactly where it is, but I can always hop a cab for the Pierpont Library and know that my yarn fix is just across the street.

The edging is done with a short-row shaping technique to emphasize the points on the sk2p. The edging was a 3 stitch garter, attached with a yo, k2tog with shawl edging, so the entire shawl had a 3 stitch edging for the border.

I'm not entirely satisfied with the center. It's symetrical, but I'm thinking that I ought to create one extra repeat to make the center come to a point.

Another close-up of the stitches.

Here's the whimsical shot. Kiri relaxing on my lavendar.

So how much of a shawl did I get with 2 skeins of cascade 220? After blocking, the width at the widest point is 54 inches and the depth from neck to point is 24 inches... a total of 90 'leaves'. I got 42 full 'leaves' before having to splice in the second ball of yarn.

Given the configuration :

Repeat 1: 2 leaves
Repeat 2: 4 leaves
Repeat 3: 6 leaves
Repeat 4: 8 leaves
.....etc.
Repeat 9: 18 leaves

Adding another skein of cascade will give you only 2 more repeats. (like, how I worked that out?) Like curtain making, you need to know the pattern repeats, so telling you exactly how many leaves is useless, because you have to know how many full leaves.

Now some of you might thing, this is a SHAWL not a scarf, but I beg to differ. It's a very small shawl, more scarf-like than shawl-like and can be worn like a cowl to keep head, ears and neck warm.... and Nancy Bush has a triangular scarf in Scarf Style and if she says that it's a scarf, who am I to disagree with her.

Sail Away

Way to go, Ellen!

World record holder for fastest solo non-stop circumnavigation, Ellen Mcarthur and her trimaran B&Q, sailed from Greenwich to Tower Bridge this morning. She's one amazing woman and we got up early and headed over to India Quays to see her sail by.

In fact, we got there so early, that we saw her heading to Tower Bridge and then heading back to Greenwich. It is pretty spectacular when you consider the achievement. Fortunately, on her way back, we were warmly tucked up and munching our way through some dim sum. It can get pretty windy up on the Wharf.

Baby Cable Socks

I'd started these socks as my new years project and have been remiss in getting them done. Socks make great commuting projects, especially if the yarn comes in 50g skeins. Unfortunately, the main drawback is if you misplace the second skein. I've been searching high and low over the past month with no luck. Imagine my surprise to find in in the box with the rest of the sock yarn stash. Clearly, my new year's resolutions aren't going all that well.

Off to check Kiri and see if she's ready for her photo shoot.

You make me feel like dancing

Weekends... a time for me to catch-up on some sleep, to potter around the house, unpack and organise the wool room. The wool room is a tiny room Chez ATU, but as wool is so compressible, I can really cram it in. Unfortunately, a spate of untidiness on my part has meant wool in every room of the house, enough to drive even the most saintly of husbands, bananas.

Red Scarf Project

After an hour or so of house work, I got bored, so I took my tango out for a photo session. If I were to do this scarf again, I would definitely use a larger size needle. I used 4 ply yarn and 3.25mm needles but I think I was knitting to tightly and as a consequence, the scarf isn't as drapey as it should be.

I started this project on the night that I flew to NY. I cast on in the airport lounge waiting for my flight and the photo that I showed 2 weeks ago was my progress from knitting about 3 hours. Obviously, I have no shame, since I was the only person knitting and reviewing documents for work during most of the flight.

Here's a much better close-up of the pattern. Those pictures previously posted, were awful.

In fact, this scarf took me under 9 hours to complete and was worked on during on the flight, and on my commute to to work from Long Island. Now, I'm sure that I can cut an hour off of that if I went up to a 3.75 mm needle.

I'm also contributing this to the Red Scarf Project.

I've reworked the bottom edging using a short row technique to emphasize the leave design, which I think works better on the heavier yarn that I used. This was made with just 2 skeins of Cascade 220. It's kind of a proof of concept, since Tina wrote me about using a heavier, more affordable yarn. Cascade is priced as mid-range yarn and I paid just under $16 for the 2 skeins in NY. Given NYC prices, I would bet that you should be able to find it cheaper.

Now I would had finished this on the flight back to blighty if I didn't 'decide' on the whim to short-row shape the edging. I'm not 100% pleased with the ending, but I know why I'm not pleased so it'll mean I'll have to knit another Kiri to see if my theory is right.

Kiri in worsted weight/heavy DK on 5.00mm takes about 10 hours to finish... much quicker than the Kiri in KSH which took over 20 hours. I can't wait until it dries so that I can see the drape.

