Ripped - Green Tea Cables

Remember Green Tea Cables? I've just finished my 3rd ball of 100gm Sirdar DK Cotton, on to my 4th and last ball. Just enough for my tube top.



This is the progress I've seemingly made. But last night, I found out an awful truth about her. Today I was trying to think of all sorts of way to go around it. About an hour ago, I was upset. Right now, I'm just resigned.

Green Tea Cables was one of my very first projects and my very first attempt at cables. What I didn't know then was cotton expands, that you needed negative ease, that I should always try the darn thing for size, that the books are not necessary accurate and a hundred and one things. Yes I altered it into a tube top.

Yes I tried it on. It was wayyyy off gauge. I started it on March and kinda left it hanging since May. When I picked it up again last weekend, I knew something was wrong. I just didn't want to admit it. Look at that.



Sewing in 2 inches at each side didn't even do the trick.



There is at least 8 inches of extra materials while wearing it. I'm resigned. It has to be frogged and reknitted. There is no way out. My only consolation is that I can play at cable design again. There definitely won't be enough stitches for the amount of cable pattern that's on Green Tea right now. Back to the drawing board. I have no energy for that right now. I'll just put it aside and do it tomorrow on the way to work and back. Good night people.

The X File revealed

Remember my mystery X File project?

Yes, some of you girls said Dress Form and you got it right! I was busy making my dress form last weekend. I made one 3 weeks ago with the materials from above. I wanted brown paper tape instead of duct tape. I got the wrong paper tape. The results were less then ideal. While the form holds true, the same can't be said about the tape. My dress form peeled like an orange.

So I went out and got myself some industrial cloth woven duct tape. Woven tape was a much better choice. It was sticky enough to stay and have some give so it moulds to your body better. I got 3 rolls. You are supposed to layer it trice, but I ran out just after the first layer! It was still thick enough to hold but wasn’t stiff enough to hold it’s shape. I compensated with stuffing. I used loads of newspapers. This is the part that took a lot of time. It was stuff and measure, stuff and measure.


In case you are wondering why my form is so colorful! I got a roll of silver to test. Tested ok. But when I went back, they were out of silver! So I had to make do red instead. Then, I ran out of tape during the process, so I substituted with leftover brown tape. While stuffing it, I dug around and came out with clear transparent duct tape. It holds well, so I used it to tape down the brown paper tape and wherever else I needed to tape up.

It was my first attempt so I’m happy to say, I got measurements close enough. It can wear my clothes well. But boy is the dress form heavy! My next attempt after this one expires should be a lot better. But right now, I have a dress form tailored exactly to my dimensions! Good enough for me! Now I need to get a tight turtle neck shirt for my form. It’s kinda flashy with so many colors it hurt my eyes :D

Sewing
I have been meaning to start. But I kept hesitating because I was scared. Sewing isn’t like knitting. When it comes to knit, you can always frog and restart. With sewing, once you cut the beautiful fabric, you can’t really ‘uncut’ it. And I am still a baby when it comes to sewing. So I kept giving myself excuses. Well, wait till my dress form is done, wait till I get the patterns, wait till I get the proper tools, wait wait wait. Well, I’ve ran out of excuses. My dress form is done and my patterns hopefully, on the way. I made myself sit down and go through my Simple Chic book by Machiko Kayaki in detail. Finally managed to get a rough idea and figure out what to do. Time to get started.

Knitting
I have not done much here. I spent time tidying my stash and decided that I will try not to start anymore new project until I finished something in my WIP. Note, the key word is TRY. :) My green tea comes to mind. Poor dear have been neglected for quite a while. Phildar Babydoll needs to be ripped and recalculated. It’s too small. I recompiled my Knit list the other day and almost fainted by the long list. I’ve also decided to try stay on my yarn diet wagon longer unless it’s a good deal on some yarns I’ve been eyeing for a long while.

I have a few crafty ideas running amok through my mind lately. I’d need time to compile them to something that makes sense to me.  Cheers my friends!

