More haste = more (time) waste!

It was somewhat a long weekend here in Singapore. Thursday was Deepavali, celebrated by Indians and yesterday (Monday) was Hari Raya, celebrated by the Malays. Here in Singapore, being a multi-cultural society, all citizens get to enjoy these festive seasons as gazetted holidays...nice huh?

So what did I do? Apart from spending a lot of meal time with my parents, since my hubby is out of town, it's down to knitting. So bear with me for a little while as this is a lengthy post than usual.

Which brings me to the subject of this post:
How true can Mum's words be? Never be too hurried to get into something. Read the instructions carefully. Check and recheck. Trust your instincts.

I will keep the frog pond queen title for myself. If you want to know why, this is it:

Can you tell me what you see?

That darned thing! I thought I was moving along fine, after all that false starts with the stranded, fairisle border. And now this! I re-read the instructions on the weekend. It says "Note that the chart repeats are outlined by bold." Hrm..... no wonder my cables are so asymmetrical! And I thought that's the intent of the design but when I took time on the weekend to compare the cables, eeks, that was it.

So this is what I thought I will do:

Dun be surprised *croak, croak*

But after attempting to rip down and fix a cable (remember for both cable patterns, it occurs on the left and right, front and back) -- it simply means that I have at least *12* cables to fix. Yeah, that include those on the sleeves as well.

Oh my god...what should I do? I can very well rip back and fix but it's just taking too much time off knitting probably. Unless you love using cable needle, crochet hook and stitch markers, all within that tight 5 - 6 stitches section. I can hear the cables telling me," Pokey, get out of here! It's already as cramped as it is." I am shoving putting it aside until I can bear to look at it again [read: next week]

So what did I do next? Gone into a fit and went on a yarn shopping spree last Saturday 1pm to get over my misery....I am forever doing that. I'll remember to write a will so that if I ever die, I will have these stash go to heaven with me; unless knitters around me are adopt these orphans. They are not expensive stuff though, the yarns are meant for my toy projects. I feel the urge kicking in....must be the holly berries, snowman and Santa that's all around.

Then I had to meet up my galfriend for a 7pm dinner. It was 6 hours of nothingness to most but I was most happy to report that I managed to spend half my time in a cafe knitting up the rest of the bear and a new toy, Mr Elfie!

Mr Elfie can't quite see and smile and you yet. I need to get the tiny stitches on it.

Cute huh? And in my eagerness to seam him up, I went back to Spotlight to pick up the fiber-fill, even though I already bought one 500g pack 2 weeks ago~! Talk about buying repetitively. But I am still shocked that mr elfie needed 5-6hrs of my time.

Conclusion: Toys are fun as quick knits. But beware the seaming party!

Other than this, I have also worked on my bear. Originally, I had one picture of it in the state of dis-joint-ment. But how boring....therefore, presenting:

Looks cute huh? It's scouring for candies in the bag.

Sorry for the rude bum shot. I have managed to sew the legs to it but one seems to be bigger than the other. Could it have been the stuffing? Whatever. (Seriously, I am not gonna un-do it. *I swear* !)

Solids vs Variegated yarns

If you have looked my FOs, you will see that most of it (apart from baby items), are mainly solid colours. No variegated. I have been to Yarn Harlot's site and she's publicly confessed her dis-taste for the big "V". That's me alright.

I *love* how variegated yarns display but they really can charm you off your feet and lead you to deception: lovely on the ball/skein; hideous on the needles. They somehow love to spread and sprawl (pooling) on the needles and climb up against themselves (stacking) that it's impossible to get anything decent. Unless I turn a blind eye to it during the process and cross my fingers that once FOed, it's gonna be fine. Hence, my hubby's variegated sweater still at WIP, I am never certain if it will ever go FO. Well...that's it. You've heard it from me.

Mini-projects, yes. Big ones, no!