Month: September 2005

I have knitting to report

First of all, startitis is still raging. Not only did I start River, I’ve also started on Liesel now. Here’s how she looks like at 2 repeats.

Liesel at 2 repeats

And this is the yarn that I’m using. It’s the Lang Moana yarn that I bought at Lincraft a few weeks ago.

Casted on

I quite like the yarn, especially the colours. But I’m a bit worried that the colours are a bit too noisy for the lace pattern. It is kind of difficult to see the leaves pattern among all those colours! I think I’ll try a few more repeats and see how it goes. I’m leaning towards just continuing with this yarn, since people probably can’t see the pattern anyway when I’m wearing the scarf.

The yarn has quite a nice drape, and quite nice to wear against the skin, even at the back of the neck. It’s 50% cotton and 50% nylon. The problem with this yarn is that it splits easily if I’m not careful, because of its mesh-like texture.

The pattern is not as easy as I thought it would be. I’m used to lace patterns where every other row is just straight purls, which gives me some sort of ‘break’ from reading the chart/pattern every other row. This is not one of those patterns. So far it has been quite tiring, having to continuously look at the chart, and having to look at the knitting to watch out for snags. Well, the pattern’s designer said that the lace pattern would be easy to memorise. So maybe I just have to keep going and hopefully I’ll be able to memorise the pattern, or work out the pattern based on the rows below (like I do with Kiri).

In other news, the fair isle poncho is almost done. Here it is at the moment, modelled by Annette:

Poncho before blocking

It needs blocking, and then some fringes. I’m so not looking forward to fringing it! But I think it wouldn’t look quite right without the fringes.

And here is River, after one whole ball of the Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Kid Mohair.

River

Not much at all, is it? I am quite disappointed. One ball only got me two repeats! And I only have 3 balls. So it doesn’t look like I can make this into a shawl after all. But still, I might still keep going and then use it as lap blanket or something. Just because something is a mistake, doesn’t mean it’s useless! Ha!

28 September 2005

Similar But Different

Remember how I was planning to make a lace scarf? I was thinking of making knitty’s Branching Out. But then, today I found Liesel! It’s a free pattern too. Here’s what she looks like:

Liesel drooping elm lace scarf

It features the Drooping Elm lace pattern. Compare this with Branching Out:

Branching out scarf

They look kind of similar, don’t they? It’s a really tough choice, but I think I like Liesel better. Somehow the non-symmetrical-ness has more appeal to me. More leafy look perhaps?

On another note, today I also discovered the new Kim Hargreaves winter collection — the Evergreen. Lots of Rowan Big Wool featured in this collection. I love her designs, but for now purchasing her kits are still in the ‘Wishful Thinking’ category for me. I just don’t have the budget for them. But what I wanted to show you is this. Meet Constance.

Constance

When I saw this, I thought, hey that looks kind of familiar! Now I know. It looks similar to the Sesame cardi in MagKnits! Look:

Sesame

I reckon they look similar, except that Constance is in solid colour and in chunkier yarn. But I think I’d still stick with Sesame. Not only is the Big Wool too expensive for me, it is also too thick for the average Sydney climate and too thick to be the everyday cardigan that I’m after.

19 September 2005

Startitis

Whoa, what’s this?? Why it’s a new project!

River stole, setup rows

Closeup of setup rows

It’s the River stole from Rowan 38. I’m knitting this using some Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Kid Mohair in Millet from the stash. The JS mohair is heavier than the prescribed Kidsilk Haze, and has smaller yardage compared to KSH. So I’m a bit worried I might run out of yarn. I only have 3 balls, 87m (95yd) each. Well we’ll see…

I’m using 6.5mm plastic circular needles, I think the brand name was ‘Birch’ or something like that. I like how the needles are fused together to the cords, which means the cords can’t snap off the needles. (I had a bad, bad, bad experience with a pair of cheap circular needles in the past — the cords snapped off the needles after using it for only 1 row!) The only bad thing about this circs is that the cords are still rather stiff, since it’s only the first time I’m using them.

I started this yesterday, after seeing how great the finished products look on the knitalong. And I’ve just been in a very big mood to start new projects this past few days! Not that I’ve finished Kiri shawl and the children’s poncho or anything! I’ve also been itching to start on the lace scarf. Oh dear.

