Hooting!
Pattern | Owelet by Kate Davies
Yarn | Cascade Yarns Eco+ in Summer Sky Heather
Needles | 6 mm & 6.5 mm circulars

I never really got around to making any sweaters for Eva until last year when I began to clear all my WIPs or newly started projects. I decided to take advantage of this love and plunged into uncharted waters – sweaters! To make things simple and easy, I decided to use a pattern that called for bulky or aran weight yarn, figuring that I might finish it faster.

I settled for Cascade Yarns Eco+ because of the price. Originally, I wanted something along the line of teal but they ran out and I didn’t want to wait so I settled for a lighter shade of blue. At first Nil sounded skeptical when I told him that I couldn’t get my hands on teal but when he saw this colour, he gave his okay.

I made this in Kids Size 2 (age 5-6) but an unfortunate glitch saw me knitting the sleeves in 6mm instead of 6.5mm and skipping out on three stitches. While Eva could still fit into it, it is rather snug so it meant some serious blocking for the sleeves. The width and length – as you can see – is ample so I didn’t really block this to death. I figured that in time, if I need it to be wider, I’ll block it then but for now, the sleeves need more vigorous blocking than the other parts.

Now that this is done, I’m contemplating between finishing my entrelac shawl or starting a lacework piece in one of my handdyed yarns. I miss knitting lace!

Heliotrope in Bloom
Pattern | Jaali by Kitman Figueroa
Yarn | Simple Scarves Silk-Wool Laceweight in Heliotrope
Needles | 3.75 mm, 6.0 mm and 4.0 mm circulars

This is one crazy knit…but in a good way, I must say. I started this as part of a Knit-Along or KAL with some Malaysian knitters back in April. There was no deadline attached to it (I reckon because we are all crappy with deadlines!) and the condition was that we would use yarns made or dyed by fellow Malaysians. I chose to use my silk-wool laceweight blend and against all sane thoughts, picked the large size to knit up in order to fully use up the nearly 670 meters worth of yarn.

That was the easy part. Now came the hard part…

• Casting on 300 over stitches (at this point, I was beating myself up for choosing the large size)
• Ripping them out three days later because I forgot about the center stitch
• Ripping out 25 rows of 300 over stitches because I had 14 repeats on one side and 16 on another…in the process, my yarn got tangled so I had to snip and trash a portion of it. (ARGH mode!)
• Then I put it down and picked it up about two weeks later – bad idea to knit when you’re angry
• Reached the second chart about a week or two later
• Put on hold sometime around mid-May to focus on my mum’s beret
• Picked it up again about one to two weeks later

By June, I was at Row 51 out of 165. Heh. After that, it was all quiet on the update front until September when I reached Row 79…no thanks to the move back to France. Noah’s early entrance didn’t help and this project stalled until two weeks ago when I picked it up again to add some variety into my knitting. Luckily the stitch count from this point on was getting short and shorter fast so it turned into a speedy trip to the finish line.

As I sat with the hairdryer, drying the shawl as it blocked (yes, I was that desperate to make some space in my hall and to see my finished project), I told myself never again! I love this pattern – don’t get me wrong. It is very exquisite but it is not a mindless knit-in-front-of-the-TV project (even though it’s a Samsung LCD. Nonetheless, if you do choose to knit this, you won’t regret it…I certainly don’t.

Now that this is complete, I am going back to my entrelac stole and Eva’s sweater which I seriously need to focus on otherwise she’d never get to wear it for winter!!!!