MiMi

Tired of boarding and missing MiMi when we go on our then-annual vacation to Canada, we brought her along with us for the years 2005 and 2006.  JAL then allowed small dogs in the cabin, a rule which they have changed wef from 1 April 2006.  Boo-hoo!! 

For those who know us well, know that we try to avoid travelling in summer, being naturally insulated and all that haha!  Our trips are usually in early Spring, mid to late Fall, or either early or late Winter.  What’s the point of travelling in summer to a 4-season country when I get summer all year round back home.  Hee.

Anyway, I started to wonder if MiMi could adapt to the cold weather…she’s so pampered and domesticated that I wasn’t quite sure if she still has her doggy survival instincts!  Maternal instincts kicked in and prompted me to knit her some sweaters to bring along with us.  I can’t deny that I wasn’t having fun too.  And well, she loves to play dress up and couldn’t wait for me to put her in the knitted wear:

Clothing proved useful as I took her for daily evening walks and to Whistler Village.  At Whistler, she started to shiver eventhough I had her in not one, but two layers of clothing:  One being 100% wool (red and white striped one), and the other, 100% sparkly blue mohair.  I think she was just playing it up, so that we’d carry her and she doesn’t have to walk on the grounds!  That theory was proven when I carried her out to the balcony area of our lodge in her cotton pajamas and early morning zero-degree temperature.  She was perfectly fine!  haha! 

I believe besides the sparkly blue mohair, there’s another piece that I have knitted:  a dark heather gray piece with red trimmings and a heart design at the back.  Have to photograph these two and post it here sometime when I remember!

Since she is now no longer able to travel in the cabin area, we have stopped bringing her along with us… and thus, the knitting for her stopped too; we only dress her in 100% cotton clothing during the night, which is hassle-free as I buy baby tops for her   Ah.  So cute.

Laura’s Gift

I’m finally done with Laura’s gift and it was passed on to Min yesterday. Phew. Finally satisfied with the outcome. In total, I had rebeaded the necklace and the bracelet three times each. I just was never satisfied with the necklace, whilst for the bracelet, the matching pattern to the necklace didn’t look that appealing (too loud), therefore, I rebeaded it to something simpler and dainty.   The size looked right but after double-stranding… it was a quarter inch too short.  There goes a rebeading process again.  haha.  Didn’t find it stressful though!  Min loved the set, and I hope Laura would, too.

The finished product (earrings are no different from in the previous post so I’ve excluded it in this post):

They have arrived!

Finally, I’m reunited with James & Min after two years.    The only difference now is that there is a new addition to the family — baby Jaden.    He is absolutely gorgeous.  Wished he could have sat still enough for me to have a photo with him though, but it was not meant to be.  Yet.  Hopefully, he’d be in the right mood to pose with me come Sunday.  What a happy, smiley baby!

Min brought back for me a wonderful assortment of stuff.  Well, I mailordered stuff to be delivered to her place and she diligently brought them home for me… it wasn’t a huge lot, but boy are they heavy!  Feel kinda bad that they had to carry all these stuff for me…so so so grateful to have friends who don’t complain about how much of a nuisance I am to them hee hee

Beading Stuff
Stuff from WigJig & eBay!  Lovely, lovely, lovely!  Can’t wait to try them soon (after I have at least SOME of my WIPs turn into FOs).

Knitting Stuff
Harmony fixed circular cables and lace weight alpaca yarn… the colors are absolutely gorgeous.  Head’s abuzz with the things I’d like to do with the yarn, but haven’t yet figured which yarn to do what with.  Would like to try the Shetland Triangle with one of these though.  The head’s saying, “Use the Sunkissed”.  The heart is drawn to “Lilac’s Dream”.  A clash of two worlds.  Argh.

 
My Wrap Style book arrived on time, phew!  I’ve to say there is only a small number of things that I really like in this book… so, there’s this big chance that I might sell this book off as “used” once I complete what I am aiming to complete.

