it's only been 4 days and i've already forgotten i was suppose to be on a yarn diet. ergh. I will practice entralace with the yarn i already have upon finishing the slytherin scarf. I can not get myself to finish the last trapped bar... 2 more days until i have to mail out... if i don't make it to HK, i guess i'm mailing out in china.

break me off a piece of that.

I was thinking of signing up for another swap, a little visitor swap 7, the deadline to sign up is June 6. But I am hesitant because I feel a bit swapped out. I felt like I hadn't done any knitting for myself, just kept knitting things for other people, and not having time to knit things that i want to knit...

i mean don't get me wrong, knitting for other people is great, but it just seems like all i've been doing for the past 3 months or so is knit in the circular in stockingnett... and it has been getting boring.

I am seeking to knit something new, something where i can work on something that is not stockingnett the whole time...

perhaps not the time to start on that rowan long stockingnett sweater either.

Maybe I will get back into the Clapotis with that pink yarn, or start over on the thuja sock, and try the jaywalker sock... crochet the afghan, etc. all of the above!!!!

I am on the last leg of the slytherin scarf... this last trapped bar is taking a really long time. I'm hoping to finish it tomorrow... perhaps I'll pop in the new korean drama dvd called Witch Yoo Hee or Witch Amusement or A Witch in Love

almost finished!!!!

well after asking my swap partner about what size her shoulders were, she replied that her shoulders are 21 inches across. So i re-hooked up a teensey caplet, but this time I used two strands to hook it, and put the stripes towards the bottom of the caplet.

BUT

i think it's too big, and it looks ugly.

SO

I'm going to frog it. I like the one strand look, not the two strand look. The two strand look is too thick for this design.

I am on the last trapped bar of the PoA scarf. I'm excited to be on the last leg.

I think i'd like to add one more item if I could to the package. Perhaps a better presentation of the owlie. Like a cage... that would be cute no??

quick! A teensey Capelet

Teensey Capelet From Vicky Howell's a pattern a month
I didn't have the right yarn for the gauge, but i hooked it up anyway...

yarn used: Woolease, green & grey Heather.
Hook used: 7mm

It's a quick hooking. I added one more round cuz it seemed too short...and i still think it's too short, it's short compared to original... I don't know if it will fit my partner. I'm hoping she's really skeletal skinny, or at least with not so wide shoulders.

I hope it fits her.

enough of this... no more!

I think I have a significant stash of yarn now... each yarn is project specific. I think I'm going to have to finish those project specific yarn off before I let myself purchase frivilous yarn. OK?

So I hereby declare myself on a yarn cut off. No more yarn purchases until I finish all the yarn projects I have lined up.

as for the frivilous yarn that aren't project specific, find a project for them, and use it up.

Immediately!!

stolen goods

stolen goods, originally uploaded by mlee.

I personal swapped some items with javede from Germany for her handdye green yarn seen on the right. I sent her blank yarn for her to play with.

I have wound one skein up, and i think if I find the right size needles, I will make the Jaywalker socks with it!

the hello kitty magazine was a bonus gift. she saw in my profile that i like hello kitty, and had an extra magazine lying about, so she passed it along.

I kept trying to read it, but it's in German and I don't read German. It's sad really... trying to read German, and not being able to. It's for little kids, but i love little kid magazines.

Thuja update 3

OK... so a misread pattern directions in the toe shaping part and I just couldn't recover from it. sooo I had to frog it... well, I didn't feel too bad about frogging it due to the inside out foot part... ok. so i will do better next time... totally a learning experience for sure!!!

and now, i have to get on the mindless stockingnett for the scarf! I have less than one week.

thuja update 5/21

OK, you might not notice a difference from yesterday's progress from today's progress, but i can tell the difference. I made a couple more rows on the foot part. I am actually on the foot part as opposed of the gusset area of the sock. so there is your difference.

for some strange reason i am extremly proud of my inside out sock.

I need to do the foot part for awhile before i can start doing the toe part... exciting. I had hoped to work on it some today, but i went for a car ride, and it made me dizzy, and then on the way home it was too dark to knit. Perhaps tomorrow I'll have some time to spare at night to finish it up!

Exciting times ahead!!

please to meet you Owl!

Owl Name: (unamed)
Sex: Unknown until later...
Birthdate: May 21, 2007
Likes: to meet new friends and hang out with nemos!
Dislikes: heavy letters & flying during the day.

