water’s edge, a remake

 

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A remake of the Pas­tel dress, with a yarn that reminds me of the seashore — the dif­fer­ent shades of blue in the dis­tance, the greens of algae and sea­weed washed up on the rocks.

Sim­i­lar to the remake of the Gink­go top, this sweater uses the same lace pat­tern as the top of the Pas­tel dress (which was a vari­a­tion of the Gink­go lace pat­tern), minus the arm­hole shap­ing and with a sim­pler boat neck shaping.

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The yarn I used was Mary Max­im Prism in Still Waters. I love this yarn. It’s afford­able, super wash­able, the colours are amaz­ing, has a nice drape. I wish there is a Mary Max­im clos­er to where I live… *sigh*

It has a very sim­ple shape and stitch pat­tern, so I imag­ine it would look nice with a var­ie­gat­ed yarn like Noro, or a spark­ly yarn for fanci­er occasions :)

I used:

Light worsted weight yarn, approx. 700 yards

5 mm and 4.5 mm hooks

Tapes­try nee­dle for sewing

Sweater mea­sures: 34″ around, 19.5″ in length

Length is eas­i­ly adjustable by work­ing more or few­er rows. Width can be adjust­ed by adding or sub­tract­ing stitch­es in the foun­da­tion ch by mul­ti­ples of 6.

6 stitch­es = 1 3/8”

Pat­tern:

Stitch pat­tern:
Fan = [dc, 2 ch, dc, 2 ch, dc] in same space

Front: 

With 5 mm hook, ch 85.

Row 1: dc in 6th ch from hook, skip next 2 ch, dc in next ch, [skip next 2 ch, fan in next ch, skip next 2 ch, dc in next ch] to end, [dc, ch 2, dc] in last ch, turn.

Row 2: ch 3, skip first dc, fan in dc between fans, [dc in 2nd dc of next fan, fan in next dc between fans] to end, dc in 3rd ch of turn­ing ch, turn.

Row 3: ch 5, dc in 1st dc, dc in 2nd dc of next fan, [fan in next dc between fans, dc in 2nd dc of next fan] to end, [dc, ch 2, dc] in turn­ing ch, turn.

Repeat rows 2 & 3 until there are 34 rows alto­geth­er, end­ing with row 2.

Neck shap­ing:

Row 35: work in pat­tern to the 4th fan of the row, dc in 2nd dc of the 4th fan, dc in next dc between fans, turn.

Row 36: ch 5, dc in next dc, dc in the 2nd dc of next fan, work in pat­tern till end, turn.

Row 37–38: work in pat­tern. Fas­ten off.

Attach yarn to the oth­er cor­ner of row 34, repeat rows 35–38.

Back:

Repeat pat­tern for front until neck shap­ing. Work 2 more rows so that there are 36 rows alto­geth­er, end­ing with row 2.

Neck shap­ing:

Row 37–38: repeat rows 35 and 36 of front. Fas­ten off.

Attach yarn to the oth­er cor­ner of row 36, repeat rows 37–38.

Assem­bly:

With right sides togeth­er and wrong sides fac­ing, sew shoul­der seams together.

With right sides togeth­er and wrong sides fac­ing, sew side seams togeth­er, start­ing at the top of the 11th row from the top of the sweater.

Turn sweater right side out.

Edg­ing: with 4.5 mm hook

Neck­line: attach yarn to a dc (not part of a fan) on the back of neck. ch 1, sc in same dc, [sc in 1st dc of fan, sc in next ch 2 sp, skip 2nd dc of fan, sc in next ch 2 sp, sc in 3rd dc of fan, sc in next dc] around, sl st in begin­ning sc of found, fas­ten off.

Arm­holes: attach yarn to any space on the arm­hole. We will be cro­chet­ing into the side of the rows, or what I call “row-ends”. ch 3, work 2 dc in each row-end around, sl st in top of begin­ning ch 3, fas­ten off. Repeat for the oth­er armhole.

Bot­tom edge: attach yarn to any ch 2 space, ch 3, work 1 dc in every ch 2 space, every base of a fan, and every base of a dc, sl st in top of begin­ning ch 3, fas­ten off.

Weave in all ends.

And it’s done! :D

Here’s an in-between shot in which I was caught adjust­ing the neck­lace, which I thought turned out kind of cool and styl­ish :D

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Hope you enjoy the remake! Have a hap­py Sat­ur­day! :D

 

lately

I recent­ly received a love­ly email from a friend­ly staff per­son at War­by Park­er invit­ing me to write a post about my sum­mer moments and to pick some of their sun­glass­es to go with them, for their #seesum­mer­bet­ter cam­paign. While I’m not receiv­ing any mate­r­i­al or mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion for writ­ing this post, except per­haps friend­ly shout-outs from the War­by blog, I’m still feel­ing rather flat­tered that there is inter­est in this blog, espe­cial­ly since Mike just got a pair of glass­es from them and he quite liked them, and had been telling me good things about the com­pa­ny, includ­ing friend­ly and approach­able cus­tomer ser­vice :) Anoth­er thing that attract­ed Mike to shop from them is their Buy a Pair, Give a Pair pro­gram, which does­n’t only cre­ate access to afford­able glass­es, but also oppor­tu­ni­ties for skill-build­ing and employment.

