Happy New Year!

Happy new year! I hope everyone had a wonderful and warm holiday.

It's strange that it's 10 years after the Y2K mess. I still remember the 2000 glasses passed out for the Times Square New Year countdowns. Since my family gets access to Japanese Television, our New Year Eve ritual has become watching "Kouhaku Uta Gassen" or "Red/White Singing Showdown" instead of watching the great ball coming down in Times Square.

Japan has a very festive culture--everything has lucky versions of everything. Red and White are the lucky colors. They are also used to divide up teams such as sport day in schools. The two colors for the Singing Showdown represent the men (white) and the women (red). The two teams take turns singing songs to compete. The winner is determined by votes from the celebrity judges (athletes, actors/actresses, etc), the studio audience, and now the general public. I think the White team won in 2009.

We didn't exchange gifts until 12/30, which was great since I was still finishing up some presents in my room before wrapping it up in Japanese packing cloth (to place under the Christmas tree). :) But here's a little peak:

I made a Link hat for my sister's boyfriend, who is famous for loving video games and anime: note: Modeling for the hat is my bf, not my sister's.
Pattern: my original
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool Ease Forest Heather 1 ball


I made a pair of gloves for Dad, who requested grey gloves for Christmas. I added little cables and detachable flaps on forefinger and thumb for easy maneuvering without taking the glove off.
Pattern: Buttoned Elbow Gloves from Vogue Knitting on the Go: Gloves and Mittens
Yarn: Valley Franklin Natural dyed with black RIT dye


I made a cat chullo for my sister who doodled the basic shape for me during Thanksgiving:
Yarn: Patons Classic Wool and Araucania Wool
Pattern: My own; shaping inspired by doubled chullo in Interweave Holiday Knits



I also made a hat for my mom, but she quickly lost it on a warm day. Oh well.
Yarn: Cascade 220
Pattern: Slouchy Copycat hat with 75 sts for a snuggier fit.


I read that my online stashbusting KAL is restarting on the 15th. I need to tally my knit yardage and figure out if my stash did indeed shrink. It sure doesn't look like it tho.

2010: Year of the Tiger

My holiday/ new years cards finally came in yesterday. So exciting! If you moved or didn't get a card from me last year, let me know, and we'll see about getting one your way.

Here's the spoiler.

I illustrated the South China Tiger, which is one of the most critically endangered animals on this planet today.  It's very sad to hear that the world is getting unlivable to many.  I hope we will get our act together and start facing the right direction.  Here's a website to learn more about them.

sessilifolia

I have been searching for an internet name for a while. I always wanted something clever and appropriate for who I am. Today, I finally found one:

--sessilifolia--

Pretty, yea?

It's a species name for my birthday flower Lobelia sessilifolia. It's indigenous to Japan (reason 1) and thus does not have a common English name. Its Japanese name is 沢桔梗　(sawagikyou　＝ waterbend balloon flower) and the flowers beautiful blue purple (reason 2). It's slightly toxic (reason 3). It symbolizes nobility, unique talent, delicateness, and hostility (reason 4-7). I'm not sure about the last one, but I really like the overall feel.

Moreover, sessilifolia means plain leaf. How appropriate is that for an illustrator like me? I always need a plain sheet of paper to start my doodles/illustrations/knitting/baking. Oh, and it sounds like sessile, which is me.

I like it.

PS: Here's a photo link

update Oct 2009

Here's what I said boldly at the end of August. Let's see how I did:

My overall goals:

• Knit half that amount by New Years. (4893 yards)
  
• Knit one-fourth of the amount to go to Southeast Animal Fiber Festival in October. (2446 yards)

My Primary Goals to Finish:

• Mandala Lace shawl by Renee Leverington (1500 yards) ---->aaaagh I started another chart on Oct 27 to make it bigger. 75% done.
• Lace Cable Poncho (rav link) in Vogue Knitting on the Go (1000 yards) ---->Oh yeah that one deep in the box.
• DK Classic Mens Vest (rav link) in Retro Knits (1070 yards)---->done! (642yds actual yardage)
• Grun ist die Hoffnung socks (rav link)(437 yards)------>done!(327yds actual)

Secondary Goals:

• Elefante (100 yards)---->changed to Jean Greenhowe's elephant. (rav link) done!
• Charity hats or Mother Bear Project---->I've been baaad
• Pomatomus socks by Cookie A. (360 yards)--->changed to Fox Face Mysteries (rav link) by Nancy Bush (270 yds actual)
• Swallowtail Shawl in fingering weight (440 yards)--->done! (400 yds actual)
• Wisp Shawl in cobweb (500 yards)---->started Oct 19, about 80% done
• 
  
• Aeolian Shawl in fingering weight (440) yards---->done (400 yds actual)
• Total yardage used: 2040 yards. The goal was 2446, so not too far behind. :) I also knitted other items not on the list, so will talk about that soon.

Big Knits

I've been working on big stuff for about a month now, and they are finally all done, just in time for a fancy birthday dinner!