Thuja update thus far

OK... a whole day of sock knitting gets me here...I did it all ok, until i got to the heel part. that heel part is tricky, but I'm determined to go with my inside out sock.



it should be ok right? just cuz it's garter on the outside doesn't mean it's not wearable... plus it's my first single pair of sock.

This was suppose to be for my dad, but i think it might just be for me... cuz when i fit it on my feet, the heel just sits snuggley... hm... i guess i will see how this one single sock goes.

At the home stretch yo!! so easy... who knew.

::knock on wood::

work work work away

the electricity went out at where i lived, so instead of being in a large building all alone without electricity, I came to work to sit here with all of one of the worker. Everyone else is either getting the day off, or working away not in the office. Just me and the girl who failed my english test.

Logged on craftster and saw that they added a new board called LIMBO. It's rather entertaining for me to read actually, perhaps I'm just suffering from boredom, so i find it funny, but i find the whole thing hilarious. The point of the Limbo board is that the Mods move a iffy posting there and send the Post-er a private message, asking them to fix whatever they thought was iffy about it, cuz they posted official new rules about fishing for sales, directly going off craftster to see tutorial and etc. It's the red Mod warnings on top of the postings that makes me laugh. But maybe it's just me...

thuja

in a fit of desperation for something else to do besides knitting in stockingnett the whole time, i've started the thuja socks for dad... i'm not getting gauge... it's way small, but i think it might be ok. i hope. well worse comes to worse, i'll jus frog this and call it a learning experience... sigh. i hate gauge. & casting on.

I also rolled my first hank... you should see the proud little ball i have. I'm sooo proud of it lookig half decent i may just roll all the sock yarn that i have just for fun! this is how lame i am.

i have finished reading the 7th horcrux by melinda... i cried, such a sap i am. i won't spoil it for anyone just incase you want to read it. it's pretty good. although there were parts in there that i was like... uh do you really have to go there?

i got grey's so perhaps i'll pop it in later and knit to that. hehe.

what i've been up to!

have been prusing the classifieds at destash.blogspot.com for when people post their yarns for destashing purposes. so far everytime i've emailed someone about what they have posted... I am always too late. there was a knitscene magazine that i wanted, these sock yarn... too late. i suppose it's better that i am too late... don't really need MORE yarn i suppose.

::raise hand:: i am a big geek. I read harry potter fan fic. I am on chapter 12 or something. I read the chapters and knit the scarf that i'm working on for the swap at the same time... so far so good. I am on the 7th trapped bar... i had a lot of free time lately, but hadn't felt like knitting all the time. just sometimes.

i haven't been knitting anything else lately... i sorta want to start on socks for my dad... but i guess i'm waiting until i'm done with the scarf, i like doing one project at a time. not multi-tasking of the any sort.

WIP updates...

there's the Slytherin scarf project as promised. I am on the 5th trapped bar, and onto the 6th trapped bar. It shall be 14 trapped bar... so... 8 more to go. I had some knitting time earlier this week. This was all knitting done sitting in front of the tv watching movies. first there was 300, then there was blood diamonds yesterday. Since blood diamonds was about 2 hours long, i had plenty of time to knit thru that. I don't know why, but i had been picking very graphic violent movies lately... i couldn't help it, it's what's out there.

the jogless jog is very apparent in the picture above. as you can see the 3 trapped bar at the beginning of the scarf is at this diagonal, but the ones above that are very well in the round. nice huh?!

i don't think i'll post anymore progress pictures of the scarf until it's done. it's sorta boring seeing all the trapped bars coming into fruition... it's just the same old. everyone knows that it looks like.

I think I'm going to re-try the knitted backyard critters from Crafty Alien with the correct feltable yarn this time. Yes, I can read!!! i swear. The Jaeger DK yarn said it was machine washable. Dang it, why didn't I see that little graphic before?!?! seriously i need to get my eyes checked or something. :)

takes so little to make me smile

i am a geek. I opened my itunes to listen to some music, but then noticed the podcast section searching for Cast On podcasts... and noticed it started downloading a new podcast!!! Exciting!! now i don't have to listen to older archives, i can listen to the new one. Not tha i have listend to all the archives, but a select few.

yay!!!

as for knitting updates, i am making progress with my slytherin scarf. since the big bar is only 20 rows, it's going by a lot quicker than the previous 27 rows. Plus now that i've got the jogless jog down, i've been doing it that way for the color changes, but my rows are looking a lot nicer. I shall take a picture later on for show.

