Crossed in Translation KAL blog up

Check it out!!




I have another 2 swatches to go before I finally decide what to use.

Final FO for the year

Finally I got the ends weaved in and blocked the Phildar Cotton-ease top.



Cotton T- from Phildar Ete 2005
Cotton Ease - Lollipop Blue x 3 skeins

Forgive the bad shots - can you believe that I don't have a full length mirror at home?? I've been surviving on this little dressing table mirror and standing far, far away.

If I were to do this top again (and I might cos it's really fast and easy), I will add a little more ribbing at the neckline. It is supposed to be wide - from shoulder to shoulder so a bit more ribbing would help to stop the neckline from gaping.

I'd make it a couple of inches longer and would probably include either waist shaping or bust shaping.

But all in all, I'm pretty pleased with a simple t shirt knit I can wear with ease.

I've also finished the Samus body leaving only the sleeves and the edging to do.




Because I wanted to have a little shaping instead of a straight body, I followed the decreases from Rosedale, another Knitty pattern with similar measurements.

Should get the sleeves done soon. I love working with worsted weight - it's just soo sooo fast!

Christmas Secret Pal

Just before Christmas, my secret pal sent me my one big package..





Patons Kroy sock yarn and Patons Grace. I've been wanting to try Paton's Kroy for a long long time, Yay!





"Knitting Heaven and Earth" by Susan Gordon Lydon, note cards with a knitting motif and a nice Toronto shape fridge magnet.




The square painted object on the top left corner is a tape measure-- yeap the "nose" the knob you pull for the tape measure to unwind - totally cool!! There's two different types of stitch and row counters and a clover pendant cutter. I use to have one but it got lost in the move so thanks for the new one. And some lip balm in a pretty tin.




A canadian t shirt for my boy! There were some jelly beans too but err.. they're long gone by the time I took the photo.

Thanks Leanne for a great package. I appreciate and love each and every item!

Finally a meme for Mimi

I was tagged for this months ago but really didn't have the time to answer so i thought I'd better get a move on before the year passes.

1.What is your all-time favourite yarn to knit with ?
I like cotton yarns with a but of acrylic in it - like All Seasons Cotton, Sirdar Breeze, Cotton Ease. I don't quite like mercerised cotton so the acylic cotton makes it spongier and easier to knit with plus the definition is great.

For wool- merino always.

2. Your favourite needles ?
Addies for normal knitting and for lace, anything with pointy tips. I've been using a pair of Inox express needles for socks and I like them. No bambos and no DPNS please.

3. The worst thing you ever knit
hah ! here's the fun part. I came across this photo while I was cleaning out my desk at my mum's



The things we do in the 80s!! I sold this knit actually - someone actually paid about $75 NZ for it.

4. Your favourite pattern
I had a major lace kick and I have to say that Fiddlesticks Lotus Blossom has been my favourite lace pattern to date.




5. Most valuable knitting technique
Magic loop - without it I would never have finished a pair of socks.




6. Best knit book or magazine
Too many to mention. I like a lot of japanese magazines and some of the older rowan mags. I took a long time tracing down Rowan No 33 that had a lot of summery knits I like and oh yes, I have to say I like almost all of the knits in Phildar Ete 2005.

7. Your favourite knit-along

Here's the thing about knitalongs. It's becoming apparent to me that there's a fine line drawn between knitalong and copycat. Millions of patterns out there and yet some blogs look almost identical. When I join a knitalong - it's more for the comments,mod suggestions, yarn choices, and I never seem to start or finish within the deadlines. However I enjoyed designer knitalongs like the Fiddlesticks one.

8. Your favourite knit blogs
Well look at my side bar - these are the ones I check everyday.

9. My favourite knitwear designer
Kim Hargreaves, Annie Modesitt, Knit n Tonic's Wendy, some unknown japanese designer from the let's knit / elegant knit series....

10. The knit item you wear the most.
I waer this in the office quite a bit. (psss that's not me, that's a passing colleague I snagged to model for me.)




11.Who to tag?

Ok no more - it's going to be 2006 - time for new memes.

Christmas in Malaysia

I have been listening to DoubleTake's latest album 1 voice 6 strings 12 days of Christmas. I can't explain how excited I am about this duo. I was at the Feast of St Francis Xavier dinner two weekends ago (that's another story I may or may not blog about) and was just telling my husband that I didn't feel christmassy this year. I hadn't finished my shopping, the tree wasn't up, I had been rushing around at work getting two events organised and feeling generally too washed out for feeling anything.

