Alice 愛麗絲

Alice was planned to be knitted up right after Cassandra, but Alice was busy with her life and so she didn't come out until a few days ago.

It was a very quick knit, even for me, who had a four-month knitting break. I could have finished it in two days, definitely less than three, but when I started the leaf border, my stitch count was off. I had more stitches on the first half of the triangle, and I couldn't fix it unless a visit to the frog pond. Besides, the garter stitch main body makes any fixes glaringly visible. So, I ripped back to row 10. Yes. 10. Row 10.

It took me another half day to re-knit the garter stitch body, but the leaf border was easy enough and it was finished in no time.

Alice used up almost a whole skein of cotton silk blend yarn. Only a little was left. No modifications were made, except the way I did the ssk: slip 1, place slipped stitch back to left needle, k2tog tbl. That way the stitch definition was great for it resembles exactly the k2tog.

Mother's Day 2011 100年母親節

This is Cassandra. Marie Adeline Boyer's latest. It's not done yet, not quite, but it will be. Real soon. I promise.





MA's Cassandra is my saviour. I was suffering from a nasty cold and was too tired and weak to knit anything. When I saw MA modeling Cassandra on Raverly, my eyes widened immediately for I have just the yarn and cause for this pretty shawl. It is a real pick-me-up! Years ago I bought 2 cakes approximatley 250 grams of these hand-dyed fingering weight 80/20 cotton/silk in apple green and planned to knit into a summery top, which never happened, of course. And I'm almost sure it will not happen. For they are even better if knitted into this lovely Cassandra! So, I fished the cakes of out my yarn chest, assembled my Knit Picks Harmony Wood Interchangeables with US6 needle heads and cast on. I was so quick, even I haven't been knitting the same overall patterned shawl for quite some time. And I am now 7 reps out of the 8 reps chart B called for.



Leaf motif


Leaf motif, you can see the buds!


As to the yarn, I really don't know the brand and such. It was dyed by a local knitter here. She bought undyed yarns in bulk off eBay UK and hand painted herself. I don't even know the yardage. And I'm too lazy to calculate! Anyway, 2 cakes 250 grams is suffice to a simple short sleeve top. It is very loosely spun with 5 strands of 2 plies. Have to be very careful while knitting so as not to pick up any single 2 ply strands, which will then stick out real ugly. Although wet blocking does not change the size of the finishing shawl, but it will help smooth out uneveness and loose picked single strands. That is the single not so good thing I can say about this yarn.