Better late than never

Here's the aran sweater making its belated debut, thanks to all your encouragement for me to keep going.

Pattern: Vogue Knitting Michael Kors aran sweater

Yarn: Jaeger trinity 3.5 balls

Needle size:4 mm

An enjoyable pattern to knit with 3 patterns (diamond, cable and berry) so it was not boring and yet not too difficult either. I like the small sleeves, but they seem longer than those on the model in the magazine. I must have much shorter upper arms than the average model. I once followed a short sleeve pattern and ended up with elbow length sleeves. To get really short sleeves, I should remember to knit them shorter than the instructions. The thing that bugs me about this sweater is the ribbed hem. It is all out of shape.

The only part of the pattern that was a bit fiddly was the neckline decreases at the front. The pattern does not provide details on how to decrease the berry stitches, which were a little tricky because it is a series of k1,p1,k1 into one stitch followed by a k3 tog. Plus, you get a different neckline, if you follow the instructions, than the neckline pictured in the magazine. In the photo, it looks like the berry stitches were cast off at one go, but the instructions tell you to cast off only 12 stitches in the middle. I was knitting from my working photocopy so I didn't refer to the photo at all and ended up with a different neckline. In retrospect, it would have been easier to just leave the berry stitches (instead of 12) on the holder and work out the neckline decreases from there.

Anyway I am glad to have finished this because my Sockaplaooza pal's sock yarn has arrived, much to my relief. I thought that I would have to wait for weeks and was getting concerned about meeting the deadline. I will show you the yarn next time. Meanwhile these miniswap packages are making their way across the oceans.

More like 40 days

Somehow, 40 rows a day turned into 4 rows in 40 days. Been busy. Anyway, I have finished knitting the pieces already. Started seaming the sides last night and horrors, the trinity yarn snapped right at the beginning of the first stitch. I have sewed the first stitch all over with 4 ply cotton and hope that it will never unravel as I wear it. I am now seaming with the 4 ply cotton. Today, I seamed the first sleeve, tried it on and was quite pleased with the fit, until I took a closer look at the sleeve. Sigh, .... anyway, I have un-done the seam and am re-doing it again. Just thought I might as well put up this itty bitty post, because you never know when you will hear of this aran sweater again.

And now I have to tell you that Colinette has finally added Singapore to their list of countries which means that we can now order their yarn to our sunny shores. I have been haunting the site dreaming of my own d-i-y version of the ab fab stole. I can't decide which is better - selecting my own yarns and colours or opt for their palette pack in creams which is 1 kg of pure colinette bliss. Anyway, I will take my time to dream on it.

Four mini updates

First, a special note to my Sockaplooza pal (a big "HI") who is knitting socks for me. I just realised yesterday that you may be looking for some sock info about me and can't find any. I am going to be super duper simple to please because I do not own a single pair of handknit socks. Shocking, isn't it? So, you can rest assured that whatever you knit is going to be appreciated and enjoyed by me. I have some sock yarn in the stash here. I have knitted only 2 socks in my life - for my kids here and here . Don't worry about wool socks being too warm for my weather here, my socks are going to be reserved for when I travel to somewhere cold as it is very difficult to buy warm socks here, the only available thick socks in shops are sports socks.

Onto sewiknit update. I bought this pink batik for my daughter. She wants a tiered ruffled knee length skirt, and I was thinking of using this fabric, but now that I see this photo, the print is probably too big and maybe I should go look for something else with a smaller print. What do you think?

Moving along to knitting. Jeanne left a comment in my previous post and threw some light on my holey knit purl stitches sitting next to the cables. She explained that it has something to do with how the yarn sits when the purl is done. I tried pushing the stitch and the yarn as I purl but it doesn't really look any better, so it remains as part of the quirky charm of my wonky, rustic aran sweater. I need to knit about 40 plus rows a day to complete in time, so there is going to be some late night knitting, hopefully, without the morning after frogging that usually follows. No photo, it looks exactly like the back from my earlier post.

Finally, now you know that the friend I was shopping with last week is none other than Mimi! I thought I would let her post about it first. In case you don't know, I live in shoppers' paradise, but I don't go shopping enough, so I was glad to have her company to shop. Plus, Mimi has great taste, you know, so I was drawn to things that I would otherwise have overlooked had I been on my own. Like the fabulous crystal buttons. I bought some golden-brown sparkly ones and I may get to use them soon.

