My Fifi-progress

view seeing from office window

Summer time is never a cosy season here in Taiwan. Temperature sometimes would rise to over 37 degrees celsius in the midst of Summer, which is indeed quite annoying! What you could do is nothing but stay in an air-con place, it's the only way to successfully get rid of the hot and the humid.

And about my Fifi, so far I am about to start to separate sleeves from the body. I'll have to try it on tonight when I am back home and see if the size fits me.

My weekday knitting time is so little that I could knit only during lunch break between 1 p.m. through 01:30 p.m., and a few hours only in the night...

My Fifi---having a swatch

Many of the SKC members have already started the project, and I am just done with my swatch...seems that I am a bit behind...

Instead of the pricy Calmer, I chose Touche of Berroco for my Fifi. The color I bought is the Toe Shoe (7990), which is an absolutely pink and I think pink color should match perfectly with this pattern. :P

I am using on a #7 (JP size) for my swatch, which is exactly the same as the pattern indicates. I wear size 36 (38 in rare situation) normally, and considering the "negative ease" that my final size of Fifi could stretch much bigger than expected, I decided to go for the smallest size, so that my final Fifi would be either just fit to me or be a bit tight on me, which would be all fine to me.

I'll start the knitting tonight and hope that everything will go just as smooth as I expect!

2007/07/17 update

This is so far what I've done. I am doing the 6th row increase and am done with two times cables...pattern is easy to follow, but it's weired doing the cables without the needle, but it's faster doing this way though... :P

Pineapple Lace Blouse---Finally a FO!

The finished garment is just far beyond my expection! It's truly romantic and femenine and that you would look just sooo stunning by wearing it! :P

The crocheting of this blouse is tiring and it's much more difficult to me after I actually started to crochet. I was thinking it's easier and what I had to do is simply connect the two round pieces...ummm...what I could say now is that I am happy that I mistakenly chose this not so easy blouse to crochet, or I wouldn't have been able to have such beautiful one to wear!

It's worth spending the whole weekend working on this. And I am planning to crochet a second and third one. :P

The center core of pineapple starts from the underarm and go extend to the front and back piece and part of the sleeve.

Close up pic of the wavy sleeve ends~

Hot Summer Afternoon in a Cafe

Sitting in a Cafe in the hot summer afternoon is definitely the most satisfying thing of the day. My buddy Kim and I sat the whole afternoon at Fong Da Cafe in Ximentin area today, with a cup of Mendeling for myself and a glass of iced coffee for Kim.

With not too many chattings, we both were concentrate on our crocheting work. It always prooves to be good to have a partner doing the same project with you. Kim and I discussed about the pattern pretty often because there are parts that really got me putting down my hook and lost my mind...Luckily we figured it out and the work just went smoothly.

So, this is what I've done for the entire afternoon, to connect the two rounds, before doing that, I did alot trimming jobs, which was quite challenging actually. I will try to finish the other sleeve tonight and do the rest tommorrow.

To show my appreciation to the waitress for not kicking us out for sitting too long there, we ordered an extra cup of Mendeling for myself and a bowl of tremella and lotus seeds soup, which is a traditional Chinese snack, for Kim. :P

Pineapple Lace Blouse

OK, I am crochetting another pineapple pattern! :) This time it's a lace blouse, which comes from a Japanese pattern book 美しいかぎ針編 春夏NO.14. I am using a #2 crochet hook and sky blue yarn bought from online yarn shop of 哞哞毛房. The yarn is pretty thin and creats a shiny outlook that matches perfectly with the pattern! I am very happy to see how it turns out with the pattern, but still am not sure how the blouse would look finally...

The instruction is to connect two pieces of round pineapples to create a blouse model. I am hoping that I could finish the first piece of round pineapple and start the second one in the weekend so that I could be able to finish up the blouse by next weekend...but this is what I hope for, anyway, I'll work hard to follow my schedule! :)

close up~ beautiful pattern!

This is one of the two round pieces. Two were both done on July 11. :P And tonight I'll start the more difficult part---to fold the piece and shape into the front and back side, and also the sleeve.

So here's what I've done so far...one side sleeve is halfway done and after that, I'll have to crochet and make the round angle of the back piece straight, then do the same thing to the other round piece...hugh...hope this could all be done by the weekend!

Pineapple Lace Top

The original pattern was designed for a toddler using a clover JP#2 crochet hook. My friend Kim has shown me some FOs crochetted by bloggers, some made it a kid wear, yet some made it an adult one using larger size crochet hook. All these garments have very elegant style that I hardly could resist, especially in such a humid summer time, what could be more suitable than a crocht wear? :)

Therefore, Kim and I decided to make it as our small knit along.

Yarn:pink purple cotton yarn bought from a yarn stand in Taipei. The stand owner is called Mrs. Tseng, she's famous among knit bloggers. It was my first time to buy yarns from her, and the experience was quite pleasant. Mrs. Tseng told me she's been selling yarns for more than 30 years, seems like she's also an experienced knitter cos she would tell me which type of yarn goes to which specific pattern...

Tools: Clover JP#3 crochet hook

Pattern:Sheep House

The finished Pineapple Lace Top. It's better to wear a camisole inside, the drapping has made the garment a lovely taste!

How the beautiful pineapple pattern glittering through the sunshine.

Three buttons used on front top, it looks good as well without buttons up.

Buttons up. It's better to wear jeans instead, isn't it! :)