hat and scarf set

Back when I was having problems with my daughter's sweater, and sulking (deciding what to do with it), I cast on a hat for my husband.

Pattern: Cap karma by Smariek, following Brooklyn Tweed's modifications for the top
Yarn: Sirdar Peru (a bulky wool, alpaca and acrylic blend) slightly more than 1 ball
Needle size: 6 mm

The yarn I used was thicker than that specified in the pattern, so the hat ended up being too long and the ribbing has to be folded up so that the hat won't cover his eyes. There is a ridge where the ribbing starts because I was too clever. I wasn't sure if I had enough yarn to make a deep ribbing and so I thought I would start the hat from the cable part and after I finish I will pick up stitches from the cast on edge and knit the ribbing and see how far I can go with the yarn that was left. In the end, I had to buy another ball of yarn anyway because I definitely did not have enough to finish, so it was all much ado for nothing. Fortunately, the hat looks alright when worn, so I'm not too upset.

I also wanted to knit my husband a matching scarf. I find it difficult to choose knitting patterns for him. Not that he is fussy or particular. On the contrary, he is quite easy going where clothes are concerned. But complicated cables, entrelac and such are not quite his style. So after going through all my knitting magazines and trawling the Internet, I finally settled for simple garter stitch because I was inspired by all the lovely garter stitch scarves I was seeing on the blogs. I used Rowan Tapestry. The 3 balls of Tapestry are from the same dyelot, but as you can see, the intensity of the colours and the length of the repeats are quite different.

And guess what? I didn't knit the scarf for him after all. My daughter knitted it for her daddy! He wore it in Seoul but I forgot to take photos for the blog. These photos were taken after we came home. I have one more FO for 2007 but due to lack of time, I'll have to post about it next year.

Have a Happy New Year and I wish you the best knitty wishes for 2008!

ahn-nyong-ha-se-yo

Did you miss me? We've just come back from a very enjoyable year-end holiday in Seoul. It snowed the day we arrived and when we were at the ski resort. After that, the temperature warmed up and did not fall below 0C again, so we had pleasantly cold weather for the rest of the trip when we went around sight-seeing. It was also bright and sunny and the light was great for taking photos.

My daughter reminded me to take this photo of a snow topped pine tree just for my blog.


Our first time on skis was great fun, even though we didn't know what we were doing :)


I trailed behind the guided tour of Changdeokgung Palace so that I could take this photo without anyone in it.


A close up view of the roof of the Changdeokgung Palace. It is the only palace in Seoul that preserves the architectural style of the Joeseon Dynasty.


My son queuing patiently for the carousel ride at Lotte World. He was quite the trooper as he was having a quesy stomach after the bus ride back to Seoul from Chunchong where we had stayed the previous night, after visiting Nami Island.


My son took this photo of colourful aprons outside a shop on Insadong Street.


Unidentified street food at Myeongdong that we weren't brave enough to try.


Yummy Korean pancakes with a caramel-like filling that we did try. There were lots of happy, young people in Myeongdong and the bustling streets lined with neon signboards reminded me very much of Hong Kong, one my favourite Asian cities.


Ginseng chicken soup that tastes much better than it looks. I added about a tablespoon of ginseng wine to my soup and it was more potent than I thought - I fell asleep that night way before my kids!


The food was good. I liked the Korean grill / barbeque even though it made my clothes smell of food after that. My kids loved the seaweed, anchovy (ikan bilis) and dried soybean cake side dishes that accompanied most meals.


We had steamboat almost every day. It's quite healthy so we didn't get any post-holiday weight gain

Can you see us wearing our handknits? That's me in my tourist sweater and my kids in their recently completed sweaters. I am glad to report that the Katia Austral yarn passed their non-itchiness test. I have yet to knit a sweater for my husband. Hopefully next year I'll get round to knitting him one. If it's any consolation, I managed to complete a hat and scarf for him just before the trip and I'll post about them as soon as I take the FO photos.

Stockinette is not easy peasy

Pattern: Luka from Rowan Junior (largest size)

Yarn: Katia Austral 5 plus balls of blue, 2 balls of green
Needle size: 4mm

Did you know that I had earlier pooh-poohed this pattern for being boring, easy, peasy stockinette because my daughter wouldn't let me knit her a cabled sweater? Well, the stockinette had to show me who's boss. I kept making so many mistakes all the time. I would either forget to increase at the side of the sleeves or increase on one side only or forget to stripe and I forgot to do the raglan decreases inside my usual seam stitch at each side of both the front and back pieces and did the decreases on the last stitch instead. The problem is that I find it difficult to seam when the decreases or increases are on the last stitch. So I had to re-do the decreases all over again.

But even after all that re-knitting to get things right, the sweater was not all right. I had to block it as wide as I could. And I was not happy with the fit at the armholes. It was too tight. I think I might have to stop knitting raglan sleeves, even though I love the look of raglan sleeves. They seem to either turn out too fitting or too baggy at the armpits. And the Rowan pattern did not give any measurements for the length of the armhole or the width of the sleeve so I couldn't tell if I was on the right track. Sigh, I'm going to complain now, but I find that Japanese patterns are much better at giving measurements for every part, so knitters can check as they go along, instead of finding out at the bitter end. Anyway, I had two choices. I could either call it a day, finish the neckline and be done with it (even though it cannot be worn) or re-knit the sleeves and make it bigger.

Then the light bulb came on. I could save a large part of the knitted sleeves simply by unravelling the raglan part of the upper sleeve and knitting up again from the armhole and increase the width further so that I will end up (hopefully) with better fitting sleeves. Then I could cut off the lower part and then re-knit the ribbing back down. Sigh, my last 3 projects have been similar episodes of error, so let's cut off the bad part and re-knit down or graft back. I really have to kick this bad "cut and paste" habit! I hope my knitting will have a bit less drama from now on. One last note about the neckline. Initially I cast off in the usual way and it ended up too small for the head to go through. Then I re-did the cast off by using the Russian bind off and managed to achieve a neckline that approximates the neckline on the sweater as shown in the photo in Rowan Junior. Let me end off by telling you how glad I am to finally get this sweater done!

Daughter's knee highs

Since our trip to Beijing last winter, I have wanted to knit knee highs for my daughter. She feels the cold very easily whenever we go somewhere cold in winter and I thought knee highs would be great under jeans in sub zero temperatures.

Pattern: Wendy's toe up sock with gusset heel. Referred to this tutorial for doing the cast on. Followed these instructions for calf increases. Thank you, ladies, for sharing your patterns.

Needle: 2.25 mm from cast on until calf increase, then switched to 2.5 mm

Yarn: Regia 2 balls 210 m each

A really easy pattern that fits. These won't be my last knee highs, they're quite addictive. Last note about the cast off. I used 2.5 mm needles and cast off in the usual way and it gave a much better fit than the looser russian bind off.

I have been busy. The good type of busy. Spending my free time with my family, having fun because my kids are having their year end school holidays, so I haven't been online much. I hope you're all happy and having fun too.