baby doll

i’ve been knitting unbloggable projects that are going to be surprise presents for a couple of people. so, although i completed a couple of projects, i cannot show them yet here. however, this, i can show you:

this is a baby doll and matching bottom from knitting lingerie style by Joan McGowan-Michael.

i love pretty lingerie. finding one in a shop is surely fun, but knitting a pair of lovely lingerie was also super fun! this is knitted in 100% bamboo yarn, and its texture is quite nice – very very very comfortable to wear (though, it’s a bit heavy….). i’d probably put a little ribbon or a rose at the front of the bottom if i feel like it sometime.

the book contains not only lingerie but also lingerie inspired clothing – all of them are quite lovely. besides, the photos are pretty lovely and make me want to look through the book over and over again. i chose this baby doll as a start, since it looks fairly easy, but i will certainly knit a few more patterns from the book in the hopefully near future.

what took me so long?

I finally finished these socks:

this is falling in love. according to Ravelry, I seem to have started in July last year (!).

I have no idea what took me so long. the pattern is really pretty. as I love heart motifs, I really wanted to wear them, let alone to knit them. but somehow, these were the ones always left behind of other knits that had “higher priorities” (whatever they were). Poor sock….

here’s a full picture of them:

it is really pretty. I added the 2×2 ribbing cuff.

and the side:

I really like that the pattern has different choices for the heels. I chose the heel flap option (because I like heel flaps!), but there’s a short row heel option too. now I learned how to do heel flap for toe-up socks. cool.

cabled vest

As soon as the autumn atmosphere hit the shop displays, I felt like wearing a traditional style cabled vest. I don’t normally wear a vest, so I decided to make one myself. Searching Ravelry for vest patterns, I found a few cute vest patterns. But this time, I had fairly specific criteria for my vest – the cable has to be simple but not too simple:), the overall construction has to be traditional looking, but it cannot look like a school girl’s vest, etc. The closest pattern to my image that I could find was this Ticuna vest from Berroco Free pattern.

Here’s my FO:

(the actual colour is more grassy green than the yellow-ish green pictured)

I love this! This is what I had in my mind when I felt like wearing a vest. To be honest, I wanted to go for a V-neck, but after all, this is good. The simple but not too simple cables were really fun to knit. I was worried about the shaping, as there’s only one decrease at the back for the waist and there’s none at the front for the XS-size. But it fits me well.

Here’s the back:

To make it suit my taste better, I made the vest longer, and made the neck area wider. Here’s how I modified the pattern:

Length at the back: after the 3×3 rib, I added 2 1/2″ stockinette rows before the shaping. This means the total length before shaping armholes becomes 15″.

Length at the front: since there’s no shaping for the XS size, simply knit the front 15″ until the armhole shaping.

Neck: started neck shaping right after the armhole shaping (i.e. no work even rows). after the first 4 sts bind off for the neck, worked 0.5″, then bound off 3sts, worked 0.25″, then bound off 2sts. Followed the pattern from here.

I wish I made the armholes bigger though. The edging makes the armholes smaller. They are wearable, but considering that the vest will be worn over something, it would’ve been better if the armholes were a little bit bigger.

Now the matching scarf is on its way!

beaded hat

odessa is finished!

I love this hat very much! I have wanted to try beaded knitting for a while. Since I do beading sometimes, combining the two of my favourite crafts has appealed to me so much. but at the same time, I thought it would be difficult and complicated, and I didn’t try it for a long time.

it turns out that, although sliding beads while knitting is a bit painstaking, beaded knitting is real fun! I will definitely incorporate beads into my knitting more in the future, whether or not the pattern involves beads.

below is an illustration of how I did BK1 – knit a bead into a stitch:

step 1: string all the beads that will be used for the pattern (the odessa pattern calls for about 110-150 beads) before start knitting

step 2: knit to the stitch where you’d like to add a bead

step 3: put the yarn in front and slide a bead close to the stitch

step 4: slip the next stitch onto your right needle

step 5: take the yarn to the back (keep your tension)

step 6: knit (or however the pattern says) to the next position where you’d like to add a bead

this may be not the best way to add beads. in fact, this is different from the instruction in the odessa pattern. but I thought the bead sits well in this method.

happy beaded knitting!

If I knit fast enough

found this cute mug at spotlight:

It reads, “If I knit fast enough does it count as exercise?”. Hopefully it does! :)

There are other designs with a different message or some knit stitches printed all over a cup. All of them are cute, though the knit stitches versions are a little to ‘noisy’ to my eyes.

hearts and flowers shawl

I looove things with heart motifs. So, naturally, I couldn’t pass this hearts and flowers shawl pattern featured in Simply Knitting:

I finally made it! The pattern starts from the bottom edge, which means that you’ll start off with sl1k4 1155 times!! This was pretty daunting. Besides, I don’t wear a shawl much. So, it took me a while to get into the mood of knitting this.

Once started, though, the shawl decreased quickly, and perhaps about the time when the first heart motif was done, the project became manageable and smoothly knit up. After I finished the first panel, it was too much fun for me to put down.

Here’s the back:

A lot of hearts popping up!

I tied the front very loosely, but I think it’s time for me to find a nice shawl pin:)

I have to say knitting lace shawls is pretty fun. Only if I have occasions to wear shawls….

