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.