And the Winner is......

You know part of my job is thinking up contests to run on our website and we're in a middle of planning a big one currently. We can't do sweepstakes so we have to be a little more creative at choosing the winners.

There were so many lovely entries - some actually gave me insipirations for future colours. The haloscan commenting features don't allow to email each one individually so I have to say here and on the Knitters' Review forum -

THANK YOU!!!


Now here are some honourable mentions

Erin made me laugh when she suggested "Ribena Berry" because that is a famous little mascot herein Singapore and Malaysia for the Ribena Blackcurrant drink.

Blueberry Rose was suggested by both Linda and Ajoursteek.

Dolcetto Delphinium is the sweetest name suggested by Sandy. I'm already planning this colourway -Deep deep grape and blues next.

BUT I have said it on the Knitter's Review forum that my preference is leaning towards the Strawberries because of this

So Strawberry Hyacinth and Gayle wins !!

By the way, Gregory and I picked those strawberries ourselves. See...

Latest dye job

OK here's the latest Dye job I did.

I can't seem to decide what to call it. I would love to keep to the flower + fruit combination. Its working name is "Brandywine" but there's too much pink in it to justify the name.

I'll give this hank free to the visitor who proposes the best name.

It's 100g 450yds of Henry's Attic Monty 3/9 which is fingering weight. It's not going to my dye-o-rama pal cos I have another colourway planned for her.

BTW Erin - Wilton's is a brand of food colouring used for icing and easter eggs which many home dyers have succesfully used on yarn. More colours choices than Kool Aid and best of all- you can buy it in Malaysia ( and I guess Singapore) at any baking supply shop.

More Stuff on My Destash Site

Too exhausted for being up late watching Xmen III and a whole morning of meetings (thumbs down to both)to update on anything.

Will try for coherent thought tomorrow.

Adventures of Dye-sister and the Dyeorama capers

In pictures only



Washed out dyed yarn with no super human qualities waiting to be saved

Wilton's icing colur dye to the rescue

Kick A@@ cool mutant yarn drying out waiting to be reskeined and sent out to spread its knitterly goodness across the ocean.

More pictures once mutant yarn is ready to move out.

Can you guess I have X-men 3 on my brain . I'm watching it tomorrow - woo hooo!!!

Growing up

When my hand dyed yarn grows up I want it be like this -


Very Berry hand dyed yarn from Over the Rainbow ebay shop
I don't think she has this colourway anymore though


You wouldn't know to look at it but it has bits of gold, light blue, lavender, pink as well as the overall plum. How does she get it to dye that way?? Does she just put all the colours in the the pot and hope that it falls on the yarn and dye it before it mixes up into a grey mush?

I speak of this because of my dismal Dyeing failure this weekend. It's like the goddes of dyeing (whoever she may be) just left me after 3 succesful dye jobs. I guess after a certain time I can't rely on luck to get nice colours. Either that or I need to get me some proper dyes instead of experimenting with silk dyes that don't stick.

A good hand dyed yarn will behave beautifully even when it is not being knitted.





Yes I know, I've been playing with my vintage weave-it - the older version of Weavettes - the new tool taking the crafting world by storm, courtesy of Martha Stewart Living.


Have a look at some other websites and blogs with more information on this cute and handy tool.

eLoomaNation - an excellent resource for the different types of hand looms and various project ideas.
Cosmicpluto knits - I wait every week with baited breath to see what new squares she produces.
Jessimuhka knits
Booga J

But what to do with these little squares?? well hey *blank stare* I'm supposed to make something out of them??

Latest update: I dropped by a baking shop and got some Wilton's. More progress on the dyeing tonight, I hope.

Sad day

I had a bad week and it's only wednesday.

I've been in the lovely island of Borneo over the weekend for work and really thought it was going to be a great week. BUT on Monday I pronged my car. My lovely zippy 4 wheel drive tiny car that sometimes doubles as a stash cupboard. The left headlights and mudguards are crumpled and ripped away. This is what happens when I was inattentive and didn't brake in time.

