Touched...

A have a guy that i like since years ago. Earlier this year, i made a pair of socks for him. It was made of a pure wool. And i knitted the pair quickly because i was (also) leaving the country. The sock was a bit too big. So when i pass the sock to his family (i am leaving while he's coming home for a week or two), i told him that that was a pair of sleeping socks.

Last night, i was having a video call witg this guy. And he told me that he is wearing that pair of socks. I thought he was just making it, but he pull that socks out and showed them to me.

I am touched. And he told me that my socks were one of his weapon against the winter...

... (Still feeling touched)

Lucky number?

Maybe now it's my lucky number now?

Live, wedding veil

On my blocking mat...

To studded life we go

Because i just bought an applicator. Ohohohoho...

Back with my shawl

I dont like wool.

It hurts my fingers and makes my hands dry.

...

Delays

I really hate it when i have delays in mu knitting projects. I have 2 projects in my hand, and i dont have time to do them. I hate it.

Hook on my bun

Almost fell asleep with hook needle still attached on my hair bun.

How crochet geek am I?

It's so hard...

To resist the temptation of excessive blocking. I already have ALL the measurements, but my fingers seem too excited and repeatedly pull the yarn toward its maximum stretch.

Now my mind is busy thinking how am i going to get the shape perfect as measured. Hmmm...

I wish that thinking could burn calories as much as running around the block.

First day

At work, and all i can think off how i can i get my hands back to my needles right away. I want to get this shawl done immediately.

Decipher

I am badly desperately trying to decipher what to do with this shawl. Is it not wide enough?

Loose edgings

I think i have to redo the binding off part. Darn!

Knitting celebrity

Wow, i never thought that i would meet a knitting celebrity in singapore.

I met Asa, the woman behind Asa Tricosa designs here in singapore. It was a delight to talk with her while knitting her design, Arietta. I am aleeady learning a lot from her pattern, which is slightly complicated at the beginning, but then you kind of understand where she's heading. Structurally, her designs are unique, and i really looking forward in doing this project.

White shawl

Not really. Off white is not white. But it is beautiful anyways. I was surprised that the size is huge, expanded without my knowledge. I thought this is going to be medium sized ones since the pattern calls for a shawlette. Still, i love it just the way it is.

Must make a self note: not to make beaded shawl if the beads are not stringed into the yarn before the project is started. From 2 wks knitting this shawl, 1 week is used for the beading part only. Phew!

Breaking record

After i bought the "blocking" wire, today... I broke my blocking pinning time to 1 hour and 20 minutes. Wow.

A helping friend

That's me. Well, actually i asked a friend to help me wind my new hanks of wool. She said she'll do it and asked my help to block her shawl. The world does need a lot of helping friends...

Faroese. I didn't know it was faroese until after i finished blocking the top edge and center. Lesson learnt.

Cobweb. Scary. Fragile. Aaaarrrggghhh...

And as you can see on the picture, my blocking wires are in the form of plant wire support, bought for 2 sgd for each 3 different lengths, total about 10 wires. Me, the shabby knitter.

I won!

 I can't believe it.

I won a design after I am joining a forum for knitting shawls. Of course, it's a random winner, almost the same with door prize, but the fact that I won had made feel touched. (suddenly, there's a song "Touch" from Miss A, korean girl band, played on the back of my head. I like their lace dress in the MV by the way, and their gothic-mummy look is awesome)

I get to pick a design, from a designer who mostly do shawls from side to side. Many of the shawls that I made is top down shawls.

I'm still indecisive about which pattern I want. But hey... we'll see. Many of the pattern has lace repeats that I've been eye-ing for quite some time from Walker's 2nd treasury. But the fact that the shawls are made from side to side is new for me. This is going to be a good lesson.

Golden and whites

I love the result so far....

Gulity

Guilty as charged.

My first white

Not much to say. I think i'm going to add beads here.

That bloody thing

I finally finished the rock island shawl. This bloody thing.... I really tested my endurance and patience while working this thing... I guess the yarn also made everything even worse after i had to deal with pattern that made me feel no sense. Why does the angled degree has to be knitted straight anyway? I. Dont. Understand.

Of course, after blocking, that bloody thing still look good. But i keep questioning: why?

Spinning. Should I?

Honestly, since SO bought me a preyarn, i have seriously thinking about spinning yarn myself. It seems so lovely to spin my own yarn, and perhaps even making it so unique, that the outcome will be the one and only in the world.