I am getting forgetful

Sometimes I compose blog posts in my head when I have a spare moment. But when I eventually post, I end up writing whatever comes to mind at the time. As a result, I'm no longer sure what I've already posted about and what was only in my mind - so pardon me if you find me repeating myself every now and then.

Meet my miniswap partner, Alicia at the-mayfly. She's a gifted artist and you must take a look at her beautiful wall murals. We're going to swap some hand-mades and hand-me-downs for the kids. This is going to be such fun, coincidentally, our boys are the same age!
I've got my SockapalOOOza pal and the perfect excuse to buy yarn. I'm looking for yarn that she does not already have, maybe regia silk, lang jawoll or meilenweit - if you know of any good online sources for these yarns, please drop me a comment. Thanks! I am also wondering whether jaeger or rowan 4 ply wool will make a good sock yarn.
I've signed up for sewiknit. I hope it will help me get going with sewing. I have a bit of a sewing phobia. Last year, I cut up some eyelet fabric to do a peasant blouse for my daughter only to find that she had grown and it will not fit her anymore. Got to think of how to salvage the fabric. Meanwhile, the first assignment is to sew a skirt for my daughter.

Now on to other things I have been up to. I had the loveliest time this week going shopping with a friend. And some yarn got involved, but it was a truly good buy, ladies, it was on sale. I have never seen yarn on sale in a shop here before! I have not been very successful in not buying yarn. Last month I bought jaeger trinity to knit my aran sweater and now this. I just have to knit faster, don't I?

In the spirit of knitting faster, here's the completed back of my begere defrance cardigan. It works up quite quickly, even though I knit only a few rows a night. I made a minor adjustment to the chart so that the small cables at the edge turn in opposite directions, just like the larger cables. But I'm taking a break from this, as I would like to see if I can finish my aran sweater by Valentine's Day, not that I'm going anywhere for Valentine's Day. I don't like to pay inflated prices at restaurants, and every day should be Valentine's Day, right? Anyway, Valentine's Day is the target because it happens to fall in the middle of the month.

One last thing, here's my spring knitlist using stash yarn

• sleeveless tank with diamonds in a relief pattern - from a Japanese pattern
• the Vintage Knits diamond stitch sweater
• the Vogue Knitting Spring 05 Tennis sweater with short sleeves instead of long sleeves
• wavy tank from a Richmore 05 pattern

I am posting this list now as I want to see how far I will be distracted when the spring patterns come out. And the new Classic and Jaeger books are distracting indeed. To those of you on a yarn diet, just ignore the sale they are having over there.

Words don't come easy

It's easier to blog when I feel like I'm having an on-going conversation with you, but the Chinese New Year break has interrupted the flow and again, I'm at a loss as to what to say, so I'll show you some photos and hopefully, the words will flow. My daughter spent her spare time over the holidays pouring over my Japanese craft books and decided to make a pouch to hold her new hand phone. She embroidered her initials and I helped her to sew it up. She had wanted to do bead embroidery but we have no beads and the shops were all closed, so maybe the next time we'll go and stock up on some beads.

I managed to complete the back of my aran sweater. Here it is blocking on a towel. I didn't soak it, just sprayed it with water, obviously I did an uneven job. The dark patches are the wetter parts. Hmm, the ribbing is extra wet. Can you tell that I'm hoping all that extra water will perform some miracle and make my ribbing look nicer? For once, I didn't dare iron this thing since it is already all flat and floppy. I'm beginning to think it doesn't look too bad, from a distance. The berry stitches in the centre panel look more clearly defined now instead of just looking like some messy blobs. But, is it my imagination or does it look a bit see-through? And what puzzles me is why do the knit and purl stitches that are next to the double cables look so holey (like the ribbing)? This yarn (Jaeger Trinity) is dk weight and I'm using 4 mm needles. Hmm, could it be that I should be using smaller needles? I wonder.

I watched Sense and Sensibility over the holidays (talk about being behind the times, the movie came out in 1995 and I am watching it for the first time, more than 10 years later!) Anyway, I liked how the ladies wore their triangle shawls. One way is to casually drape the shawl (they were very fine and thin) on your elbows and behind your lower back (not over your shoulders) and just leave it dangling to your feet, which looked so elegant with their floor length dresses. The other way is so stylish too. This time you drape it over your shoulders then cross the ends in front and bring them to the back and tie in the back. Except that it can look matronly, unless you are very thin and flat or 12 years old.

Karin, just for you: here's how I hope my completed Kimono shawl will look like.