Silk Blanket – All done

Its been months and many, many metres of yarn in the making but my silk blanket is finished!

It first looked like this…
“Silk Yarn from Hanoi”

From that it began to be knit like this…
“Blanket – first attempt”

Which really wasn’t working for me. It was boring and cumbersome to knit so i decided to frog that and knit up squares which are portable and would not suffocate me in this heat. All the squares done and seamed and i decided it needed a nice trim to finish it off. I found a lace trim by Barbara Abbey, Mexican lace i think, and it began to look like this about 60% of the way through…
“Seamed Blanket”
“Lace Close-up”

Each lace ‘Sun’ took about an hour to knit and here after many hours and some glorious silk from Vietnam to line the back is my finished blanket Makes me happy just looking at it!
“Finished Blanket”
“Silk lining”

Silken Lap Blanket

Its been so long since i posted anything on my blog and thats due to the amount of time that went into knitting this…the lap blanket from all the silk yarn i purchased in Hanoi.

Once i was done seaming it i felt like i had conquered Mt. Everest. You think i jest but nooo…its been unseasonably warm in Singapore and knitting a silk blanket (or even seaming one) while its 30 degress or so inside is no picnic.

I have decided to embellish it with a Mexican lace trim, that i found in a pattern book, in a nice warm shade of yellow that just adds to the cheeriness of the blanket. The only problem i can foresee is that each flower takes me about an hour and i haven’t had alot of free time to knit and there’s alot of trim that needs to get done.

I couldn’t wait for it to be a proper finished object before i posted it so here is my semi-finished lap blanket.

Tanktops and other warm weather knits

I’ve had a short career as a semi-serious knitter…meaning since i’ve actually begun to start AND finish a project. I’ve showcased some of my stuff here but for some reason never got around to photographing the 2 tops i knit which i thought turned out quite well…well they are decent enough for me to wear out so that counts for something!

The first was this top which i knit using the measurements of a regular sweater and modified the neckline. I remember it was just after i had done my first lace practice project and decided to create my own design using my favourite stitches. The lavender yarn is lace-weight and so the edges and neckline didn’t hold up very well when i was done so i decided to improvise some more and taught myself to pick up stitches to give the top some decorative edging. I’m not sure if everyone will agree but i love the colour contrast between the vivid, deep red and the lovely lavender. Best of all its the perfect weightage to wear in sunny Singapore.

The other top that i’m pretty pleased about was from Simply Knitting magazine and its a ribbed camisole pattern called ‘Summer Dreams’. Here is a picture of the pattern in the magazine and my finished work after. Thats all for today folks…i have a few more things approaching completion and i’ll be showing them off shortly….errrm provided they turn out alright!! Have a great week everyone.

the yellow cardigan

I thought i’d have it easy knitting this cardigan for my sister. I’m clearly delusional. I must have been distracted while i was knitting it because the body turned out a smidgen too small, which is ok since my sister wanted it to fit more like a shrug, but the sleeves were a lost cause.

I had to knit in ‘filler’ stitches and things snowballed from there. The filler is on the inside of each sleeve so its not absolutely obvious that the sleeve puckers up because the filler is too short and i think i got the tension all wrong while just trying to finish it and be done with it.

The only saving grace for it is that its in a lovely shade of yellow and its very warm so its keeping my sister nice and comfy in Vietnam, where she is based for work for a while, since winter is in full-force out there.

The actual colour of the yarn is the soft buttery yellow in 2 of the pictures. My camera didn’t want to co-operate for the close-ups

 

My First Hat

Finally the pictures of the hat are in and i’ve delivered it to my cousin who was extremely pleased to get it.

Here is a picture of the hat

and a close-up of the pattern

I knit the hat in 2 halves as everytime i tried to knit in using my 3.25mm circular needles it always got tangled up. For the patterns i created a 3 stitch wide diamond shape alternating knit and purl stitches just to give the solid colour some texture.

Her brother’s scarf is sitting in my knitting pile untouched since they are off to HK where the temperature is much milder and i am bored of the scarf. I’m attempting to knit lace and i will keep everyone updated on my progress!

Scarves Galore!

Ok an update on the scarves. The one for my girl cousin is done in all its pink glory.

I was given 3 balls of pink yarn in different shades. I liked the combination of these 2 colours for the scarf and since she’s only 6 i got away with it being a skinny scarf and not too, too long. For this scarf i used 3.25mm circular needles and cast on 30 stitches for the pattern which has bobbles and a cable. I shortened the repeats of the patterns so that the cable and bobbles matched up perfectly which made my life alot easier

This is a close-up of the pattern. Unfortunately my picture isn’t too clear but you can make out the bobbles and cables. This was the first time i attempted bobbles and i was a little intimidated at first but it was pretty fun to knit after the first few repeats. I got the pattern for this scarf from Drops designs as well (thank heavens for that wonderful resource of amazing and FREE patterns). Now i’ve cast on for a matching hat and again its something i’m knitting for the first time.

