hooked on yarn

this is almost exactly the same post as below, from 3 months back, declaring that i'm exhausted, my mojo is still out there wondering, and the green cotton for the juliet is glaring at me each time i walk into my room because it hasn't been touched since...i can't remember when.

i'm sorry...but with work and japanese studies (jlpt 2 ftw!) and other interests i have no time to fondle you. maybe wwkip day, if i can make it.

i'll definitely try...i miss my knitting buddies! *waves*

still alive, but barely. why am i always so tired? (=.=)

no new activities to report, since i've barely been touching my needles. if anyone has seen my wandering mojo, please send it back home.

that's japanese for "long time no see". i've been busy with classes and preparation for the jlpt exam on the 7th. i might not get my aim of 350, but i think i should be able to pass with no problems.

i managed to take a few piccies, so here they are:



my first sleeved FO! from the japanese magazine 手編み大好き！autumn/winter 2006 edition. i even bought the exact yarn called for, james dean olympus. it's extremely warm, so i don't see myself using it for a while. but first, i need to tuck in all the ends...



my latest WIP, courtesy of my mother. she loved the design in the debbie bliss magazine, the same reason why i bought the magazine. so, per her request for it to be in cotton, it's being made out of 8 ply bendigo cotton in green. the green is actually much brighter than in the picture.

this is turning out to be perfect knitting while watching japanese shows on tudou.

next, my most delicious knitting ever, my fish socks. pomatomus, magic loop, both socks knitted at the same time. these socks have caused a sensation wherever they went. i've got to the heels at last.



(i have pictures proving that this is not a single sock, but they refuse to be uploaded. curses to livejournal!)

mum loves the lace blouson that was my albatross, and that made the close to 2 years of struggle all worthwhile. (it helps that the end product really is very pretty, if i could say so myself. it is after all the first thing i've knitted that's not a shawl or a sock.)

now mum wants something else. this afternoon, i handed her all my IK and other magazines and left her to go through them.

long story short, i'm going to have to buy more yarn from bendigo. anyone else wants some?

(p/s: aussie dollar is about one-for-one right now. great time to buy, no?)

dear me,

before you even start to consider buying the equipment needed for bobbin lace, please remember:

1) you have 1 box plus one shelf full of yarn not yet knitted.
2) you have no more space to put instructional books.
3) you have no spare monies to spend on another expensive hobby.
4) you have no space to lace. period.

yours,
me.

(doesn't stop me from wanting to start, though. i mean, have you seen what is possible with that? i droolz.)

no buying of new yarn
no buying of new yarn
no buying of new yarn...

yes, i have finally uploaded pictures on ravelry!

and to celebrate, i shall repeat the postings here!



first up, to say "hi", here's kiwi. i think my parents (especially my mum) were hilariously amused with it. it may not get a new home after all.



remember this? it looks exactly like the last picture i put up except for one thing. SAME LENGTH! *throws confetti in the air*

this thing was such an albatross around my neck and i am so glad to finish it, you have no idea. i'm freeeeeeeee!
seaming wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. maybe i could start on another piece of clothing soon. maybe.



madli's, the first shawl to make me swoon and frantically look for the pattern. i think it lost some of the magic, but still a lovely piece.



i fulfilled my promise to my sis and made them at last! (i think this was one of her first requests.) funnily, i think i used them more than she did in japan. (my digits get cold really easily.)



fetching, finished in the middle of the trip. ends were...not woven in. and still aren't.



and lastly, a vest. my sis wanted a vest so i modified a cardigan pattern from 手編み大好き！autumn/winter 06/07. her friend thought it was store-bought. happy happy...

i need to
- take pictures of my wips and fos
- put up my long overdue trip report of japan
- keep on knitting/crocheting so as to reduce my stash
- still stay far away from ravelry so as not to increase stash.

i really should have no excuse not to be doing all this since i've become "occupationally-challenged", but i've started daily japanese classes in preparation of my proficiency exam in december and have not been doing any of them. besides, the daily rain = bad lighting = not suitable for picture-taking. (hehe, excuses, excuses.)

i'll try again soon.

one of these days, i hope.

hehe (>.<;;)

it has been a year since the last wwkip day! amazing...sometimes time really flies. this year, we decided to knit at the airport, in the new terminal. a great idea as it was nice and quiet and we could knit all we wanted. i got the time wrong and turned up an hour late, but that didn't stop me from the fun.

lois brought my new blocking wires! ingrid and i just had to pose with them and katrina. note lois and the others' amused faces in the background.



a nice natural picture of all of us by charmaine. my group was having a very interesting discussion on the hanami stole.



and the requisite photo of all of us with our wips. note the special one in ingrid's arms belonging to mlc. ^^



i love this one most. guess what was going on before the shot above?



hope you had a fantastic wwkip 2008 too! see you next year!

photo credits: first one to ayumi, rest to charmaine

we all seem a little busy to blog nowadays! hey gals, i thought we were supposed to post about a certain cafe which is knitter-unfriendly? ;P

i've been lazy about taking pictures, so there hasn't been any picture posts for a while (both here and on ravelry). but, i do have a few finished objects, both before leaving for japan and after.

