I forgot I have a knitting blog

Can't believe I haven't blog in over a year! But I assure you I have been knitting. I suppose it's good that I am knitting more than blogging, although I would still like to do more knitting than reading about knitting...

Did a lot of Christmas and gift knitting but did not take picture of them....

However, I do have picture of Petra that I made. Had Krista from meetup model for the picture:

From 2010 Knitting

Don't think I like bulky yarn that much...

Made Orion a rocket from petitepurls:

From 2010 Knitting

My friend Dayle sent me these yarn and I wanted to make something out of it for her daughter. Neighborly seemed like a good idea for the variegated yarn:

From 2010 Knitting

This is a photo from her. I don't know how often her daughter actually wear it but Dayle's family would always get more knits from me because she takes a picture of her kids using it!

I'll be better at taking photos of knitting and blogging it. Thanks for the three people that seem to be still following this blog. :-)

I haven't been knitting...

I haven't been knitting, because I've been baking. It started with needing to practice baking a cake for my uncle. Then it continued with cookies. I found these savory cookies they were so good I just couldn't get them out of my head.

I couldn't wait to made David Lebovitz's seaweed cookies. He called for this seaweed salt ingredient (fleur de sel aux algues) that's from his local salt person, so it's not something I could easily get. He did give direction on how to make it.

I went to several stores to get the ingredients I need. For some reason I couldn't get "dried dulse" in japanese supermarket but had to get it from wholefoods. Makes me wonder if it's product invented for the westerners. I did not combine the dried seaweed mixture with the salt as suggested because I feel I can control the salt usage and sometimes only add the dried seaweed to cooking too?

So the recipe says to use 2 teaspoon of fleur de sel aux algues mix. I figure using one teaspoon each of the flakey salt and dried seaweed would be enough. Unfortunately it was not salty enough for my taste. I _had_ to make another batch to make it right. The second batched with two teaspoon of the dried seaweed and one teaspoon of the flakey salt plus one teaspoon of the "seaweed salt" i got from japanese store. The taste came out perfect. I just want to write it down somewhere so I can do it again.

I haven't found a baking equivalent of ravelry so I am doing it here. Thanks for putting up with me. I recommend you try this if you like savory cookies. And Ina's parmesan thyme cookies too. Those were great too.

Double Knitting is...

Double knitting is for people who like to do ribbing, with color, A LOT.

Wonderful Amy from the guild taught us double knitting at the last month meeting. We did this cute light bulb motif on big needles to make a potholder. I think I was experimenting with the yarn dominance so you can see the bottom of my potholder doesn't look very good. In fact, you can see some of the background color in the second photo:

My friend Pam later tells me it's a feature of Armenian knitting to have a bit of the color in the back to show through. What created a bit of the color showing through was me using the background on the right side as the dominating yarn so both yarn keeps on crossing each other every other stitch.

I casted on for another one and this was an exciting project because it's the first time my husband wanted me to make something for him. His work uses the light bulb as an indicator on how things are going so I made one with red and green. This time the background area worked out better and the fabric actually separates.

The elf shoes are done

I finally got around to felt the elf shoes. You ready?

Hehe. Aren't they cute? Remember what they look like before felting?

Wow, right?

So gonna make more.

The owlets got eyes!

Presenting O's new "Fire Owlet" sweater:

This was finished last week but didn't have eyes yet:

And since I had 18 owlets, that meant I would need to sew 36 buttons on for the eyes; I was not looking forward to it. Arlene from the meetup suggest that I used a thick yarn to make french knots for it. I gave it a try and it worked out!

How did I end up with 18 owlets? I did not swatch to check the gauge and just blindly followed the biggest baby size (that went to up 36 month) hoping it would be 22 inches wide. After finishing the body, it looked a little small to me but the silly me hoped* it would all work out and continue on. Right after bind/off, I knew it was too small. I let the kid try it to confirm (was only 20.5 inches across chest), measure my gauge and ripped it out. Recalculated how many stitches I would need and cast it on again (did not want to change needle plus I had a lot of yarn left so I could make it bigger).

What did we learn from this?! Hoping is not a good strategy in knitting.

One more note about the french knots: The knot span across two rows so and I wrapped the yarn around the needle eight times before finishing the knot. It seem to work out okay.

Stitches West 2010 report

First, let's get the "cute babies and knits" out of the way.

Isn't this the cutest little hat on the cutest baby?!

And Cheryle made matching cardigan for her little cutie pie!

I had a great time catching up with people and helping out at the Lacy Knitter's Guild booth. I took a class because my friend was not able to take it last minute. It's the Fancy Felted Bag taught by Sharon Castello. Here's a picture of the wool being lay down before wetting it:

Doesn't it look like some furry animal? :-)

Here's everybody working hard, rolling and massaging their bags in bubble wraps and towels:

It's the most aerobic I ever got involving fiber. These are the end results:

The design on the top of this black bag used silk tops and such to decorate:

Here's a picture of the teacher posing with my bag:

I did come home with a few things:

Okay, I know it looks like a lot of yarn, but the upper left hand corner is super chunky's so it doesn't really count because it will get knitted up in no time. The two big balls of tweedy silk-wool (with little red specs) on the lower left hand corner are Pam's fault. I would not have seen it if she did not show me. (Does my guilt show from all these justifications I am coming up with?) I did go into stitches wanting to score some Madelinetosh yarn because it's all the rage in the knitting world and it's hard to get. I was able to score hard-to-get "tart" color way (right hand side of the loot) thought might not be the ideal weight I want (got it in "vintage"). And for some reason (maybe it's freshly coming off chinese new year celebration) I really want some more red yarn, so grabbed a few sock weight yarn which I can make socks or shawlets.