UFO Sighting

This UFO here was trying its best to disguise as a skirt or a dishcloth. I don't know which. Innocuous enough but something trigger my warning bells.

So I prodded it a little and gasp! It's a pink UFO saucer!

Nah, it’s just my shrug. Though I must say, it does look like some strange creature in that snapshot up above.

Shrug
Ribbing - Phildar Flirt in Hot Pink
Seed stitch - Schachenmayr Punto in Pastel Pink & DMC in Purple

I used Seed Stitch. Yes I was trying to finish up some yarns and make sure I have enough for the shrug. It's a mish mash of yarns and patterns I have. :) So here -


Excuse my shaky hands. For some reason my hands was pretty shaky last night. Try as I may, the picture on the right has been taken many time, but still shaky. That was the best of the lot.

Here is a shot of the back and side. That's all the acrobatics I can manage for the back. Don't ask for more or I'll probably sprain my back. I had to take this shot 3 times to make it work.


This project was suppose to be a simple project. I had trouble starting though. I ended up ripping mine a couple of times. I started with the Punto but realized I didn't have enough yarn. I only had 3 balls. So I had to rip. Then I decided to use Phildar Flirt for the ribbing instead and use Punto with the purple DMC to help blend the 2 pink yarns better. I think the color blend worked out fine. Then it was waay too big, so rip again. 4th time was the charm. Not too bad! I still have 3 more balls of Punto in blue. That's destined for Minisweater from Glampyre.

SP5 Package

Secret Pal 5
My secret pal for SP5 was finally revealed. It was Rhiannon from US! I received her package on Wednesday last week but only finally have time to post it today. Look at these lovelies!



The alpaca is just so soft and fluffy I can't stop touching it! And the hemp yarn was something I always wanted to try! Thank you Rhiannon for being such a great pal!

UO Shrug
As for my UO shrug, it is finally off the needles last night. The shrug was not as I expected the ribbing being too soft. I didn't have the energy to seam it properly after. So the pictures of the completed FO will have to wait till I complete it tonight. And then it will be on to other things.

Tagged

Ok, I got tagged by Yuvee :) so here goes.

Ten Years Ago
I was 19 and a year in Malaysia. My parents move me to Malaysia to be with them. I attend college there. I had a hard time adjusting and struggling with the stark contrast between Singapore and Malaysia. I found great friends who helped me through some dark times and luckily enough, a level head most times though I was a rebel. Of course, I also had great time and fun with friends. I was also dying to head out to Australia for my University studies.

Five Years Ago
I was 24, back to Malaysia again after graduation. Fought with mom about my bringing furkid back with me. I got myself a dog in Australia since mom didn't let me have pets before. Landed my very first job. Lots of new experiences. But some things never change, like how things here still drive me batty.

One Year Ago
Partially acclimatized to Malaysia, jaded about working here and looking forward to live elsewhere. Mom loves furkid as much as I do now. Also some major changes in my life, dumped my ‘baggages’, kickstarted my visa application and started to do things I enjoy (like knitting). Another transition chapter in my life. :)
________________________________________

Five Snacks
-Smith’s Potato Chips – Chicken Flavor
-Synder’s Sour Dough– Sour Chives and Onions
-Coffee/Chocolate Cakes – Tiramisu and dark chocolate comes to mind.
-Terry’s Orange Flavored Dark Chocolates
-Bacon Sprinkled Potato Skins

Five Songs I Know All The Words To
-Lucie Silvas – What You Are Made Of
-Alanis Morisette - Ironic
-Josh Groban - To Where You Are
-Gwen Stephanie – Hollerback Girl
-Hikaru Utada – First Love

Five Things I'd Do With 100 Million Bucks
-Invest enough so I have no worries for the rest of my life financially
-Donate some to causes I believe in
-Travel around the world
-Delve into things that I always want to do
-Pamper some well deserving people and of course myself!