So I was hap­py about writ­ing this post. But there is one problem: I don’t usu­al­ly wear sun­glass­es. It’s kind of a for­eign top­ic to me and I don’t real­ly know what to write about.

Not that I don’t like wear­ing sun­glass­es. I think they’re very impor­tant for eye health. I’m just rather util­i­tar­i­an about it (among many oth­er things). I used to own a pair of sun­glass­es that I bought from the drug store, they go over my reg­u­lar glass­es (as in wear­ing two pairs of glass­es at the same time). But then I got new glass­es that are a lot wider than my old pair and the sun­glass­es can’t fit over them. And I nev­er both­ered to get a pair of pre­scrip­tion sun­glass­es. So I haven’t been wear­ing sun­glass­es for a few years now. Prob­a­bly not good for my eyes, espe­cial­ly in the sum­mer. The invi­ta­tion to write this post might actu­al­ly be a good reminder that I need to get myself a pair of pre­scrip­tion sun­glass­es soon… and maybe I’ll think a bit more about style rather just util­i­tar­i­an this time (sun­glass­es that go over reg­u­lar glass­es aren’t the most styl­ish ever :S).

So I sort of inter­pret­ed the invi­ta­tion to write this post as: if you were to buy a pair of sun­glass­es from our shop, which ones would you consider?

It’s always fun to win­dow shop :)

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Last week I got my hair cut and coloured :D I’m quite hap­py with the vibrant but not too bright colour show­ing from under­neath. I have an affin­i­ty for grey glass­es, so I think the new hair would look great with these :D And with a beau­ti­ful name like Luna Fade it’s hard to not like them.

 

Have I ever shared pic­tures of the cur­tains I final­ly sewed and put up? It’s only tak­en me 8 months! :S For the longest time we had dis­pos­able plas­tic table cloths taped to the win­dow… but now we have these sea glass coloured cur­tains! :D And look at the glo­ri­ous blaz­ing sum­mer sun­set shin­ing through.

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I like sea glass… or is it seafoam? Any­way, I like these, because they’re sea glass coloured… and they are indeed named Beach Glass! :D

 

And today we had the per­fect sum­mer evening — san­dals, cot­ton-can­dy-colour pants, trip to the library at 8pm in daylight!

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Today’s awe­some finds for sum­mer reading/viewing — Mup­pets Most Want­ed, Amigu­ru­mi at Home, and Life After Life :)

And what goes well with cot­ton-can­dy-coloured pants?

I love these… and they’re beau­ti­ful­ly named Moon­stone! (As you may notice I’m a suck­er for nice prod­uct names.)

Thanks for win­dow shop­ping with me! :D Hope every­one has a fun and sun-filled weekend!

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

Woohoo! Bal­loon ice creams, per­fect pho­to booth prop for sum­mer par­ties :D From my favourite par­ty blog Oh Hap­py Day.

 

A friend point­ed me to this cute knit­ted snail from Hob­by Craft.

 

Love­ly gold twig hair pins from Love Mae­gan.

 

Clever, sim­ple and super cute pom pom cac­tus, from Pinch Me Beau­ti­ful.

 

Hop to Wool and the Gang for this adorable knit­ted bee pat­tern and learn more about sav­ing the bees!

 

Some­thing very styl­ish about these coast­ers. From Lebenslustiger.

 

A floor pouf! I’ve always liked the idea but did­n’t feel like buy­ing a ton of Poly­fil. This one dou­bles as a secret stor­age — how smart! For pil­lows and extra blan­kets and such! From Chaleur Life.

 

Beau­ti­ful sum­mery tote, by Aunt Peach­es on I Love to Cre­ate.

Have a love­ly week­end, friends!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lately

Made a neck­lace for the shop this week. Prob­a­bly the most elab­o­rate jew­el­ry piece I’ve made so far. Quite proud of it :D

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The feath­er was made with shrink plas­tic. I might make more of these, maybe with dif­fer­ent colour chevron stripes!

And then I made this.

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The stones were gifts from a friend so this is def­i­nite­ly not going to the shop. But this was the first time I tried mak­ing this style of neck­lace and I think it worked out well, so I might make more of this too if I can find sim­i­lar drilled stone chips (not sure if that’s what they’re called :S).

Also want to men­tion that last week­end we went to a new retro malt shop down­town! :D

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Bean and Bak­er! We had a vanil­la malt shake, which was dreamy. They also have pies of both sweet and savory vari­eties, and hand­craft­ed sodas!

