A Little Showcase

Grandma's vest. The yarn is light, a bit fuzzy, soft, and warm. The colour looks a bit strange here but in fact it's a really nice olive green. My gandma likes it.

My Lopi pullover, here is a better "pose", taken under natural light.
My brother's sweater, I blocked it two weeks ago, so took another picture for reference.

A Little Crocheted Gift Bag

Pattern: From a Japanese Doily Book that I borrowed from the library
Yarn: Lang Yarns SARA, size 10 thread
Hook: Red Heart 1.60 mm
Beads: Guterman Sead Beads, jet colour

hmm... This bag is much smaller than I expected.

Lopi Pullover

Pattern: Aftur 21 from Lopi 25
Needles: Inox 4.5mm and 4.0mm circular needles.
Yarn: Lett-Lopi 12 balls, from Romni Wools
Modifications: Body and sleeves were shortened, main colour was change from oatmeal to brown (Oatmeal was sold out, so I had to make this change).

It's the first Icelandic pullover I made. Easy to construct - circular knitting, no pull sts except the moss stitch edging, no seams, no set in sleeves, no stitch counting except the yoke. Fast and fun!

But, but... I have to complain about the yarn! It's raw and I even found grass blended in the wool. Alas... my skin itches!

Crochet lace, again.

After a long long time, this week I picked up my fine steel hooks again, and finished this "Tulip Pineapple Doily", which has been hiding in my lace box for months (at least 14 months). It looks like a simple project, but the little picots took me forever to finish! Doily in now days has no functional purpose at all, but I really like the delicate effect, and I think of it as an art piece.

Pattern: I forgot where the pattern is from.

Hook: Red Heart 1.00 mm steel crochet hook. ( I think Red Heart's hooks are much better than Colver's, although they are really cheap)

Thread: DMC Cordonnet Special crochet thread No. 40.

If you would like to try crochet lace, use DMC's thread. I think they are the best!

My first hand knitted sock

This is my first hand knitted sock, using Wendy's short row toe up method. It's a very easy pattern but I had trouble figuring out the "correct" sssk. On the knit side, after I picked up the two wraps, I then knitted them together with the stitch (without slipping them onto the right needle first). On the purl side, I purl the wraps and the stitch together as well, but then it produced a different result (the difference can be seen from the short row toe and the short row heel).

Then, on the knit side, I tried to slip the stitches onto the right needle first, it turned out that the stitches are somehow twisted.

So what is the right method?

Problem solved.

昨天看世界杯决赛, 真是感慨万分.
ZIDANE 就像非洲原野上的一头暮年雄狮, 拥有灿烂的战绩和辉煌的过去. 在夕阳的余辉下, 用犀利有神的目光傲视群雄, 那是王者的风范.

然而却因一股怒气, 一声狮吼, 一个头搥, 最后一张红牌伴随他离开戎马半生的舞台, 那是一代球王的终生遗憾.

人生, 美中不足时常有.

Vest for grandma

I didn't stop knitting. About three weeks ago my grandma said she wanted me to knit a vest for her. I said sure, and put her request on the first spot of my long knitting and crochet queue. She wanted something that is large, comfortable, and simple. Finally I came up with this design. This is my first knitted garment for grandma, and it's also the largest one I've ever made - 116 cm bust circumference, 64 cm length! Thank goodness I knitted it with a very simple besket weave pattern. It's quite an easy project, took me about two weeks. Everything was done yesterday, but my sister took my camera to Halifax, so I couldn't take a picture for the finished vest.

Pattern: Just a standard vest I made, no pattern.
Yarn: seven balls of Garnstudio's Angora Tweed (I love that yarn!).
Needles: Inox 4.00 mm & 3.50 mm circular needles.


The arm hole shapes like a parabola, my grandma's request. She likes that kind of shaping.

Buttons I got from Mac Fab, my favourite fabric store in Toronto.

While I was making the vest my grandma was astounded about the quantity of knitting helpers I got. She recalled in the old days women in my home town (a small village in south China) DIY their knitting needles directly from bamboo trees. This brought me back to the memories of my childhood in China - about my nanny taught me how to knit when I was seven years old. Nanny Liang was a very nice lady, and I still remember how she taught me the "knit" stitch patiently. But in China, many people believe knitting, and other kinds of needlework is not appropriate for children to learn (所谓玩物丧志); only school education is essential, and only getting a good grade is important. Unfortunately, my nanny also worried that knitting would affect my academic performance (even though I was only seven years old!), she allowed me to watch her and her knitting buddies making beautiful children sweaters, but refused to taught me how to "purl" after I successfully learned how to "knit". For many years before I came to Canada, I only knew how to "knit", and could only produce gather stitch fabric!

Even today, because of that belief people pushed to me in my childhood, I still couldn't knit in public -If I do I would really really really feel timid and ashamed (I would feel like a child doing something not behaving). Hah! But that doesn't destroy my passion for knitting. I knit happily at home and feel comfortable to share my enthusiasm on crafting with people through web blogs.

Yarn Shop update:
One more yarn shop is added: http://www.yarnshoptoronto.blogspot.com

Lastly, I would like to showcase the stash I got from LYS in May and June - I broke my record again because I've never bought that much yarn at a time. These two months during my visit to yarn stores I bought some yarn here and some there, and when I gather the stash together, it's like a yarn hill.

Jaeger Trinity, I am going to knit this for me.

Garnstudio's Alpaca yarn saved for the Union Square Market Pullover, but I don't think I would have time to knit that.

Rowan 4 ply soft, for the Kittiwake hat shown in Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting.

Lanet baby wool...

Alpaca lace yarn - two hanks for the Icarus Shawl from IK summer 2006, the third hank is for a lace scarf.

Mohair yarn - it's was on sale so I bought some.

Galway wool - enough for making two vests for my brother.

p.s I am currently knitting a Lopi sweater for myself. But since I don't have a camera with me right now, I would show my finished sweater later.