So here's a bag of yarn I got from WEBS when they had a spring sale in April:

yarn: Jo Sharp Classic DK Colorway:smoke

I picked out a retro waistcoat which didn't have any yarn suggestions, it just said 1000 yards of DK weight yarn for the size I'm making. (34 chest). So I got 1090 yards of yarn total. I did the back.

All 1x1 ribbing with some shaping. argh. I used 250 yards.

I did the front and back: 350 yards. Here they are blocking. The stitch is linen stitch and the buttonholes are sort of worked in about every 2 inches on the WS.

Then I did a single crochet edging, which annoyed me to great extent. Usually when you pick up and knit an edging, you pick up 2 sts every 3 rows, right? Well, I did that, and it was giving me waaay too many stitches. I ended up picking up 1 st every 2 rows (1 st from each selvege st) and it was still on the too-much side.

Well, that's ok because the recipient loved it. He even actively pursued shopping for buttons. He picked out the buttons himself.

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Pattern: Men's waistcoat by Woolcrest from Retro Knits

Needles: US 3 and US 6 and D hook

Yarn: Jo Sharp Classic DK ~640 yards

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I was sort of disappointed in big erratas like wrong needle size requirement for gauge and vague and plain instructions. I suppose that's how patterns were written, but they advertised that the patterns were rewritten for modern knitters. Oh well. All's well that ends well. :)

But what about the 4 balls of yarn left! I only used ~640 yards for the vest (which is a fair amount for vests. I usually use about 1000-1200 yards for a sweater)

He requested matching socks, but I suggested a better suggestion: matching hat.

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Pattern: Morgan from Knitty.com (spring 2008)

Needle: US 5

Yarn: Jo Sharp Classic DK ~220 yards

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This pattern is not intuitive. I'm not all that familiar with hat terminology, so I was quite lost for the entire thing until I grafted the brim and voila! a hat emerged! It was a short-row party from beginning to end. For the brim I used plastic canvases which was really easy to use to secure the edges and then to sew on the snap-ons between the brim and the top portion of the hat. He LOVES this hat. He even wore it to school the next day. and the next, and the next.

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And now something completely different!

I won some yarn by placing 2nd place in the great hat race hosted through ravelry in the spring of this year. I recommend it to anyone who likes making hats. It's lots of fun and a great way to give back to the community.

Anyway, I got ~450 yards of cream colored yarn. I was quite impressed by the gradated colorways in Miriam Felton's Andromeda Shawl in ravelry and wanted to make one for myself. I'll write about how to go about dying this later.

Yarn: Knit Picks Palette Cream, 2 skeins

Beads: Miyuki Delicas-8 Dark amber Lined AB from Rare Earth Beads in Durham, NC

I always admired the Aeolian Shawl, and this yarn wanted to be it. So after few days of knitting away with beads (it gets fun with practice I promise), here she is:

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Pattern: Aeolian Shoulderette with Narrow Edging

Needle: US 5

Yarn: Knit Picks Palette 2 skeins (~400 yards)

Beads: Miyuki Delicas-8 Dark amber Lined AB (about 750)

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I love it! This is the first shawl I made using fingering weight yarn. I like the balance between the size (shoulderette) and the weight. It's not too heavy, and boy the edging looks fancy! I think I like the narrow edging better than the original pattern. I'm entering this into the state fair!

yardage used from stash: 640 + 220 + 400 = 1260!

Little Knits

Little knit #1: Elephant by Jean Greenhowe
Yarn: Dale Falk, Lion Brand Wool-Ease Heather Grey and Tweed Red
Needle: #2 circular and #2dpn

mods: By the time I got to the arms, I was tired of sewing up seams, so the arms are in the round. It is possible to do body and head in the round. For feet and ears I recommend knitting them flat since the seam is minimal in feet and the seam helps the shape of the ears. When sewing on parts together, use lots of pins to secure parts in place. Otherwise they look real silly.

I forgot how fun these little guys are! For the first time the eyes went well...it's sewn on for a little toddler neighbor. His name starts with an E. Maybe I'll make another.



Saartje's booties by Saartje Bruin
Needles: US#2 dpn
Buttons: 7/16 La Mode buttons from JoAnn
Yarn: Mystery acrylic baby yarn from Eatonton, GA

Aww these are SO cute! I had the booties knitted up a few weeks ago, but finally broke down and got buttons. You know, babies can't wait forever. And they probably will outgrow them super-fast anyway.

With all the notions, I forgot to weigh the yarn before assembling. I guess these won't go towards the stash-busting yardage count, but they make me happy every time I look at them.

Stashdown FO#1 : Socks

Here is my first finished object: socks!

This pattern is sort of curious...neither toe-up nor top-down. You start with a beautiful lace panel like shown below, and knit a short-row heel from one of the edges. Then you pick up the side stitches as you knit up the foot, then proceed to finish as any toe-up sock.

Pattern: Grun ist die hoffnung

Yarn: Cascade Heritage

Needle: US#1 dpn

Yardage: 330 yards

Total stash-busting so far: 330/9786.5= 3.3%