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I high­ly rec­om­mend a vis­it if you’re in the neighbourhood!

This is not late­ly, we went there back in May, but haven’t had a chance to post these photos.

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Dur­ing Doors Open Toron­to we went to the Gibral­tar Point Light­house on the Toron­to Islands, which is the old­est light­house of the Great Lakes! (Also sup­pos­ed­ly haunt­ed :S) I fol­lowed the Roundo­graph tuto­r­i­al by Pho­to­jo­jo to mim­ic pho­tos tak­en by the Kodak No. 1 in the 1890s.

Here’s one with a dif­fer­ent fil­ter, which I also like very much.

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I also took the Diana to the light­house. Here is the lad­der lead­ing to the top of the light­house. It’s my favourite pic­ture of the batch.

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And we reached the light of the light­house! :D

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Me at the foot of the lighthouse.

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And on the fer­ry between the island and the city.

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Hap­py Fri­day every­one! :D

remake! ginkgo shrug

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This shrug uses the same lace pat­tern as the gink­go top (and almost the same stitch count!), but with much heav­ier yarn and larg­er hooks. Basi­cal­ly, a blown up ver­sion of the gink­go lace pat­tern. And no neck shap­ing! Isn’t that nice? :D Such is the beau­ty of shrugs.

I thought it would make a nice piece for late sum­mer nights eas­ing into fall.

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The shrug mea­sures 38.5″ from cuff to cuff, and 20″ from neck­line to bot­tom edge. It’s a very quick make, took me 2 evenings to fin­ish while watch­ing TV :)

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What I used:

Worsted weight yarn, approx. 700 yards

6mm and 5.5mm hooks

Tapes­try nee­dle for sewing.

Pat­tern:

Note for size mod­i­fi­ca­tions: to increase the length from cuff to cuff, i.e. longer sleeves, add mul­ti­ples of 6 ch to foun­da­tion chain. 6 stitch­es = 1.75″

With larg­er hook, ch 136.

Begin with row 2 of the gink­go lace pat­tern (but slight­ly mod­i­fied, because we’re skip­ping the first row of dc’s in the orig­i­nal pat­tern) as follows:

Row 2: 2 dc in 4th ch from hook, skip 2 ch, dc in next ch, [skip 2 ch, 5 dc in next ch, skip 2 ch, dc in next ch] across, skip 2 ch, 3 dc in last ch. Turn.

The rest is just the same as the gink­go lace pat­tern. To make things eas­i­er I’ve past­ed it below.

Note: shell = 5 dc in a stitch, or 3 dc in a stitch

Row 3: (WS) ch 5, skip shell in the begin­ning of row, dc in next dc, [ch 2, dc in 3rd dc of shell, ch 2, skip rest of shell, dc in next dc] across, ch 2, dc in top of turn­ing ch. Turn.

Row 4: (RS) ch 3, 5 dc in next dc, [dc in dc, 5 dc in next dc across], dc in 3rd ch of turn­ing ch. Turn.

Row 5: ch 5, dc in 3rd dc of shell, [skip rest of shell, ch 2, dc in next dc, ch 2, dc in 3rd dc of shell] across, ch 2, dc in top of turn­ing ch. Turn.

Row 6: ch 3, 2 dc in same st, dc in next dc, [5 dc in next dc, dc in next dc] across, 3 dc in 3rd st of turn­ing ch.

Repeat rows 3–6 until piece mea­sures approx. 18″ from begin­ning, or desired length. End­ing with row 4 or 6. Fas­ten off.

Fin­ish­ing:

Fold piece in half length­wise with wrong side fac­ing out. Sew seam togeth­er, start­ing from the cuff edge, along the long side of the piece, sew 5.5″ towards the cen­tre of the piece (about 3 and a half shells). Repeat on the oth­er side. Turn piece right side out.

Edg­ing:

Neckline/front/back: With larg­er hook and right side fac­ing, attach yarn to any stitch along the last row cro­cheted, ch 3, dc in each dc except the 3rd dc of each shell. When cro­chet­ing along the bot­tom side of the shrug (i.e. along the foun­da­tion ch), work 2 dc in each 2 ch space, and 1 dc in the base of each shell, but skip the ch at the base of a dc. Cro­chet around until end of round, sl st in top of begin­ning ch, ch 3. Do not turn, dc in each dc around, sl st in top of begin­ning ch, fas­ten off.

Cuffs: With small­er hook and right side fac­ing, attach yarn to any space on cuff edge. The stitch­es will be cro­cheted into the side ends of the rows, or “row-ends”. ch 3, 2 dc tog in each row-end around, sl st in top of begin­ning ch, ch 3. Do not turn, dc in each dc around, fas­ten off. Repeat on the oth­er cuff.

Weave in ends.

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Hap­py cro­chet­ing! :D