The scarf for my boy cousin is still stuck at 75% and i’m contemplating frogging it.

 

I used the 3.25mm circular needles for this scarf as well but i’ve cast on 60 stitches and its looking too wide now. I’ve made a bit of a mess at the ’seams’ of the 2 colours and i’m left with a rather unattractive joint between the different panels.

My camera has been acting up and so the colour of the scarf is accurately reflected in the first picture and not this rather dull-yellowed tones. Here you can see a close-up of the pretty checker-board design and my UGLY joints. I’m thinking to frog and recast 45 stitches with 15 stitches for each colour. That way it won’t be too skinny but i can avoid the too wide phenomenon i have going here. I’m also contemplating knitting each colour panel individually and sewing the seams together the same as for normal sweaters.

Will have to ponder on frogging this one but not for too long as December looms and i have only one scarf completed. Yikes!

 

First Steps

My first completed project came many years after i began learning how to knit. In the initial days my focus was on picking up how to knit, purl, do yarn-overs, binding off etc. Once i got the basics down i began a highly ambitious project. I was going to knit my sister a bubblegum pink sweater with 21 in baby blue on the front for her 21st birthday. My sister is now 26 and she has not gotten her sweater yet. My ambition carried me quite far actually…all the way through the front, back, and one sleeve and that was the end of the pink sweater. It now exists as frogged balls of yarn in my wool pile.

I wish i could say the pink sweater was my only non-complete but that would be a big, bold-faced lie which even my thick skin can’t accommodate. I had several hits and misses over the years and being in school, working part-time, volunteering, having a social life and being young didn’t bode well for my knitting. Now i have settled into a calmer and more structured existence and found my calling once again, so to speak.

I’m a big fan of the baby steps theory and though i do occasionally like to dive in head first on some things i decided to apply the theory to my knitting. I needed small, quick knit projects which allowed me to be creative (i ‘designed’ and constructed the pattern for each pouch) and actually finish a project so that i could build on that confidence and move on to bigger knits.

This was one of the first pouches i ever completed (the pink sweater yarn makes an appearance here):

This pouch was knit as a simple rectangle and the bottom and one side seam were sewn to form the base. I folded over a seam on the top end to allow the drawstring to move freely and surprisingly this pouch can be cinched quite tightly. The drawstring was knit with pink and blue yarn together. I cast on one row and bound it off in the next to get the drawstring. Several variations of this pouch followed and i began to realise i’m not fond of seaming. I experimented with several techniques before i hit the jackpot with the next pouch.

This pouch was made to house my handphone and allow me freedom of movement. Other than the loop for my finger it is completely seamless. I first cast on stitches for the opening and knit in a garter stitch so that the ‘mouth’ of the pouch remains tight (so my phone won’t slip out) but would be elastic enough for me to be able to slide it in easily. Once i had my desired circumference i knit the cast on row and end row together before binding off. I then cast on stitches from one side of the circumference and knit one front to the desired length and arbitrary pattern before binding it off. I repeated the process with the back end. At this point i had the opening and front and back sides done but was left with gaping sides and no bottom.

Starting at one end i cast on a stitch on the opening and used a semi-crochet technique by pulling the wool through the side of one front thereby connecting both. Sounds really confusing i know but it works. I increased to the desired width of my phone and continued down the sides and bottom and attached one stitch at each end to the corresponding front/back piece.

This diamond in the rough was further refined with my next pouch:

With this pouch i knit the front to the width and height i wanted, bound off the edge and used the tail end to cast on for the sides. At each juncture i bound off and re-cast to get a ‘crisper’ edge and have the pouch maintain its shape. For the back i knit it the same as the front but ran out of the red wool hence the last minute add-on blue. I wanted a different look and feel for this one so i extended a flap and left a button-hole size for the button closure. For those wondering baout the yellow add-on…well i ran out of the blue too since i was knitting with scraps.

I also did a nice travel ouch with a long strap but that bag fell victim to a luggage thief who picked up my bag instead of his and returned it sans most of its contents.

Moral of this story: The baby steps accomplished with these pouches gave me the confidence to progress on to a top for myself and a shrug for my sister. Will take pictures of that and post about it soon.

On the scarf front i have finally decided on a pattern for my girl cousin and its a skinny scarf so its moving at a fast clip. My boy cousins scarf though has bored me to tears now and is sitting about 75% done while i finish his sister’s scarf first.