So much to do, so little time.  Stuck on my Richmore project and hoping to have the time to go over to Adeline’s to seek divine assistance *grin*.  And just realized that I have yet to photograph my Hamanaka stash.  Ah.  There’s always next time.

The Land of the Rising Sun…and stuff

This is part of my stash from Yuzawaya @ Kichijoji, Japan.  Concave round nose pliers, flat nose pliers, two accessory kits. 

 

I tried to find Clover round nose pliers but it wasn’t anywhere to be found.  Bought these from Yee’s Button House in SS2, Petaling Jaya.  Seriously costly, but worth every penny.

 

Starting work on one of the two accessory kits from Japan.  My first time using wire!

 

The finished product.  Thankfully the graphical directions weren’t hard.

 

Close up of the flower.  This is gonna be part of my accessories for Peter’s wedding on Sunday.

 

I was dying to experiment with the cookie moulds I got from Tokyu Hands, Ikebukuro, Japan.  Just lovely.  Got to admit the cookie itself wasn’t that lovely though.

 

The 1 of 4 Hello Kitty moulds!  Darn cute but the imprints don’t show as clear in person as in the picture.

 

My batch ‘o cookies.  The browner ones are from the first batch coz I wasn’t quite watching the oven… heh heh.

 

Close up of my Sunday night’s effort.

The 4-S

Swallowtail Shawl
The swallowtail is complete!  It looks a little small though I did add in a few repetitions…   But it should be fine on Evi (coz she’s small anyway!).  And with repetitions, came problems…

I was 8 stitches short when I came to Lily of the Valley Border 2… *smacks head*  Apparently I counted it correct for the transition between Budding Lace and Lily of the Valley Border 1… but failed to calculate what I needed for LOTVB 2.  Gah!  8 stitches is quite far off… but I wasn’t about to want to frog it over again.  So, I added 4 stitches to each side of the shawl… I don’t think it looks that obvious…it looks like little eyelets  

Now with the nupps.  What are nupps?  These are the dreaded nupps:

God knows who created nupps!!!  They are very pretty of course, but they are absolulely by far the worst to work with, especially when the K1, YO, K1, YO, K1 nupp is called for.  I can’t imagine who in the world would have fun purling through 5 stitches.  Well, normal stitches yes, but not nupps!  I can’t even begin to tell you what a rough time I had with these things… (that’s before I found out that there were other ways besides purling through 5 stitches)… I seriously almost gave up…

Until, I found out that hey, I could use a crochet hook to rope it all in!  Yes!  Slow, but steady.  And you get a tight (but nice) little nupp.

And I found from the internet, countless others who have had the same problem.  One suggestion was to slip 4 stitches, purl 1, and start passing over the 4 stitches, one by one, to the purled stitch.  Worked, but way too slow.  Yes, I’m impatient.

Another suggestion:  Move the stitches to the cable part of the circular needles… which is seriously, a God-sent advise.  Migrated from the crochet hook to the 4 stitch pass over, to this method.

I think I like the crochet hook nupp the best.  It does look much tighter than the others.  Found another solution… slip 2 stitches, purl 3 together, and pass over the 2 slipped stitches.  I think this will work mighty fine.  Will just try it for my very own swallowtail.  Bought the DMC Petra in black for the swallowtail for self yesterday.    And 4mm circulars…   Addicted to circulars now!  Noticed that my hands don’t tire as quickly as using the regular straight needles.

Scarf for the Beloved
Unfortunately, still no progress from Ball No. 3.  Or was that Ball No. 4?  Hehe.  Am kinda taking my time coz he won’t be able to use it till Fall/Winter anyway, and it’s only Summer now, so I have plenty of time (so I think). 