i also have been a bit of a nerd and have been reading fanfic for harry potter. I was listening to the pottercast this week, and it mentioned this one fanfic that was getting passed off as the next installment or spoiler or whatnot... so i thought, i sure take a look. I know, slow on the bandwagon, but hey better late then never huh? It's ok... so far. i mean, i feel as if it's not really the way Jo would write it. It's too artificial for JKR work... well i'm only saying that cuz i know it's fanfic. i still enjoy the story line.. thus far...

it's sorta like reading the babysitter's club, and then reading the large summer special ones where they all go to CA for the summer or whatever. It's like the same characters, but different setting.

so now i have to stay awake while the itunes DL the new Cast On!!!!!

i think this scarf, shfting sands will be lovely as a present as well.

the jogless jog succeed?!

i think i figured out how the jogless jog works that i was missing from before. I think i need to do one round first, then lift the stitch and knit it that way...

as you can see in the picture above, the color change at the very top is straight. while the color change underneath that is not straight...

I'm going to try this method again at the next color change to see if my theory is right...

yay... another technique conquered.

felt update

my faith in felting has been restore. I KNEW as soon it (the yarn with the cat on the label) felted that the jaeger matchmaker was not the right wool to be used in felting. It was most likely superwash even though it didn't say that it was superwash.

the solid mesh you see above used to look like those stockingnett stitches behind it before it was felted in the hot water.

felting is easy when you use the right kind of wool.

...maybe i will give felting another chance.

oops i did it again!

i realised I never posted picture of the swap items from the end swap. Here they are.
1. PoA Scarf with initials E+D, it's really really long.
2. His and hers toothbrush.
3. extra yarn even though she doesn't knit or crochet.
4. green and silver makeup slytherin style.
5. beautifying potion in green and white.
6. edible wands from olivander...
7. a pop up card of London... so she can feel like she's right there.
8. pygmy puff candy
9. set of harry potter stamps... for evil licking!
10. pens to do some evil writing with.
11. and tissues incase she needs them for the last book.

ok... so not all slytherin things are evil... but most of them are. evil is their middle name.

ok i lied.

So 20 mins before the end of the day, my dad calls me up and says that he's able to eat dinner after all. So me and him ended up having a birthday dinner all by ourselves, at the Shabu place where they serve fresh shrimp. By fresh I mean, so fresh, they will jump right into the hotpot for you, literally. He ordered Kobe beef, i ordered some other part of Japan beef & shrimp. after dinner, we picked up cake, and ended up cutting the cake also just by ourselves. although it was a bit lonely just the two of us. we made do, it was still good to spend time together as a family, since we used to not regularly.

now back to your normally scheduled program.

while i was waiting for dinner, I managed to knit a couple of rows. after dinner i also knit more rows. I am on the second repeat now. I have made the solids not so thick, only 20 rows not 27, so it looks a bit squished... but i'm thinking it should be ok with more repeats. I'm just not used to it because i was used to having the 27 rows.

A felting thought occured to me. what if the Jaeger matchmaker that i was making the owl with superwash. I know it didn't say so on the package, but that thought occured to me while i was handling my 100 % wool yarn with the scarf, this 100$ wool yarn from Japan is coarse, not like the DK. the jaeger dk was soft to the touch... thus making me feel like it was superwash, thus not felt-able. hm... defintely worth trying felting with this japanese yarn... i have a swatch that i may use in my felting experiment.

(oh why must i always try to felt non-feltable items???!!! this isn't the first time!!!!!)

shipping internationally

while my dad and i watched 300 on DVD, I thought I'd pick up my knitting and do some mindless stockinette while i was at it. I got about 10 rows done before i had to put it down due to the violence that was going on... i was using the knitted tube so far to shield my eyes from all the gruesome images. It was too graphic for me. Totally unprepared for the graphicness.

and that is all the knitting I have done...

the deadline for the hogwarts round two swap is coming up... and so far i've only got one tiny item finished... sigh. it looks like i should be doing some cramming soon. I just haven't been v. motivated at knitting the long scarf... i want to try my hand at other things. should not have signed up for another HP swap. what was i thinking? ok let's get past that.

even though i've done no knitting, it does not mean i can't not buy yarn!!! i am doing a personal swap with javede from Germany for her handpainted yarn, and in return i will buy her blank yarn from webs.

i also have inquired about an international subscription for knit.1 it's 30 bucks for 4 issues. i was going to fax them the cc info, when i realised, i'll just have sunny mail out the payment for me in the US... and that would be so much easier. PLUS there's the added bonus of the off chance that the cc gets misused... yep. SMRT!!

on not knitting or crafting news... today is my dad's birthday... he doesn't have time to celebrate it. i am upset.