1) madli's shawl (blocked the night before leaving. i do not want to remember the uncomfortable sleep i had on the floor that night...)
2) fetching (finished in japan)
3) ladylike gloves (supposedly for my sis, but which i used more since i couldn't finish fetching before i left)

pictures will come one day...i just don't know which day, hehe.

anyhow, i've discovered a new hobby which threatens my yarn funds, so this blog may be a lot quieter for a while.

in case i forget, happy wwkip day, everyone. ^^

i would even say massive...a trip to yuzawaya nearly did me in. as it was, i left with 4 balls of richmore mohair/wool, 8 skeins of noro silk garden for the planned lady e and a payment of ￥13,000 (S$175).

as we say in japanese, 痛い！

(i suspect the pain has to do with a certain purchase of a certain bag as well...)

leaving for osaka in a few hours. there are more yarn stores there, so...wish me luck?

so i was on the bus with my sis the other day. i was knitting on her madli's to be used on the plane (she has a sensitivity to airplane blankets, she tells me, so she wants a blanket-like shawl to cover her beneath the blanket), and we were discussing our plans when we get to japan.

the conversation led to her previous trip a couple of years ago and how she had to borrow a jacket from her friend as her clothes were just too thin for spring weather.

"well, we don't actually have spring here, so none of us have any spring wear. all our stuff are either for summer or winter." at this point, the needle dropped as i remembered my half-knitted cropped cardigan. which led to the idea that i could bring my hedera socks. which led to the idea that i should make another shawl for myself, another pair of socks, a thin sweater...

i foresee heavy knitting up ahead. hence, i shall declare here that i will let go of all previously mentioned game consoles and touch ONLY my knitting needles in my free time until we leave. (lessee...we leave at the end of april, that gives me about 7.5 weeks of knitting, i'm sure i can come up with at least 2 or 3 FOs by then...)

oh, and that half hour spent playing phoenix wright: ace attorney?  erm...i was...just...resting my fingers! yes, that's it...

with the wii, the ds lite and my new laptop taking all my time at home now, my knitting has been suffering pretty badly. i try to knit on the bus home, but the lack of seats usually means that the travel time is spent unfruitfully as well. (damn you and your new fangled buses with less seats *shakes fist*.)

not that my knitting mojo is all there in the first place. a couple of my ufos are at the 80-90% stage but i have no inclination to actually finish them.

meanwhile, i am currently addicted to an online doll community called poupee girl.



you get an avatar, accumulate ribbons by posting your own real fashion items and commenting on others' stuff, then use the ribbons to buy and dress your girl up in the latest fashion. take a look! if you want to try it, leave a comment and i'll invite you (we both get ribbons that way!)

*squees in delight while writing this because the site is having its 1st anniversary and just came up with a truckload of cute stuff for sale*

be back after i finish shopping!

edit to add: here's my girl in her new scarlett o'hara dress!

no more yarn purchase until may.
no more yarn purchase until may.
no more yarn purchase until may.
no more yarn purchase until may.
no more yarn purchase until may.
no more yarn purchase until may.
no more yarn purchase until may.
no more yarn purchase until may.

here's hoping i stick to it.

i have a blog with each of the "holy trinity" of blogsites - wordpress, blogger & lj. (all right, i may be exaggerating, but almost every blog i visit belong to one of the 3 until the blogger decides to get his/her own domain.) of the three, i always found lj's the most user-unfriendly. the look of the blog has essentially remained unchanged since the day i chose a template and stuck to it.

so you can imagine my surprise when i needed to update my link list and went to the customization page (yes, you read that right) and found that they had come up with a whole list of new templates. intrigued, i checked out the list under "hobbies" and...they actually have a knitting one! (i know, it's just a ball of yarn with 2 needles, but still!)

so...too bright? too white? lemme know what you think. ^___^

well, that's the most appropriate bird i could think of, considering the color.

the difficult thing about finishing shawls is photographing them. i couldn't get the whole thing in one picture, so i did it in halves instead.

the long half :



and the winged half:



it doesn't give the same impact as seeing the whole piece, does it? i tried getting meimei to model it.

  

maybe i'll get a better shot when i bring it to the next knitout.

when the pattern first came out, i was hesitant about knitting an asymmetrical shawl. but after seeing some of the finished products on ravelry, i was sold on the wing. not that it made it any easier to knit (-____-)""

the feathers on the wing were gorgeous. all i can say is that melanie is a genius for coming up with the shawl. i probably won't knit it again, but if i did, i would do it in white.

and one more thing? i need blocking wires. fast.

call me a sucker for contests. i would put a button up on my link list, except lj doesn't seem to allow me the option. maybe i should move this whole thing to blogger or something.

...or not. i think i'm too lazy for that.

sots ii first hint will be released on 18 jan, so if you are a lace shawl fan like me, drop by and sign up!



swan lake was (finally) completed last week. pictures tomorrow (fingers crossed x(^_^)x ). now i just need to figure out which shawl to knit next. (yes, lace addict. it just feels weird not knitting lace...)

and yes, mum, you probably have to wait another year for your blouson.

i was knitting away at the wing of MS3 yesterday, agonizing through each long row, only to realize somewhere at row 131 that...i'm missing 2 stitches.

i cannot convey in words the agony of realizing that i was going to have to frog half a wing in order to figure out what went wrong.

i am still smarting from the a**-kicking T______T.

...means that it's time for some blurry yellow-tinged pictures at work! (yes, i need a new phone with a better camera.)

the meetup yesterday meant that i got my new japanese yarn! as the others can testify, i was bored with my present WIP (otherwise known as MS3). the chart-reading got a bit out of hand, so without further ado, i casted on for my new project, pattern 16!

the moss stitch pattern is keeping me more interested than usual. i might not need to make the minimalist cardigan after this. and it's so pretty!



i think that's row 12 of 42. have i mentioned how much i like big needles? (note: 5mm needles are big when the last few projects were using 2.5mm needles.)

oh, and the yarn?



how's that for cool? anyone wants one as a collectible? drop me a note. ^__^