Hongkong

I'm spending the week in Hongkong with my daughter and seeing my new granddaughter. So far I've managed also to get to 3 yarnstores and also look at the beadcenter in Kowloon. I bought some Diakeito yarns and some baby yarns plus some 16" circs and several new to me Japanese stitch books. I think the best solution for me personally are the stitch books rather than the pattern books. Each stitch book has about 300 stitches whereas one pattern book has only about 20 patterns. Plus since I can't read Japanese it's very easy for me to figure out the charted stitches but to make the sweater as written wouldn't work well as I'd have to redesign it for me anyway.

I was disappointed with the bead center as I was trying to find Delica beads. I did find a few stores that were selling what looked like Japanese seed beads but nothing was labeled and anyway I have found better back in Israel. Most of the beads I saw were Chinese, Taiwanese or Indian. I also found a wholesaler with Japanese bead books but again nothing struck my fancy.

I did finally finish the 4 color baby blanket for Asya but my daughter prefers a cotton yarn for now in a simple lacey pattern, but not too much lace. So I found this: http://www.knitlist.com/00gift/round-baby-blanket.htm
I had to restart the pattern several times until I finally got it going. I was using dps and had a few problems until I used a stitch marker for the beg of the round and paid attention so as not to drop any stitches. After that it moved very fast and within about one hour after starting I was already working on a 24" circ.
The other item I'm carrying around is from Folk shawls by Oberle: the heartland shawl and here I'm using a stash yarn I picked up in Australia about 6 years ago. Just proves I do use my stash! It's a Patons 4 ply yarn in red and very lovely to work. The pattern most likely will take most of my 10 balls and I plan on doing the edging with perhaps a sock yarn 4 ply. I recall that EZ recommended doing shawls while traveling and it certainly makes sense as it takes up less room and gives a lot of knitting.

Glass beach finished

Glass beach from the Pacific coast highway by AS is an fo. I'm taking it tomorrow to my son. It came out exactly the size I knit at 52" around. My gauge was 7 sts = 1 inch which seems my normal gauge although sometimes I do reach 30 sts=4". The vest was washed and blocked before the picture and it always looks much better after that.

wearing the shawl

My friend Ronit kindly agreed to model the shawl for me.

Spanish christening shawl

I've been working on this shawl from "Folk shawls" by Oberle for over a year. It went with me to South Africa and back home again. The center diamond section is great fun to knit but the edging takes forever and also while I had 13 ball of Pomfret sport wt yarn (50 grams each), it ran out about 1/4 way on the edging. Fortunately my stash came in handy and I was able to work in 2 balls of a New Zealand yarn and then another ball of an Aussie yarn. If I were to make t his one again, I'd make sure I had enough yarn first or use something in an easily available color so I could make subs easier. This blue teal isn't that easy to find. It's a lovely soft wool yarn and I'm gifting it to Asya's mommy.

Asya

I'm a new grandmother and Asya arrived March 16th in Hongkong. She weighs 9 lb, 14 oz or 4.5 kilo and is gorgeous and wonderful.

more on Japanese books below

The first book has some really terrific lace sweaters. It's more of a winter book with two crocheted shawls and a crocheted scarf as well plus a nice fairisle sweater.
The second book is also more of a winter book with some lovely vests and some lacey sweaters.
Third book also winter with crocheted and knitted items including some nice crocheted shawls and several items in variegated yarns.
Fourth book is Diakeito yarns. This means variegated yarns for many of them. A gorgeous crocheted shawl, an entrelac pullover, two nice fairisles and lots of knitted lace and some cables too.
The next book is by Hirose and looks pretty challenging and gorgeous also.
Sixth book is labeled best select collection and must be some of the best from previous books. The models are older women and men which is great as the sweaters all look good on them. Cables and/or lace, sweaters and vests, scarves, hats and shawls.
Seventh book sweaters, vests and one shawl. cables, lace and some with variegated yarns
Eighth book is the Richmore big one. Lots of lace in this one.
Final book is another gorgeous one with cables and laces.
Overall these books are more for winter sweaters, etc. But you could just take the patterns and create your own as everything is charted out.
These were the best books that I was able to buy then and I was looking in Tokyo and in Hongkong so I really had full choices. I also brought back some other great fairisle books but that one is for another time.

Japanese lace knitting books

I bought quite a few Japanese knitting books in 2005 and some of them have great lace sweater patterns or shawls. The list is as follows by ISBN #
4-277-11382-6
4-529-04021-6
4-277-11371-0
4-277-11351-6
4-529-03437-2-6
(Mitsuharu Hirose)
4-529-03744-4
4-529-04024-0
4-529-04099-2 Richmore spring/summer 2005
4-529-03162-4

DOMY heather

3 skeins of Domy heather in bayberry color. Fingering weight. Each skein is 475 yds or 434 meters, 100 grams each. It comes from Old Mill yarns in Michigan and costs $7.95 per skein plus postage of course. I've got a pattern from Goddess knits called "Diamonds are a girls best friend" and this calls for 1120 yds in this weight of yarn.

Meanwhile my old friend, the Spanish christening shawl from the Oberle Folk shawls book, is nearing completion. I will finish the edging today. It looks really big and that's before blocking. This shawl traveled with me last year to South Africa and has been going all over Israel while I worked on the edging. The center section was much nicer to do and if I were ever to do it again, I would definitely do a smaller edging.

Glass beach

This vest is from the Pacific coast highway book. I haven't heard much about anyone doing it. Turns out to be a very simple quick one. The colors are very bright and rather unusual. But the patterns are very small in stitches and in amount of rows which makes it easy to do. I've added 16 more sts to the largest size and I figure I'm about 1/3 of the way up at this point.