Leyburn Socks

While i was knitting away the hearts and flowers shawl, i found out that the deadline for these socks was extended. So, i finished the second sock quickly:

these are Leyburn socks. i knitted these for the spring KAL organized by the vegan socks group on Ravelry. By the time i finished the first sock, I got really busy and i couldn’t really go on to the second sock. i was also behind catching up with reading blogs and forums. so, i gave up making it for the deadline. i thought i would complete them when i had time.

but i made it!

here are some close-ups:

the yarn is Maizy, news colorway.

i’m so happy that i found this pattern. i purchased this yarn not knowing what i could do with it. i was so curious to see how these loud combinations of colours would knit up. i could’ve knitted plain stockinette socks, but i wanted to do something more. looking through the project pages of this pattern on Ravelry, i found a few socks that used varigated yarns and i liked them a lot. so, i gave this yarn a go.

i think it ended up alright. the lattice stitches can be seen clearly. actually, they broke down the crowds of loud colours and made them prettier, i think.

i changed the heels simply because i like the heels with heel flaps better. also, i used the needles one size smaller for the legs to fit my legs more snuggly.

spaceman and dog

it’s been raining a lot for the last few days. this is rather unusual here. we normally have clear sunny days, and last year we even suffered from drought. however, it is not the case for this year. these rainy days remind me of the rainy season where i used to live, which i don’t really like. it’s good that we don’t have to worry about the water supply, though.

anyways, this guy seems to have decided that he stays under a tree to avoid the rain:

this is a spaceman from ami-groovy world. and i made him on my husband’s request. i love when my husband wants me to knit something for him (or for his family). it makes me happy that my FOs can make him happy. especially this time, we went to a craft shop together and had him choose yarns and the beads for the eyes – yarn shopping with my husband! i enjoyed this rare chance so much.

unfortunately, though, the spaceman ended up being smaller than expected (about 20cm). i used 4-ply yarns and a 2.5mm hook. maybe i should’ve used a litter bigger hook. Or even 8-ply. But other than that, it was great and my husband liked it a lot.

also, i accidentally bought a tube that was a little bit too small for the eye beads we’ve chosen. my husband somehow managed to put them in the tube, and this made the edges bumpy.  i kind of like this way better, although they are smooth in the original pattern.

the second amigurumi to show today is this dachshund:

this is from daisukina amigurumi. i used 4-ply yarns and a 2.5mm hook at first. but it was getting bigger than i would have liked. i wanted to have a tiny dog that could be placed on an office desk (as this was a gift for a work-related person). so, i switched to a 1.75mm hook, and made him small enough.

posting these cute guys made me feel like making more amigurumis:)

a few projects

apres surf hoodie!!

this pattern was my love at first sight. i kept my eye on it since i saw this on the preview page of interweave knits. but living in Aus, i had to wait for the magazine to show up a while, then i got busy knitting christmas gifts, moving to a new house etc. though i finished this back in January, i couldn’t show this until now. but here it goes….

the back

the front

i had a bit of difficulty in keeping the lace pattern while increasing and decreasing for shaping (i hate math….) but it was really a fun knit. i didn’t do very well on the shoulder seaming, but still it’s definitely wearable, and i love it.

in fact, when i finished this, it was summer here, so i didn’t have a chance of wearing it. but then a few weeks ago, i had to go back to japan for a while. it was winter there, so i brought this sweater with me. it was a huge hit among my family! i heard my family’s and relatives’ oohs and aahs, and honestely felt good:)

now that chilly seasons are coming up here pretty soon, i get to wear this again.

my current projects:

hearts and flowers shawl:

on Feb,

which has grown to this at the end of march

it’s got these cute heart motifs

i just looove heart motifs. because it is just so fun to knit, i’ve been basically working only on this project. the start of this project was hard though. you’ll start this from the edge, which means 1155 rows of 5 sts to make 578 ridges!! thankfully, it decreases quickly to become a manageable size.

so, working only on this leaves another WIP on hold, which is

leyburn socks.  i fnished one scok before the shawl became too fun to put down. maybe i just should finish up the second sock….

purple bear

loooong time no see! it’s not that I was too busy to blog or I haven’t knitted for a while, but it’s just that we didn’t have Internet at home>_<. we’ve moved to this place in January and we realized that we didn’t have a telephone cable. it looks like that when one of the previous tenants renovated this place, the telephone cable was physically cut off (accidentally or intentionally – who knows?) and that little outlet box thing for a telephone cable was removed. as always, the real estate people were so slow fixing this problem, and it took us more than a month to install a new telephone cable and to get us back online! it’s ridiculous….

anyways, enough complaining….

the FO I’d like to share in this post is this little purple bear hiding behind plants:

I made her for my friend’s birthday. she adores soft toys and dolls. it turned out that she loves purple as well. I’m so glad that this little purple bear went to a nice lovely home:)

the pattern was from a Japanese amigurumi book called daisukina amigurumi, something like “my favorite amigurumi”. the original has a few more sewen decorations on her. unabling sewing myself, I opted for simpler clothing with a little knitted ribon and knitted pocket. pretty fun to knit and it was a real quick knit.