But I haven’t completely neglected my other projects. See, I’ve finished the body of the poncho! Just need the hood now.

Starting on hood

13 September 2005

Stash Acquisitions

Oh what a weekend! First on Friday I discovered that the new Fall Knitty is up. Yay!! I really like this issue, there are lots of cardigan patterns! I’ve been looking for a good pattern to knit my first adult cardigan, so this is great!! I also love bubby, I’m definitely going to give that a go.

Then I discovered the YARN magazine, a new Australian knitting/crochet magazine! They have their first issue up on their website, with all the articles and patterns available in PDF. The articles and columns look pretty interesting. It really is great to see another Australian mag about knitting, and it would certainly be nice to see more of the knitting scene in Australia.

Saturday I went to the city to visit Lincraft and the Tapestry Craft. You can be sure there were some stash acquisitions! 🙂 First, there’s this Lang Moana yarn, which I’m thinking of making a lace scarf, perhaps Branching Out from Knitty.

Lang Moana

Lang Moana closeup

It has quite an interesting texture — a ribbony mesh-like yarn, light and airy. Looks like it would drape well. I hope so.

Then, I got this Filatura Di Crosa Zara merino yarn, which is destined to be a cardigan for Annette. It’s so soft!

Zara merino yarn

And then, I went past Dymocks and saw this in the Crafts section!!

At Knit's End

Woohoo!!! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it! At Knit’s End by the Yarn Harlot!! In a bookshop, in Sydney!! When the book first came out, I looked for it in various bookstores, to no avail. I resigned myself to the fact that knitting is just not that big a thing in Australia, and that for me good knitting books can only be acquired through Amazon. But now, here it is, in my very own living room! Yay!! Been reading it bit by bit since I got it, and I just love it! (See I live among people who still think that knitting is only for grandmas, so reading this book makes me feel like, there are people out there who understand how I feel!)

The other thing that I was looking for in my trip to the city was a longer circular needle for my Kiri shawl, but alas, none of the craft shops have it on stock. Oh well… maybe I’ll just have to order online, or just see how far I can go on the shawl with just a 60cm circs? We’ll see.

This weekend was also the first time I’m selling yarns through eBay. 🙂 Managed to sell all of the five items that I put up for auction, and I’m quite happy with the results. Thank you to all who participated in the auction! Selling for the first time, I must say that it can be quite an obsession 🙂 As the ending time neared, I would be checking my items list to see how many bids they’ve got, every a few minutes! I would ask the husband to check as well, when he’s on the computer. And he would say, “No, no changes in the last 2 seconds.” 😀

Overall, great weekend I’d say. 🙂

12 September 2005

On my needles

I was going to start this knit blog by cataloging the items that I have knitted in the past. But then there would be a lot of them, and many are probably not that interesting anymore now. So I thought I’d better just post pictures of the items on my Flickr account instead, and I’d just write about what’s on my needles now. That would be more exciting! So here goes…

First, we have the Kiri shawl. I’ve seen various Kiris on the knit blogs around, and I just love the way it looks. I started this a few weeks ago, although I’ve only managed to work on it here and there. I’m knitting this with Jo Sharp Classic DK in Lilac, which I got through eBay. Here’s what it looks like after about 4-5 repeats:

Kiri at about 4-5 repeats

I’m using my 60cm 5mm circs, and it is now clear that I will need longer needles. Hmm.. 150cm long maybe?

And here’s a close up of the lace. I love the way the fern leaf pattern looks!

Kiri lace close up

I’m not quite sure about the colour… it’s kind of halfway between purple-pink and brown. I was hoping it would be more like purple/pink, since that’s what I thought lilac is. Some days it looks like purple, some days it looks just like brown. Sigh. But it’s growing on me.

The other thing that I’m working on now is a poncho for Annette. This poncho is inspired by the Children’s Poncho from Knitting Pure and Simple, except that I’m working out the pattern myself, and I’m adding a fair isle hearts pattern around the bottom edge, which is taken from the Cheesylove pattern from Knitty. I like to mix and match! 🙂

Here’s what it looks like at the moment. I’m just halfway through the fair isle.

Fair isle Poncho

I’m also hoping to add a hood to this poncho, but I haven’t quite worked out the pattern yet. Hope it’ll work out.

6 September 2005