However, spinning is not cheap. Buying spinning wheel is around 360-1000 USD, and if i want to go economic, i can buy drop spindle for 15 USD. But, drop spindle will take me forever to finish even 100 grams of wool.

And i am still tempted.

Being jobless making me feel more and more helpless. I feel like the only reason why i want to get a job as quickly as i can is because i want to buy more yarn. Yaaaaarrrrrnnnn...

Dear god, get me a job with high payment. I need more yarn.

Done... And continuing

Finished my black trefoil, and continuing to bloody island.

Almost done

Traveling shawl

Means that these are shawls i made during traveling.

Tools

Knitting tools
Beading tools
Carving tools
Crochet tools
Manicure tools


I have so many tools....

Scientist in me

I am conducting trials on blocking method.

Shady lady: after the surgery and everything

I did another surgery for shady lady after I added beadings. At first, I didn't put any beading on the center stitch, and I thought... it would look weird. So I had to do the surgery after I did 3 repeat of beading addition. Phew... Knitting with beads really slowed down my pace.

I am now at my last 9 rows. Wish me luck!

Shady lady

I started another project immediately after i blocked my swallowtail. This shawl is a free pattern in ravelry, called shady lady. I saw the pattern on one if the forum, and i found out that only 7 people had knitted it. I decided to try.

The yarn i am using now is a gift from chris, silver colored cotton parkit fingering weight. Although i am now think that this is probably light fingering is more appropriate. I frogged once and restart since i keep on making mistakes by mixed up the right and left chart reading. How annoying!

Anyways, nearing rows 50 and i havent installed any lifelines. And then i dropped my stitch. The center one.

Great job!

And then i had to do surgery. Grat...

Swallowtail, finished!

Here she is..,

Swallowtail blocking

Blocked after 2 hours pinning here and there. Blocking size 178 x 88 cm

Pre blocked swallowtail

Finished! I'm blocking it today. Pre blocked measurements are 129 x 54 cm

Finally binding off

Swallowtail is not a difficult pattern. But i personally think that the transition is not smooth, so it is an agony for to keep on counting my stitches.

I am just happy that i am finishing this thing.

After i use my new aluminium needles, my speed was increased. So the total time required actually only 20 day-idh or less. I just hate the ripping and tinking back.

2 effing rows

Had to tink back 2 rows. Eff!!!!

Making ideas into reality

This pattern have been on my mind for quite a few months. I spend my day to find the best way to do it.

Ananas 2

Another earrings from ananas line. Lets just call this ananas 2.

Hardened cotton perle combined with fresh water pearl.

Hm...

I think both of the yarn should be able to use 1 mm crochet needle.

That will do.

Mini mini mini

Using 0.90mm crochet hook.

I am definitely crazy.

Surgery

This damn shawl has cost me 6 times of knitting surgery and ripping.

Damn pattern!

Handmade earrings

After quite a long while, i finally made another earrings.

Swallowtail

I was Going to make trefoil shawl using my katun bali, however, first few rows showed that it's not gonna be good. The yarn will look better if it on a fuller type of lace. So i switched to swallowtail from evelyn clark. So far so good.

Tutorial: Hassle-free lifeline

As many knitters believe, inserting lifeline during knitting can put you on ease whenever the unthinkable happens. Nightmare for lace knitter is when a stitch (or more) dropped and the beautifully knitted lace started to unravel, resulting in a wasted hard work. You know how the yarn can easily unravel on lace (damn those yarn overs!), and they unravel faster if you are using fine yarn. It breaks my heart even to think about it.

I myself rarely use lifeline whenever I knit lace. However, when I knit my fountain pen shawl, I somehow dropped stitch more often than I usually do. So, I thought, maybe this is the time when I should use a lifeline.

Why lifeline is important?
Basically, lifeline is to help further damage caused by unraveling. Other the other side, when you made mistake, such as forgetting to yarn over or to k2tog in a repeat (and causing the pattern to "shift"), you can unravel your work until the lifeline, without fearing that your project will change into further stitch mess.Use lifeline whenever you are unsure about your knitting project, allowing you to restart without tears. I also use lifeline when I am not sure with the Bind-off method. I always have problem with bind-off. If you are unsure with the bind-off, put the lifeline 2-3 rows below bind-off row. After you block the project, you can redo the bind-off if you are unhappy with the result.

