what I'm doing this weekend

I have not been able to sew for the last 2 weeks as there was repair and painting work going on in my house and there was no place for me to sew. I am so glad that everything's back to normal now and I can use my dining table once again to cut my fabric.

This is going to be a dress for me and the pattern is from an old issue of Cotton Friend (summer 2010 Vol 35). I am making the dress a little shorter, aiming for it to fall just below my knees. 

I am also finally blocking my Abyssal scarf. I don't have a suitable place to block it, so I had to fold it in half lengthwise and block it on my ironing board. I am wet blocking only the curved edge.

By the way, I come across 2 designs that I like very much. The Chelsea Skirt is a knit pattern. I like the contrast lace peeking out from under the skirt. The Sorbetto tank top is a sewing pattern from Colette. I think Sorbetto, sewn in a silky fabric, would look appropriate for work.

I also wanted to show you these Hokkaido steamed cupcakes from Mushiya Steamers at Ion Food Hall. We tried the ichigo milk (the one with the frosting at the bottom) and the ichigo (the one with strawberry jam on the extreme left of the pic). They are not your usual buttery cupcakes. Their texture is more like Chinese steamed rice cake (fatt koh or huat kueh).  The cupcakes on the right even look like fatt koh, with the cracked spongey top. They tasted quite bland, barely sweet, just like fatt koh, but what I liked was the unexpected dollop of cream cheese inside the cupcake.

Hope you are having a great weekend too!

new knits

I started 2 new knits. The first is a scarf. It's Jana's pattern, so aptly called 'Stairway'. I am using Rowan tapestry yarn that has been frogged so many times because the patterns that I tried just didn't work for the yarn. I'm glad that I have finally found a pattern that works for this stripey yarn.

I like the step edges and the fact that it looks like it is knitted on the bias (which it is not). It's quite addictive knitting too.

I also started a cardigan, Maggie, a Kim Hargreaves pattern. I am knitting it in Schaffhauser Naturale wool cotton, stash yarn from long ago. If I'm not mistaken, I bought the yarn from a local flower shop :) The peplum is not knit in the usual way from bottom up. Instead it is knit in garter stitch from side to side. The body of the cardi is then knit by picking up stitches from the straight long edge. If you look at the right side of the pic, you can see that there is some shaping done by using short rows. Note: I did the short rows following these instructions. There is some ruffling on the bottom edge of the peplum achieved by knitting a picot edge. I am not particularly fond of the picot edge ruffle but I think it will look better than the usual garter edge, so I'm going with it.

I spent the weekend updating my old projects on ravelry. It took me many hours but I'm glad that I have finally done it. If you want to add me on ravelry, I'm "opportunityknits".

I still knit

I have 2 piles of knitting to show you. Evidence that I still knit :) First pile is the finished pieces of my peach sweater. It was finished more than a week ago and I think it will probably continue to sit in this pile for awhile. I take ages to seam up my sweater pieces. Not sure why, but I tend to procrastinate on seaming. 

Updated to add: Here's an old pic that I took last year of the back of the peach sweater.

Next pile is the finished pieces of my Capri cardi. Time to choose the next cardigan to knit!

sewing for bunny

I found someone else to sew for. I made new clothes for my daughter's bunny, from fabric remnants. This pinafore is fabric leftover from her knot shorts.

And this top and skirt. The top is fabric leftover from a skirt that I sewed years ago. The skirt is made out of fabric leftover from a pair of last year's shorts.

Lunch was steak, pasta with grilled dory fillet, clubhouse sandwiches, peach cake with custard.

Cafe latte and capuccino.

Treats :)

Wishing you a Happy Mother's Day!

knot shorts!

I sewed something yesterday, but it wasn't anything for myself. I made shorts again for my daughter. It's a pair of knot shorts. I saw it on Thursday and just had to make it! It's a free pattern from Elsie Marley, part of Grosgrain's free pattern month.

I followed Elsie Marley's instructions. Err ... confession ... I didn't follow them closely enough and made a mistake. I sewed the 2 front pieces together instead of sewing the front to the back. Luckily I could unpick and sew again.

I like the knot detail. I used navy polka dot cotton for the shorts and leftover black linen for the lining.

If you are thinking of sewing this, it might be a good idea to use the suggested 4 inch inseam. I think my usual 5 inch inseam is too long. In addition, the choice of fabric is quite important. The fabric should be soft because the knot part needs to be lined, and there is a double layer of fabric at the bottom part of these shorts. The only additional thing I did was to slip-stitch the lining to the shorts.

By the way, I realised that I had paper at home that is perfect for drawing my sewing patterns. It's a huge roll of drawing paper from my son's Ikea chalkboard and easel :) You can also see that I do not have professional tools. I use a regular school ruler, pencil and craft scissors from the stationery store, and the air-cond remote serves as paper weight :)

My daughter made bento box dinner again. Crispy fried chicken cutlet, rice with plum flakes, potato and carrot salad and chicken soup.

Can you see the little teddy bear cookies and cadbury's choc eggs?

Hope you had a good weekend. I'm still on holiday because it's a public holiday (Labour Day) today.