Okay, back to knitting.

A new sweater for O

I've been working hard to finish the sweater for him because he will out grow this size (and the yardage I have for this size) very soon.

Here's the bookworm sweater from Louisa Harding's Miss Bea's Rainy Day (which is so fitting for the weather we've been having lately):


I still haven't felt the elf slippers yet. Can't wait to see when it's felted and all cute.

Last post of 2009

I did not make the dealine to post last things made in 2009 but here it is. I made some felted soap with the Guild taught by Amy. It was a fun workshop!


I also made the Neighborly vest for Orion. Although I used the nice dark navy for the body, I think the variegated yarn might still be too colorful and more suited for a girl? What do you think?

I actually ripped it back and made it a bit longer so it's not as short as it seems in the picture.

Oh, and I finished the Clapotis that took me forever before the year ended. Still need to take a picture.

I am kicking off 2010 with some some elf slippers. I love them! Here's the picture before felting. Hope it'll felt okay.

There's my shoe for comparison. I really wanted to have two pairs so I can have a before and after side by side picture, but I don't think I can wait until i make a second pair before felting it. Besides I wanted to see if me switching needle to a bigger size then called for (11 instead of 10 1/2) would effect it too much before making more.

Knitting with wire and February Baby Sweaters

I finished a couple of baby sweater for friends. I've always wanted to try the February Baby Sweater and these are girl babies so perfect timing.

Finished this pretty quick. Used a US 7 needle so it was very fast.


Next one I decided to try it with these two balls of (about 300 yards) cotton yarn. I haven't not knitted with cotton yet so it was quite exciting:


The second pink one was using US 5 but since I had more yarn I was able to make the sleeves longer. You can compare them side by side:


I was able to try something new at the guild meeting and knitted with wires! Mary was so nice to get the supplies for us and this is what I did:

Isn't it pretty?

Latvian Mitten advanture

My friend Lori and I took a Latvian Mitten class with Beth Brown-Reinsel this week and it was so much fun!

Here's Lori with the beautiful view we had.


Now I expected the class to be good because I've taken class with this teacher. But last time it was in some conference room and this time it was at this nice cute little yacht club with the view of the Tamales bay in the Marin county. That was a nice treat.

Here's Lori knitting with three color for the first time!


We had some cake and cookie for dessert. Look a the cute sheep cookie classmate Lorin made:


This is what our table did at the end of the day with the sample mitten from Beth:


Beth took a picture with Lori and me:

classmate Jessica who took the picture uttered "say Latvian mitten" to elicit those big smiles.

I did a little stranded work project as practice to prepare for the class:


Here's a view from the top:


I saw this commercial toddler dress with such nice color combination and asked if I could take a picture for inspiration:


Lately been working on gift knitting...

Finished Anemoi

Finished the Anemoi mitts. love it!


Can't wait to get my hands on this cover pattern and make it!

obsessed with stranded knitting

I should be knitting babies sweaters because there are so many babies due but I am totally obsessed with stranded knitting right now:

Finished just in time!

Finished the shawl in time for this weekend. Even a little earlier so I can bring it to show at the knitting meetup tonight. Really pushed hard to get the edging done. Gosh, the edging just went on and on. I knew it was gonna be long. I prepared myself for it. But it was still long. Imagine if I didn't prepare myself for it!

Ta-dah:

Here's my attempt at an artsy shot. Don't think it's that good.

Here's a closeup:


Here's probably how I'll be wearing it:


Probably work on an UFO before starting something new?

I've been obsessed

I've been obsessed with the color knitting. Partly because I am afraid I might forget the skills I learned in the beth brown Reinsel class and partly because I just love the way they look. So with a small fair isle project as a dangling carrot, I finished the main part of shawl before casting on.



Originally I used two koigu yarn; yellow and a slightly variegated purple. But the variegation on the purple was too much that the pattern was not showing up well. It had a slight yellow the variegated purple too so that make it worse.

Then I went over to an yarn store that opens really late, I mean a friend (that was kind enough to let me come over late)'s house to see if she has another purple yarn that I can use late monday night. The yarn weight was slightly different and was not showing up well as the constrast color. So sticking to the same pattern I switched the CC as the dominant color and thought it worked out better. When I turned it around, you can totally see where the dominance changed. I thought that was interesting:



I am thinking of switching the Purple to MC and Yellow to CC for the second mitt to make them complimentary. What do you think?

Now I need to go back to pick up and knit the border for the shawl.

Finally got motivated to knit

The hot weather has not help with knitting but having deadlines seems to helped a bit.

My brother's baby is due in 10 days so technically baby can come anytime. Here's a little sweater I made for him. Still need to find buttons. Please let me know if you know where I can score some cute pineapple buttons. My SIL likes pineapples.



You can look at the back too:


Thanks to many people's opinion help I cast on for the shawl I like to use for my brother-in-law's wedding next month. Here you see it against the dress after a bit's been knitted up.



Do you still think they go well together?

Which one matches better?

I am wearing a brown dress to a function and want to make a shawl to go with it. Which one do you think it's better?

Option 1:

This is a silk lace yarn that I will most likely make Eunny Jang's Print O Wave shawl. For those that don't have Ravelry, this is what the wave shawl looks like.

Option 2:

This is the JaggerSpun Silk-Merino lace that will be made into the Orenburg Triangle Shawl. You can take a look at the shawl here too.

Here are they with darker lighting:


Please let me know which one you think it's better. Thanks!