The Weekend

I had a wonderful weekend!  It didn’t start of as wonderful at first, coz mom woke me up at 8:30am on a Sunday morning just to ask me one question.  ONE.   I woke up groggily and because the answer to the question required some thinking, it stirred up some brain juices and I was fully awake before I knew it.  I so know I had wanted to sleep some more and not get up till at least 10.30am!  Lazy, I know.

It was only 9:15am when I was done with rolling on the bed, stretching, and washing up.  What was I to do?  CSI didn’t start till noon.  Oh well.  I looked at the strand of Chrysocolla Jasper beads and wanted to do something with it, but it didn’t happen.  I wanted to work with wire, but couldn’t get my brain to figure out how to incorporate the beads into the wiring.

So I picked up Swarovski pearls and crystals instead.  And I landed up with something pretty good (to me anyway).  Hehe.

It’s still not complete though.  I am not quite sure how I want the back portion to be.  It would either be repeaters of what’s in front, or a plain crystal-pearl-crystal-pearl back.  I’m leaning towards repeaters, coz I think it would look more polished.

I’ve also started work on a pink version of the Richmore top.  The upper front and back are already attached together, but I uh, lost interest in its progress.  To the side it goes, and to something new I start.    Received luscious 100% silk yarn from both Thailand (eBay) and Halcyon Yarn… both are gorgeous yarns, but the Thailand one is of a heavier weight compared to the Halcyon one, and therefore, unsuitable for the delicate shrug I’m working on to complement the wedding dress (if it works out to be how I imagined it in my head).

Therefore, I’ve started work on a jacket/shrug with it.  It might go with the spaghetti-strapped white dress I’m planning to use for the ROM ceremony.  And yeah, it’s crochet again.    I’m a bit paranoid if I would have enough yarn for a knitted piece (I have 800gms but haiya, who knows?).  If I have leftovers, I’ll probably knit up an Evelyn Clark shawl with it. 

The beloved’s scarf remains unfinished, but time is passing quickly~ he will be back end of next month!!!  I’ve to finish it by then!! hehe.  Wish me luck.  As for the green shrug, I am still not done tucking in the tails.  Sigh.  For the blue shrug, contemplating frogging the edges and putting the original edges back in.  I noticed that with washing, the top will hang… and the edges would therefore, technically, hang much better than it did before.  We’ll see.  Wish I will have more inspiring weekends like the last!

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! 

The Shrug, Completed… sort of…

I have itchy hands, I’ve to admit.  Anyway, I actually finished the shrug.  Well, it’s like 98% finished, coz I haven’t tucked in all the tails yet (waiting for God knows when).  Here it is in all it’s glory:

Then here comes the itchy hands part.  Saw another edging in yet another book that I have, and thought, “Hey!  This could look better (slightly wider) than the one currently on shrug.  Maybe I should try it on one sleeve.”

Tried it I did.  Horrible it came out.  Time wasted.  Super demotivated.  How very intelligent.  Now it’s just gonna sit there hanging on my coat rack until I have the motivation to take the horrible mess out and put the other edging back on again.  So not looking forward to it.  This is what the Chinese call “catching the worm and stuffing it up your ass”.  Oh drats.

Semi-completed

I started work on the edgings for the sleeve today.  It came out… huge.    I really liked the pattern, but it is really bell-ed, and I look… well… ahem… “bigger”.

I made sure I took a photo of it (after all my hard work) before I unravelled the whole sleeve and started over again.  Went through all my books to get an edging pattern that will match and not look so big.  I don’t think the new pattern is the most exciting of things, but at least it doesn’t look as bad on me as this one did.  I am done with the sleeves, and working on the body of the shrug.  Should be able to post the completed picture soon!

Also, I got distracted by another project yesterday.  So, yeah, this failed to make it as THE project that I could finish without starting another one.  Sigh.  Here’s what I’m doing now…

It’s for Baby Kyrie!    She will turn one month soon!  I am hoping this would actually fit her.  This yarn has a pretty sheen and a really smooth texture, but I found it quite hard to work with (maybe because I am not as skilled!) because it snags easily (for me anyway).  I’ve been trying to stay away from this yarn as long as I could but alas, I’ve run out of things that I liked.  I finished the main part of this little top in a few hours (the joys of crafting for a baby!).  Will work on the edgings after I finish my shrug.

My timeline:  Shrug to be completed by this evening and baby top to be completed by tomorrow evening.    Oh by the way… I started work on another shrug… couldn’t resist the variegated yarn!!!  Bought a stash over the weekend (whatever was left of it).  Now I have more yarn.  Sigh.  I just can’t stop!

The Shrug, Part II

I’m so proud of M-E!  I beat myself to my timeline and actually got the sleeve finished last night!  And… drum roll please… it’s BLOCKED!  yahoo!  ok ok ok.  It’s ONLY partially blocked.  I managed to stretch out one sleeve and the body of the shrug, but not the other sleeve coz my blocking board couldn’t fit it all in.  Left it to dry overnight and this morning it’s lookin’ all good!  Will proceed to block sleeve numero due this evening.  Not sure yet of my schedule tomorrow night, but if I have nothing on, I think I will just go over to my LYS after work to get educated on how to seam up the sleeves.  The only way I know is doing slip stitches, but LYS said it would create a thicker seam.  She had suggested needling the thread thru each chain (oh what a pain!) and had sort of showed me how to do it (without actually doing it), but I’m getting cold feet.  I’d rather she start it off for me so that I am sure I know what I am doing.  Hah!  I’ll be project-less this evening~~  been working on the shrug for almost every evening since around September 20th.  Wow, I only took 2 weeks?  phew!  I’ll be kind of lonely without something to do tonight… oh oh, we are going over to an old friend’s place for dinner.    Maybe after blocking the other sleeve tonight I’ll go paint my toenails…. hmm… they are stripped off color at the moment and natural nail color is a little yellow from all the red-based OPI lacquers I’ve been using so they ain’t exactly a pretty sight at the moment.

Ok ok.  Paint nails I shall.   Laters.

The Shrug

This is my work in progress!  I’m quite happy about it really… it has been quite a while since I touched the crochet hook ‘n yarn.

Doesn’t look too bad does it?  I think it will look a whole lot better with blocking.  I am hoping to be able to finish it up by Thursday so that I can have it blocked on Friday… I can’t wait to start on the ruffles!    I am so motivated!  For now, at least.  Here’s how far I’ve gone:

Yep, I’m just missing a sleeve!  Yahoo!  Oh oh, I used Adriafil for this piece… on my 2nd ball now… I think this piece would take at max, 3 balls of 100gm each.  My LYS had only 4 balls left, but plenty of ONline crochet yarns in baby blue… however, this was a prettier blue, and I didn’t think that I would need 4 balls (but bought ‘em all anyway, “just in case”).  I’ve also worked with ONline before but I feel that Adriafil crochet yarn is smoother and easier to work with (can’t say the same for the other Adriafil I used! — will post on that later).  Cost per ball:  RM39.90.

What I like about knitting/crocheting shrugs is that I don’t have to attach sleeves… I’m still quite hopeless at that…   Actually, it’s more like, I don’t have the patience!  haha!  That’s why, shrugs are COOL!   I have another shrug in progress, but I’ve kinda given that up because it doesn’t fit sob sob!  Ah well… might just finish it up for sake and probably sell it off or something.  It does no wonders sitting in my closet.

 

Me @ 11:10am