Lifeline can be inserted anytime during knitting project. But, wise knitter would choose the "easy row" of the repeat, rather than to insert it during the difficult part. "Easy row", for example, is a row that contains "knit and/or purl all stitches". No yarn overs, no k2tog, no ssk, or other decrease/increase or knitting maneuver. A clear easy row allows you to insert lifeline by using tapestry needles. Some needles (such as knitpicks' interchangeable circs) provide features that help you in inserting lifeline. I use similar method, but this method can be applied on any kind of needle, and can be applied on any row you want.


Materials you need:
- The lifeline yarn. Note that you must use yarn smaller than you are using for your project. Any yarn, new or waste, that has clean and smooth yarn surface, without fiber flying around is perfect. Mohair or eyelash yarn definitely not a good choice for a lifeline yarn. I chose cotton which strand does not easily strays. In fact, I use a beading yarn that is usually used for chinese knots. Fig. 1 shows some selection of yarn, I used the middle one.
- sellotape, choose a thin sellotape. Plastic sellotape or paper sellotape are good enough.
- scissors

Fig. 1

Method

Step one, attach the yarn to the circular needle you are currently using. The best area to attach the yarn is at the very back of the needle, just before entering the cable of the circular (Fig. 2)

Fig. 2

Make sure that the front tip of the yarn is aligned with the sellotape (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3

NOTE: If you are using single pointed needles or dpns, attach the yarn at about 6-8 cm (2.5 inches) from the front needle tip.

Fig. 4

After you attach the yarn, cut the excess sellotape. On the fig.4, you can see that the yarn is securely attached to the needle, and the knitting needle is now ready for use.

Step two, knit as your pattern indicate. Move the stitches towards the knitting needle's cable as you knit the row. If your lifeline yarn is aligned with the sellotape, the stitches can be easily moved to the needle's cable (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5

When you finished the row, make sure that you push all the stitches that you have knitted to the needle's cable, make sure that the lifeline yarn has entered all the stitches (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6

Step three, remove the lifeline yarn from the needle (not from the row) by pulling the lifeline yarn toward the needle tip (Fig. 7A and B). This will tear the sellotape. After that, clean the sellotape leftovers (Fig. 7C).

Fig. 7A

Fig. 7B

Fig. 7C

If the lifeline yarn still attached to a yarn ball/cone, you can cut them now. If you intend to have the lifeline until you finished blocking, add approximately 10 cm (4 inches) from the length of the row: that is the lifeline yarn length you needed. To make sure that the lifeline would not accidentally pulled out from the stitches, make a knot from both ends of the lifeline yarn (so it makes a loop of a lifeline yarn). Don't worry, you can remove the knot during blocking.

Note: If you are using dpns, be very careful when moving the stitches to the back of the needle. If you are working with many stitches, using a needle point protector at the back end would not hurt you.

Step four, knit the next row as your pattern indicates. Careful not to knit the lifeline yarn.

Fig. 8

Extra notes:
If you are using markers on the needle (not on the stitch), make sure that you are using open markers. If you are using closed loop markers, remove the marker while inserting the lifeline. Or, if you are afraid that you'll lost count, change the close loop markers with a waste yarn marker, and change it back to close loop markers when you knit the next row. The waste yarn will stay with the lifeline yarn.

Fig. 9

On Fig. 9, the left stitch marker is what I called "close loop markers", the middle and the right stitch markers are what I called "open markers".

Hope this tutorial is useful for you ^^.

happy knitting!

Blocking

And there are hundreds of pins more to go.

Wow.

Finished my fountain pen!!!

Pre blocked size is 152 x 72 cm.

Last 3 rows

I'm on my last 3 rows! Finally!!!!

Dexter, hang on there. We'll finish this together....

25 rows

My last 25 rows. Accompanied by dexter.

46 minutes

Oh my god... My 7th repeat of fountain pen shawl require 46 minutes for 2 rows. And i am still so far from finishing.

Fountain pen shawl - 3

Going to the 7th repeat.

I did something totally stupid. I tried to insert a lifeline, since a drop stitch more than i usually did. However, inserting a lifeline without proper tapestry needle is hard. I cant find mine, by the way. And inserting a lifeline into a lace pattern which continuously changing holes is difficult. Do i had to improvise.

I found a hood way to insert my lifeline easily, but i forgot that my project has a lot of closed loop markers. Hence, they are stuck with the lifeline. So next time I do this, I must make sure that the markers are separated.

Now how did i do it?

Later on...

Comfy sock

Last december, i made a wool sock as a gift.

Original design, or perhaps "whatever my hands want to knit" design is more appropriate, cable sock.

Hope the person will be warmed with this gift.