:(

ohmygauge

Guage is definitely an issue... I think I should continue knitting and finish the actual ron's sweater instead of leaving it as an UFO. I've done the front and the back... (i'm not so good with the changing colors, intersar or fair isle or whatever it's called... so... i've just did it in one color and will double stitch the letter later on. the directions doesn't actually give the sewing together instructions... maybe it's something i just have to guess...

on other knitting news... i've done none!

Here's what i'm working on...

this Weasley cell cozy. I'm testing this one out... trying to conqueror my fear of dpns. i think i'm finally getting the hang of it. It's sorta like circular... but not.
this is a new PoA scarf for my swap... the rest of the scarf will look like this. I'm thinking of making it a bit shorter... like 20 rows instead of 27 for the green rows in between...

I heart packages!!! literally!!!

Guess what?

My second package from the heart swap finally arrived. It just arrived in taiwan! I'm soooo excited. Maybe Vanessa will post it on the swap gallery so that I get to see it. i'm just so happy that it finally got there... i had no doubt that it would arrive in taiwan. I'm just upset that she had to send it twice. dang china and their odd packages that they let thru or not.

I also got the first copy of interweave magazines. exciting huh???

I am!

ipod cozies

Inspired by this I want to make a sweater for my ipod too!!

this is also entirely too cute!!

the official PoA Circ Needle!

the short US 6 circular Addi needles are going to be my official PoA scarf needle... due to it being the perfect size to cast on 90 stitches.

At first, I used the circ 8 in bamboo, i casted on like 2 times with it, both times the needle being too long, so I had issues connecting the ends to make it circular. Finally i gave up hope on the 8s and went with the 6s... cuz I realised that the 6 is the shortest that i had, and it fit 90 stitches perfectly. So... i casted on again, and joined the ends, and away we go!!

I purchased the circular needle row counter, so I'm also using that as a stitch marker to mark the place of where it begins and where it ends. It's handy in counting, but more often than no, the row counter will fall off and i'd have to pick it back up and put it back on.

I made sure that my joining wasn't twisted... so. Yay! I'm totally on my way, casting on 90 stitches doing it the cable way sucks... but i don't know how to cast on for circular knitting otherwise. or rather i know how to cast on, but i just don't know how to join the ends.

as for other news... i'm totally thinking of frogging the clapotis, and starting all over again with new yarn... this
wooly pink yarn i got in HK last time. i really don't like how the brown looks... it's totally heart breaking cuz all that work would have been for nothing... i guess this is how the clappy unravels!

knit smarter not

it's entirely too hot to knit... unless you're in a nice air conditioned room, which i would be except my office is ontop of a heated generating machine, and we like to keep it nice and warm up here. Let the wind gods blow our way... please!!

I think... i'm going to put the clappy on hold and then use up the last skein to knit up a think airy scarf, and then think about ordering more harold and maude to complete the whole thing...

and start on the long long long scarf. i'm relectant to start on it because i fear that the amount of yarn that i have is entirely too little for the length of scarf that i want... hm. should i be smart and purchase more yarn or just go ahead and start the scarf and worry later? or maybe i should go for the other type of smart and calculate how much yardage it would take...

it's nap time.

ok... so at 90m, the 6(?or is it 8?) skeins that i ordered isn't enough to cover the clappy. I'm on my last two skeins... I'm thinking 1. just order more yarn, and put the project on hold til it arrives, or 2. finish off the clappy with another totally different yarn... or 3. frog it and use all the yarn to make a skinny scarf, cuz i just saw music & lyric, and am craving a super thin lightweight scarf like drew had in the movie. ( i am using Vickie Howell's Love in the color of harold & maude. 70% bamboo & 30% silk, and it is super smooth.)

would all the weeks busy clappy knitting be gone with nothing left to show for, then just knowledge that i can make a clappy later on should i want to again?

i guess i should get started on my slytherin scarf... maybe i'll put it on hold anyway.

pro frog: the brown color isn't that great as a clappy, i'm having issues with joinging the yarn at appropriate places, i could reknit the yarn into a much light thin airy scarf for the spring/fall.

con frog: i could just order more yarn and just finish the darn thing; i'd have worked on this piece for the last week and a half with nothing but pictures and a memory to show for; i want to actually finish the clappy.

well i'll sleep on it.