Something New
I can’t resist starting new projects!  That’s why I have multiples of WIPs…so I don’t get bored, actually.  Bought the 2008 Spring/Summer Richmore magazine… in love with the crochet piece on the cover (and quite a number of things on the inside, of course).  Bought DMC Petra in a light khaki color yesterday at Adeline’s too.  Started on it as soon as I got home from dinner… but frogged it gazillion of times because I kept counting it wrong…either too little stitches, or too much.  I think I have it mentally calculated rightly now (it wasn’t actually Quantum Physics but I don’t know why I just couldn’t get it right), but the 3 rows I had worked on had been frogged so much I don’t think the yarn is in the greatest of conditions.  Therefore, I’m gonna cut off that part of the yarn and use the frogged yarn as waste yarn ~ great for starting my black swallowtail

Someone’s Wedding
Laura’s (Min’s colleague) earrings are done, and I just love ‘em to bits!  I managed to beadwrap the centerpiece too… I think it looks much better that way.  With beadwrapping, meant I had to redo the necklace.  Which is ok with me, because I wasn’t ecstatic with the original way the centerpiece was sitting.  Min said Laura was already mighty pleased with the way it was, but I couldnt stand it and just had to redo it.  It’s half redone anyway.  Bracelet to follow.  Deadline, hopefully Monday.

Before beadwrapping: 

  After beadwrapping:

Earrings…

That’s when Min will be back from the States with James and one-year old Jaden.  Oh I can’t wait.  I haven’t seen them in 2 years!  Plus, Min will be bringing home for me, some lovely lovely things I had mail-ordered ~ artistic wire for beading and Harmony circulars and yarn from www.knitpicks.com  Was so tempted to buy the Harmony circular interchangable  set but it was $69.99 and had me thinking twice…or three times… probably more… PLUS, my immediate need was for the less than 4mm circulars.  So, instead of the interchangable Harmony, I bought the fixed cable Harmony… can’t remember what sizes I bought though…haha!  Absent-minded.  Oh, can’t wait!  Can’t wait!

WIPs & FO

Finished Object
Finally, I’ve the pic of Baby Isaac’s booties that I knitted in time for his full moon  

Sadly though, he grew out if it pretty quick (as all babies do, I guess).  But anyhow, at least I have ONE finished object to show haha!

Works in Progress
Working on two things at the moment, the Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn Clark in Blue DMC Petra (love this yarn!) for Evi, and a simple k4, p2 scarf pattern in variegated black/grey by Olympus, Japan, for the beloved.  Blush.

And yes, it IS possible to knit the Swallowtail in one week.  I’ve been knitting every night or every two nights since last Wednesday, and am already at the Lily of the Valley Border 1.  The nupps are really slowing me down, but I’m glad to say it’s coming along.  More pics on the shawl and updates on nupps later!

The K4, P2 scarf:

This is part of my yarn stash from Yuzawaya, Kichijoji, Japan.  Have yet to photograph the gorgeous mohair and raffia from Hamanaka.    Just finished ball number 3, 4 more balls to go.  Might just bring this over to London to finish up as am kinda addicted to lace knitting at the moment  

Next up, hoping to go to Kinokuniya tomorrow to browse the Japanese knitting, crocheting and beading books :)  Really addicted to those… gah, I have quite a number already but they just come out with more and more pretty things to look at!  I’ve got to set a budget for myself for tomorrow’s book shopping else I’ll just spiral out of control! 

Back to Blogging

I’ve been missing for quite a while, I know! Why the new blog addie again… Hmmm. I don’t know, really. I guess I pretty much prefer my new addie: theimpatientcrafterThat sums me up well, doesn’t it? Anyway, since the registration of the new blog, I’ve been having problems trying to import the posts from my other blog… I can’t seem to get it to work well! Sidebars disappearing, everything going haywire…it just refuses to leave me in peace. Sigh. I’ve given up on trying to make that work for today. Hopefully I’ll be able to figure it all out soon, and the pictures of my mostly UFOs will be back up here

Will post on the status of my craftings since December soon. Do come back in a couple of days!