Then these two got on stage and she opens her mouth .... By the time she finished her first song (Deck the halls), my eyes were glistening with christmas tree lights I hadn't yet put up. You know the feeling.

Please take a listen to a sample
Deck the Halls
The Christmas I know
And check out the review on The Star (the paper I work for).



The Christmas I Know is a Malaysian Christmas song. Being born a christian in Malaysia, we used to celebrate christmas in a very personal, non commercial way. It's a time for carolling in the hot tropical nights, singing about white stuff we had never seen. It's about midnight mass and christmas cantatas. And at the end of the day, we sit in the table at the outdoor kitchen and smell the curry or whatever food being cooked for the feast we'll be eating.


The Christmas I Know

Rise in the morning
Look out the window
Towering buildings
Standing on Tiptoe
There's no trace of reindeer
There's no mistletoe
It's Christmas in Malaysia
The kind that I know

Walk through the city
Met smiling faces
All different accents
All different races
It's warm here and sunny
There's no ice and snow
It's Christmas in Malaysia
The kind that I know

We'll fix up the tree
And turn on the lights
The moon will smile at us
On this warm, sunny night

So step in the kitchen
Sit at the table
Take in the good smells
Take in the people
We'll sing Christmas carols
The ones that we know

It's Christmas in Malaysia
The kind that we know
So Merry Christmas in Malaysia
I'm glad to be home.


Knitting content will resume next post

Crossed Again

First of all I must thank Laura for giving me the heads up on Rowanspun. Thank goodness, I read your comment before I went off and bought it so I am back to the drawing board to see if I have other alternatives.

I did a swatch with Jaeger Trinity last night. Imagine me - swatching !!





I am about 2 stitches away from the horizontal gauge and 2 rows away from the vertical gauge and this done with 3.75mm needles. I hesitate to swatch with 4 mm because the fabric is already a bit loose but look - no blocking required. Trinity knits up to a fairly thin fabric and that would be suitable for our weather. but .... I still want to try out some other posibilities before I make up my mind.

I am swatching Sirdar Breeze currently but the LYS I got it from only has mostly pastels I am hoping for a more natural, beige, grey or charcoal type colour.

Here's what I am doing with Picovoli. I have two 100gm skeins of Butterfly Cotton 8 in a lilac and I am sure that's not going to be enough for the whole project. After some serious digging around I found my stash of Di've Cotton Egitto I got from Elann last year and thought that it would be cool to have a lilac edging on a charcoal top.




I thought it worked out well. What do you think?

Crossed in Translation

Welcome to my latest obsession! Yes I have done it again. I'm in love with a most impractical cardigan and am actually considering joining in the KAL in January .

Have a look at the Cardigan here .
I picked up the book on Saturday and now I'm scouting around for some suitable yarn. I'm trying to steer away from wool for obvious reasons but I'm not sure what type of other blends would be suitable. I'm torn between Jaeger Trinity in Hibiscus or Violet which I have in my stash and this really good deal on eBay.

What do you think?

I have actually finished the Cotton ease T shirt but I haven't weaved in the ends and blocked it yet. I am hoping for it to grow another couple of inches lengthwise during blocking. It's a bit short for my liking.

Meanwhile I've been plugging away at my Samus and the Picovoli. I'll have to take a pic of the Picovoli as I'm doing something a little different with it. And it's looking real good.

Until then, here's what arrived in my mailbox on Friday after a very long wait.

Zephyr!!



From bottom - Charcoal, elderberry and lilac. The one on the right is Martian -handpainted colourway from Furryarns.

More pics tomorrow.

Almost FO

I decided to chuck the corset into the bin of "I hate this and I don't want to know about it". The idea of a gleamy shiny little red number themed with a black skirt for New Year's Eve dinner was very appealing but tha yarn does not cooperate.

The ribbing is awful - the knit stitches are flared out and the purls are sunken. The lace pattern is not defined. The last straw was when I started the criss cross motif on the body, I could hardly see it from being blinded by all that reflection from the viscose.





So last Friday after a heart to heart with Lyn, I decided to either (a)restart with Jaeger Trinity or (b) start on Picovoli .

I did neither. My stash of Trinity was at my mom's and I didn't have anythign suitable with me to start Picovoli. Can you believe that I have no Dk weight Yarn handy??

So I started on this instead .

Here's my progress



I shortened the sleeves because I wanted a simple top I could wear with my jeans.

Thank goodness for Cotton Ease. I really like this yarn. It's soft without being too soft and I can see it standing up to many cables. The pattern has these armhole ribbed inserts which are quite interesting. You could actually leave out the sleeves and make a tank. That's an idea for another project and another day.