Great present from my best friend!

Oh, my dearest Friend Angel gave me a beautiful, extremely gorgeous scarf!!

it’s the Hanami with crystal beads, she told me that there are approx 75 beads there (at only one end of the scarf) .

I love it so much, and I know that she put lots of effort in it and tried to rush it for my birthday. I think She actually made it because she had an vacation last week.  :)

I am really happy to receive this beautiful scarf from her, she knew that I wouldn’t have the patience to knit the Hanami, so, she did it for me with my favorite yarn – Seasilk, in one of my favorite colors – the ROSE pink.

I love it.

Really, really love it, thanks so much, Angel.

At the same time, in July 1st, we spent a morning to hand paint and dye the yarn and roving.

handpainted by me, roving from Romni wools

Again, it’s so much fun, we used food dyes, so, it’s very safe too. (so, we added vinegar for the ‘acid’.)

handdyed by me, roving from Romni wools

I love purple, I think most of my friends knew that… but I wanted to try to add some dark pink to it, however, it turned out to be too bright, and became fuschia color instead.

handyed by me, but not my fav color - Fuschia

Sorry I don’t like fuschia, so, I redyed it today, and add some blue dye to it.

Now it became purple with little shades of blue and hints of pink there…. pretty! (pictures will be posted later)

Handspun African cotton, as soft as merino wool

I bought some undyed merino lace and hand spun cotton yesterday from Romni, it came as a cone, so, I have to make them as a skein before I do the handpainted dye.

Bristish Merino lace weight, lots of yardage..

I spent so much energy and time to make the skeins. (using the shift.)

I tried to dye one skein of merino lace (British merino, very soft!) … it’s kind of a dark indigo blue. I love it too.

It’s so much fun to dye the yarn on my own, i think I fell in love with dyeing. haha

I hope I can work more after I arrive CHINA, and thanks Angel to giving me so many goodies (a shawl pin from her vacation, and some cute clothes for Erika as well) plus the food dyes..

My birthday….

Yeah, it’s only 7 days after my daughter’s birthday, today is mine.

What did I do so far?

Had a breakfast with my friend in Cora yesterday.

Not much though, I spent the morning with my mom and daughter for a special breakfast outside.

And then, we had a buffet lunch with my family including my uncle.

what next? ha, I was trying to put Erika to nap, but she refused, after an hour and a half of struggling, she finally went to nap, and I finally had my own private time.

What did I get for bday gift? honestly, not many of them, some hand cream and therapy from my friend in Hong Kong, some ‘red pocket’ money from my family….

most friends think that I am leaving soon, and they don’t want to add more ‘loads’ for my luggage, so, they just treated me some dinners/ lunches/ breakfasts as gifts.

what did I buy for my own birthday?
of course, it’s YARN!

hahhaha

I finally was able to buy a wollmeise in “poison No.5″, it’s a mixed of dark purples, very nice yarn!

Also, I’ve got a trade for another purple wollmeise with my green one.

I am glad that the fellows in Ravelry are all very nice and helpful when you put an ISO list up there, they really ‘look’ at it and try to help.

I love the little cake that shown in my avatar today.

Erika’s birthday….

Here are some pictures of Erika’s birthday celebration.

We didn’t invite any kid to come over for the party, because we think that Erika doesn’t understand what birthday is.  So, we just bought her a cake, and at the same time, her great aunt and uncle came over and shared the cakes with us too.

She recieved some gifts this year but not much, because most people thought that we will leave soon , so, they didn’t want to add too many things for us to bring to CHINA.

They mostly gave us ‘money’ gifts instead. (which is good though)

However, we still received some little gifts.

SUch as a hand knitted Clown by my aunt.

She did a really good job in it. Almost every member in our family got one of her stuff toy.

A big package of cute stuffs from my friend in Hong Kong. I really love that Japanese Sandwich maker. I tried it , it’s really fun and cute, that was really a good buy.

My another aunt gave Erika two books that she really loves: one Elmo and one Mickey Mouse book.

After her birthday on Sunday, we took her to see her doctor on Monday, which was her 24 months check up.

She wasn’t very ‘happy’ to go to see the doctor, but to us (my mom and me) , we love to see him , because he is the best doctor we have ever seen …

We miss him, … I hope we can find a doctor like him in CHINA.

and we found that in his office, he has the same style clown too, but it’s much bigger…

Gail shawl

I had difficulty to start this shawl in the beginning.

Because the original pattern wasn’t very easy to follow, but, after searching around Ravelry, and saw other people’s notes, I found that Dorene’s version is the best. She even rewrote the chart again for easier reading. I got it and did pretty well so far.

Instead of doing two YO’s in the middle line of the shawl, I only did one, but on the wrong side, I purl once, and then purl from the back of the loop so that the ‘holes’ are smaller …

I love it so far, and I am planning to make more, like what I did for the Ishbel.

This is actually not so hard to knit (the lace part) , and I think it is a fast project too, (but not as fast as the Ishbel).

I can’t wait to see it done.

I am using Linen by Drops yarn, I love this yarn because it’s quite soft to knit, and also love its sheen.

I also got the red ones too.

Beaded Japanese Ishbel

The pattern is from “Ishbel”, but using Japanese yarn, so, I called it Japanese Ishbel.

And I also added some Japanese seed beads for the edge section. (yo, bead, K1, yo)

It’s fun to work with Ishbel, as I said before, it’s fast to finish!

I like this very much, and it’s perfect for spring and summer weather, while we are inside the cool air conditioned indoor area.

And this shawl, I will give it to Sandy, my best friend in Taiwan.

I will still continue the seasilk scarf for her, but, probably will finish it off in China instead.