Save the last dance for me

More on DC

On the drive back to NY from Alexandria, the husband noticed this. Naturally, I had to take out my camera and grab a shot. All I kept thinking was... this person MUST be a knitter and do I **know** her. The things that pray on my mind. So if it's you, 'fess up!

Sockapalooza

Am I ever going to get done with the Travellers Sock? Unfortunately, I've frogged it. It was frustrating but when I got past the 36 row pattern for the cuff and into the plain part, then I noticed that I messed up one of the repeats. Once you start frogging something on 2mm needles, it's sometimes easier to just start over... and so I did.. with another pattern.

This is foot #1 of the New England design, also by Nancy Bush from Knitting on the Road, also on 2.0mm. I must emphasieze that this is a more difficult pattern than it appears. You need to swatch and measure carefully before starting or you will have problems finishing off the last repeat.

This isn't a great picture but you get the point. Oh how I wished that there was more warnings before I cast on, because it could had all gone very badly. As it was, I had to improvise to get the toe cast off to work so that it might have a chance of fitting my pal's foot.

One down, one to go.

Red Scarf Project

Tango needs a blocking. Red yarn with the gold beads... very new year-ish combo. This yarn is a wonderful mercerised cotton that my Valentina, Secret Pal 2 sent me. It's a croatian cotton and can I say super or what? It's got such a silky sheen...and doesn't split at all.

Here's a close-up of the lacework. I hope that I don't ruin it when I do the blocking. I've never blocked cotton before and I'm kind of tempted to use the steam iron.

Just the final touches before I send it off to Lisa

Don't forget, there's still plenty of time to knit something red for the Red Scarf Project, should you feel inclined to do so. Scaves don't take long to finish and you can crank one out in just one evening.

Yes, I know, red doesn't photgraph well under artificial light. I wish I can blame it on my aged camera.

Now I really must go and try and unpack at least one of my suitcases.

Politics as Usual

Year of the Chicken

I ran off to NY for the Chinese New Year celebrations with my family. Chinese New Year is a very family oriented holiday and you can't really do the festivities without having a gazillion relatives that you only see once or twice a year around. It was good to be home, to get some R&R and to see friends like Kay and Valentina. It's always hard to try and see people when I go home. Mom and Dad always seem to plan family things and the husband caught a bug on the flight so we did not venture into town or stay in town as long as we had intended.

Washington D.C.

We did however, high-tail it out of New York for a few days to visit a friend in Pennsylvania and stopped by in DC to see the Smithsonian (No, this was not an underhanded way to get to Knit Happens as the we were only in Washington for about a day and Knit Happens is closed on Monday and I was not about to ask the overworked Kristine or any of her fabulous staff to open up shop, just so that I can more yarn. Even I am not that heartless...

I love the Smithsonian. We went to the Freer Gallery and the Air and Space Museum. (Remind me to pack a lunch next time, it's really expensive eating in the McD's in the Air and Space Museum). I was really surprised that the museum did not charge an entry fee, but annoyed to bits that a few locals had levered off the 'You are Here' tags from the maps around the museum, and took to trying to sell the 'lost' tourist copies of maps that they could pick-up for free inside the Museum.

I walked "the walk" down the mall and even managed to knit a few stitches while visiting with Lincoln. The view is spectacular and the Smithsonian is well worth the detour

Come Dancing

Red Scarf Project

I've finally started my red scarf for the red scarf project. It's a worthy cause, close to my heart and one that I've heard about from Tracy, Siow Chow, Kay and Annie. So if you have a spare moment and some red yarn, go for it and support Lisa by knitting a red scarf.

Although I would had gotten a quicker knit out of big needles, I've decided to do Tango from Jaeger's accessories booklet . Rowanette Louise kindly sent me this for Christmas. Isn't it gorgeous? Yes, I am indeed a lucky girl.

Now, the reason that I choose this design is because I love the one that Louise made me and I hope that whoever gets my tango would enjoy wearing it as much as I do.

Coincidentally, red scarf, gold beads, what an appropriate project for Chinese New year. I wish you all a happy and properous chicken year.

..and no matter what your age, if you're unmarried, don't forget to say Gung Hay Fat Choy and ask for your lai sees.

Crazy

Polly1, Regia Crazy sock Yarn 0

No matter what I did, the yarn runs did not work out so that I could had an identical pair of sock. The taunting was too much. I took out my trusty scissors and MADE them identical.

That's right, I matched sock to sock and cut. There were a lot of ends to darn in, but who cares, I showed that Regia who was boss...

Don't mess with me Regia, I have scissors and I'm not afraid to use them!