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 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!

Just a little more…

I thought I swore off yarn shopping.  Didn’t I?  I thought I did.  Hehe.  Couldn’t resist.  Went to my other LYS to buy more straw yarn for a WIP, but she didn’t have them in stock at the moment so I went searching for other yarn.  Saw MORE of my Marks & Kattens!  So happy!  Grabbed three more balls.  She has probably another two more but I am positive the extra three would be more than sufficient.  Oh, she has a pretty pink variegated too… only about eight balls of it   I can’t figure out the use for it so far, so I restrained myself from buying… good eh? 

Then I saw Mohair.  I don’t exactly love to craft with Mohair, because the one that I had, looked nice but was prickly.    That blue Mohair sweater never saw the light of day again.  It must be tucked somewhere in the closet in my brother’s room.  It didn’t exactly turn out the way I had wanted it to, too.  I wanted a cowl-necked sweater.  I got a turtleneck.    LYS (the one that I hardly go to anymore) boo-boo-ed the calculations and by the time I realized, I was almost done and no longer in the mood to reknit.  However, this particular Mohair (brandless) is SUPER CHEAP.  Cheap, as in, RM9.90 per ball.  I paid around RM25 per ball, easily about 6 years ago, for the blue mohair Hamanaka.  Cheap Cheap!  I suddenly thought of the shawl I had wanted to experiment with and so bought one, yes you heard me right, ONE ball of the variegated burnt orange (I think it’s burnt orange) mohair to experiment with.  I wondered why was it only RM9.90 … I checked with LYS and she confirmed that it was, 100% mohair, and it felt smoother than the one I had used before.  Who knows?  Maybe it’s that cheap coz it’s Made in China.  I’m not complaining. 

I went looking at other yarn (evil, evil eyes!) because I found that I have more babies to knit/crochet for.  Three, to be exact.  Project Isabella, Project Baby C and Project Baby X.  Project Isabella is for my cousin’s baby girl, due late next month.  I have thoughts about knitting a pair of baby booties from the ONline stash that I already have.  Project Baby C (coz Baby C’s mom hasn’t yet announce her name to the world) would be girly too… Haven’t yet decided what I would make Baby C, but I have a little more time on that one, because she is only due to see the world in January.    So is Baby X (named so coz he hasn’t a name yet).  Mommy KM only confirmed that Baby X is a boy, due in January.    I ended up buying two balls of blue Marks & Kattens (wished they had plain pink, I just love to work with this yarn), and two balls of Cuba yarn (RM20-ish each) in baby pink for Projects Baby X and Baby C.  Cuba yarn texture reminds me on ONline Java… *shudders* but it is slightly thicker so maybe the Tulip No.5 crochet hook will work ok with this.

Will post yarn stash pics tomorrow.    I somehow drained out the Ixus battery pack late last night so its on its way charging to full capacity now.

New Yarn

Here is my new stash ‘o yarn…

Variegated green yarn is “Bianca” by Marks & Kattens.  LYS had only 7 balls left.  I took 6.  Don’t ask me why didn’t I take them all.    Seems that they no longer produce this one.  There’s is a variegated maroon too.  That is SO pretty, but there is only 1 ball of it and I don’t really know what I can do with 1 ball.  Hardly enough for even a baby’s vest.  Well, it looks like I might just have to grab the last green ball for my current project.  I’m already on my 3rd ball, and current estimates (in my head) says that I might need 5 balls.  Cost per ball:  RM23.90.

Pink crochet yarn is by Adriafil (yeah, the one I used for the blue shrug).  I’m looking to crochet a shrug for MiMi (little Shih Tzu) to match me. hehe hehe.  Nuts, I know.    I believe that half a ball would be enough for this, but I’m looking to crochet a mini scarf for myself.  Hee.  We’ll see. 

Remember I had once mentioned about a horrible yarn by Adriafil?  Yup, that’s the yellow one.  I’m stocking up on it (because LYS no longer has it and Adriafil no longer produces it) to mend my yellow knitted piece (that I have yet to take pictures of).  I think there’s still a one and one half ball left laying somewhere in my room… with all my planned amendments, I might need about 3 balls.  I think.  I hope.  If I run out…. Oh, I don’t even want to think about it. 

Why I don’t like this yarn, you ask?  It kicks up cotton dust when you knit.  Seriously.  I was warned by LYS that some customers had problems with it, but I thought I’d try it anyway coz it was cheap.  Not exactly cheap cheap, but cheaper than what they had (RM18.90 per ball).  I didn’t have problems with it initially, but halfway thru the first ball, the cotton dust thing came about, making my nose super itchy.    I had to endure every moment knitting with it.  And right now, I can’t imagine taking my old project out and having to endure this… again…