I spent the whole of Tuesday running errands from the insurance company to the mechanic. That precious day of that I had set aside to do some dyeing for Dye-o-Rama.

The only consolation is to return home to this




In fact I'm not sure if I was going to laugh or cry. The yarn is 100% silk and sooooo beautiful as well as soooo ruinously expensive. I don't know if it is worth it or not but as in many Kim Hargreaves kits, it's all in the packaging. Have a look at the HandMaiden website and you see what I mean. Isn't it just droolifying?

But how many other smaller yarn companies have similar products but not the means to create such beautiful pictures and lovely tags?

Salina, Salina

First of all got to apologise for the PMS rant in the previous post. I do get the blues monthly and couple with the fact I also get the blues when I am about to "finish" something. Can't quite explain it - maybe I just find it hard to let go. The mounds of stash from various crafts in my house is a testament to that.

Anyways here is Salina (sans the cuffs for the sleeves)




Forgive the picture quality, you don't want to know where this was taken but suffice to say it's a place that has a huge mirror and lots of light.

As you can see it's shorter than I had expected. I think my boobs are dragging up the hemline. If I were to do this again I'd make the division for the neck lower and the torso longer. It fits great though, I even have a shell underneath and it's not skin tight. If it grows an inch width and length, the fit would be perfect.




I've decided to do a short sleeve version, and I haven't decided what to do with cuffs yet. hopefully I'll get that done my tonight and try to take some picture in natural sunlight with less messy hair.

Lyn and I were discussing sizing the other day and I've come to realise that I haven't found that magic formula yet. When I was much younger and thinner, I remember only following the pattern for the required size and had no problems with sweaters being too small or too short (although I always had an issue with sleeves - always too long.) Now that I don't have an 21 year old body anymore, I have to find that perfect ratio, what number to cast on for which weight of yarn and what length to make for my body.

Anyways on to my next project.
I bought this japanese pattern book European Knits from Lyn and I like quite a few of the projects in it. Here are my favourites




I'm leaning toward starting the Lace Cardigan on the bottom right. With a longer torse this time.

Floating Around

I'm actually dreading the end of this project.

I always feel like this when I'm approaching the end of a project.. This general malaise that comes after too much anticipation, racing to the finish line. It happens when most often when I’m playing pool and I’m on the last shot for the black after potting 3 balls in a row or something. The black’s usually in a nice position, not too easy and not too hard and if it was anything but the black ball, I would have aced it. But … then something always goes wrong and … well you know the rest. I miss the shot, and my husband coaching from the sidelines will shake his head and say, “No Killer Instinct” .

So often after I finish the pieces and then seam it up and try it on … and there’s this *bleah* flat feeling. I look into the mirror and go “I guess it’s ok….”

The consolation is that
1. I have stash busted 5 balls of yarn.
2. I’ve substituted yarn successfully and love the effect, so much so I want to get more Trinity.
3. I will have completed a project in just over one month and have actually been quite faithful to this one project.
4. It's a usable top for this weather. I haven't wasted all that time making something I'll wear only to the next trip up the highlands just because I love doing cables.

The fact that I am contemplating Hattie for my next project just shows how I am just setting myself up again. I guess it's the curse of being a process Knitter.


See my boy! At least he's getting the hang of floating.


Anyway I've decided make an effort to be more organised. I need to take a good hard look at my stash. So many odd balls of novelty yarn and some completely illogical purchases, yarn bought because they just look nice as a ball.

I've always liked the look of art scarves with different yarn and textures. So I've done something different to those one or two balls of odd yarn I bought when I started to get back into knitting. Instead of stranding them together to make a scarf, I'm tying them at regular intervals.

My first effort..





Bigger lots on normal yarn like Koigu, Cherry Tree Hill are on sale at my destash site.





PS I'd like to welcome Krista to the Tri- Knit-y KAL