Five Places I'd Run Away To
- Bali
- The Mediterranean
- Pangkor Laut Resort
- Europe
- Some magical fantasy world in SciFi

Five I Would Never Wear
- Garish purple polka dots with pink and green stripes whatever.
- Platform shoes
- Scratchy clothes
- Real Fur
- Weird clothes that don’t make sense to me

Five TV Shows
-Desperate housewives
-Korean Movie – Dai Cheong Kam
-CSI
-Charmed - until it got really weird
-Survivor

Five Joys
- Great music
- Good friends, furkid included
- Glorious food
- New experiences
- Enjoying things I love – craft, horse riding, whatever I’m in the mood for.

Five Things To Do, Just For Me, Before I Die
- Travel to each country at least once
- Design a line of artsy fartsy things
- Learn all the crafty stuff I always wanted to
- Lead the kind of life I always wanted to
- Be happy

I'm tagging SiowChin, Joy, Agnes, Lee Anne and Dani. No obligations of course..:)

Pincushions
Michelle asked what stuffing I used for my pincushion. I got one roll of absorbent cotton from the supermarket. In the section where they have cotton wool/buds and stuff. It works well for me.

Alternatively a sponge or polyester fillings you can get from departmental stores (pillows and cushions section) or crafts stores is good too. As long as it hold ur needles well.:) Hope it helps.

Itty Bitty Yadayadas

An itty bitty here and an itty bitty there. :)

Fabric Swap

Fabric goodies! Siow Chin and I did a mini fabric swap. Look what lovelies I got! I heart the pink one! I'm trying to decided what to do with them. One word. Drool :D

Pincushions

I was feeling a fast and fun project and had pincushions in my mind. I swear, I seem to be seeing nice pincushions everywhere, so I decided to do one. I cut the felt to the size I wanted and decided to embroider some flowers on. I couldn't find any simple pattern online so I kinda did a free form one with an imaginery picture in my mind. Then I hand stitched it until I had 2 inches more to go, stuffed it and finished the stitching. Viola! I added the ribbon in there as a hand handle. Yes that is a needle with thread stuck there. I was testing how well it holds needles. Fairly simple project. Took me 3 hours because I had to figure the pincushion design and the flower pattern.

Current Knit Project

This is my current express knit project. The UO Shrug. What you see there is no longer. I frogged it. I realized I didn't have enough of the yarn and was frantically digging my stash for something that'll give me inspiration. I think I got it now. Stay tuned to see how it looks like. :P

The X File

Can you guess what this is all about? It's a secret project. Shhh! If it works out, I'll update, if it doesn't well, it wasn't here in the first place..:P

Have a great weekend!

Versatility is thy Middle Name

Yes, I know Lelah was finished more than a month back and it looked great. I had tweaked the pattern and added 2 extra repeats. While it looked good (on its own), when paired with jeans, it balloned at the hips and looked weird on me. So I frogged it yet again and reduced it to 7 repeats.

Before After

So, while I was doing the usual fittings with the seaming needle still stuck in Lelah. I decided to slide it down to the floor instead to avoid the needle after. Now, I know that Lelah is a very versatile kinda girl. But this seriously tops the cake! Observe.


I did 6 short rows in the front for the bust area. What I didn't realize was the short row works well for the butt too! I thought it was pretty hilarious! LOL So take note ladies, if you are ever knitting a bottom, you can incorporate short rows for a better fit. :D

I wore a cream bicycle shorts for the shot on top but think I should use something bright underneath the lace. Something like below. I used a piece of bright felt fabric at hand.



Talk about versatility! Lelah is a chamelon. Use it as a tube, add removable strap and I get a spaghetti baby doll and slide it down and I get a skirt. Of course, I'll need to sew Lelah a bright petti-skirt of some. I still find this hilarious.

SW thinks it looks better as a skirt. Somehow, I think I agree. Care to give opinions girls?

Next question is, what color should the underskirt be? Bright hot pink? Green? Blue? What do you think girls?