A Bluestocking Knits

Fifth Day of the Fifth Lunar Month

Today being the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, it is the Dragon Boat Festival.  Tuen Ng commemorates an ancient national hero, Qu Yuan, who threw himself into the Mi Lo river to protest against the corrupt rulers of the time.  Legend has it that as the townspeople tried to rescue him, they beat drums to scare away the fish and threw dumplings into the water to keep the fish from eating Qu Yuan's body.  This grew into the drumbeating coxes of today's dragon boats, and the traditional dumplings of the festival.

More here and here.  I'd heard that it was hot, crowded, and very spring-break-like (there was even an article in the South China Morning Post yesterday about how to get drunk barge-hopping), so as I was on my own with the girls and we'd gotten up at 5:30 to see Grandma off, we decided to simply watch it on television.  Not very authentic, I'm afraid, but we did have dumplings from the restauraunt downstairs, at least!

Today is also, of course,

Worldwide Knit in Public Day.  I took the Forbes Forest scarf to the playground with us -- far too hot for the mohair of Misty Garden, but the stiff breeze blowing around the corner of the building kept the temperature from being unbearable. 

Catching Up

To cover the rather pathetic lack of knitting content, I can only offer that we have actually been sight-seeing since Grandma is here, e.g., the Big Buddha on Lantau Island,

 

the riches of Stanley Market,

the Flower Market in Mong Kok,

and an emergency detour for new shoes when Julia's literally fell apart in the middle of the street.  Not to mention a playdate that somehow swelled to gigantic proportions -- ten preschoolers, ten! -- and most of another afternoon folding and ironing laundry.

We also managed a trip here yesterday,

Mui Tong Wools Co., in Bonham Strand in Sheung Wan.  The street had been rather off the beaten path when I was there last, and has been lately transformed into an absolute chaos by roadworks, so I hardly recognized it.  I was about to walk right past when Laura said, rather wearily, "We're going here, aren't we?"  They were having a sale, 20% off, so it was rather crowded, but Mom and I both managed to find something nice without much effort (!).

Here are my latest acquisitions: from left, four balls of Anny Blatt Mérinos in a lovely soft lavender, and four of Jaeger Alpaca 4-Ply in 393 Damson, a plummy reddish-purple, very pretty; five skeins of Cleckheaton 8 Ply Crepe, an Australian superwash wool blend in a tweedy teal; five balls of Filatura di Crosa Soft Wool, an angora and extra-fine merino blend, in 516, a smoky grey; and the three balls of Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Infusion Kid Mohair in 617 Rosehip that I'd ordered online, for the "Misty Garden" scarf.

I am nearing the end of the second ball of the Matchmaker 4-Ply on the "Forbes Forest" scarf -- it is a fairly easy knit, though slow-going since we've been busy with other things.  I've had a rather intense craving to read this past week, too, so I finished "The Far Side of the World", curled up all by myself with a cup of tea, one rather cool morning.  Bliss!

Grandma Visits

My mom is here for a visit -- in knitting news, she brought my new Jaeger booklet and the three skeins of Jo Sharp kid mohair that I ordered a few weeks ago!

The other day while the girls were in school, we went yarn-shop-hunting, and found this one --

The main Tailor & Alteration shop at 1/F Shing Wah Mansion,451-457 Hennessy Road, in Causeway Bay.  Very hole-in-the-wall, I thought for sure that we'd blundered into some service hallway, but the little man at the desk took one look at us and pointed to the ceiling -- or so I thought -- after repeating this a number of times, I finally saw that he was pointing at a sign, one which matched the business card in my hand. 

The shop was much larger than it seemed, full of nooks and crannies, a good-ish selection of yarns, but mostly sewing fabrics and accessories.  (Good to know, as Julia's got a hole in her purple dress....)

Grandma was delighted to finish the poncho I started for Julia, in Lion Brand Homespun.  Couldn't get her to stand still long enough, but she was obviously having a good time!

And here is my progress on "Forbes Forest," after about a skein and a half --

The Jaeger merino is very pleasant to work with, softer than it had seemed at first.  Am tempted to stock up on it....

Elegant

We went to Kowloon Park yesterday -- I didn't think it would be quite such a walk from the Star Ferry terminal, but the girls managed it, and enjoyed the playground as a reward.  Dodging raindrops afterwards, we somehow managed to find ourselves here --

Elegant Company, at 37, Parkes Street in Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon.  Downstairs are knitted garments, upstairs a little trove of Jaeger, Patons, a bit of Rowan, and a number of Japanese brands.  Popular this evening, too, although the four of us made a bit of a crowd all by ourselves.  The shop man was amused by the girls' delight in the way the needles swung back and forth on their hooks (at just kid-height!), and their answers to David's make-work questions of what they would knit with this yarn or that.  I had come with a List, a selection of projects and not only recommended yarns but half a dozen or so alternatives each, so I felt very organized and efficient and was able to pick out six balls of Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK in Loden (730) within minutes.

Destined for "Forbes Forest" from the "Scarf Style" book.  HK$31 a ball, just under US$4, so I'm very happy.  (It is going for US$6.95 at home.)  Also picked up some 3.25mm Peace bamboo straights ($HK22), and it was with great difficulty that I kept myself from casting on as soon as the girls were in bed later.

Excuses, Excuses

For everyone who was so kind about the rainy panorama, here is a sunny one --

The weather has actually been quite unpredictable lately, although always warm and humid -- one day it was sunny in the morning and bucketing rain by evening, today there was a big thunderstorm just after dawn and about four minutes of downpour, and now it promises fine.

We have no water in the buildings all day today, because of the roadworks just below (part of which you can see in the photo).  This is inconvenient to say the least, but I have filled up the two bathtubs and the tea kettle, run a last load of laundry, and finished the breakfast dishes long before I normally would have -- so now maybe I can actually knit!  It's been so busy this week that I haven't had time to do much more than just think about knitting.

(A lot of that, though -- with all of the beautiful stuff coming off of people's needles lately, I'm tempted to add a few more projects to my current works -- the Yarn Harlot's utterly lovely Lotus Blossom shawl, the Knitting Wench's gorgeous Pi Shawl in progress, any number of the beautiful things in Pam Allen's "Scarf Style", luckily for me one of only two knitting books I brought with me to Hong Kong, or I'd be delirious.)

With Heigh, Ho, the Wind and the Rain

This afternoon, the view from our bedroom windows was this --

The photo doesn't even do it justice, the intensity of the green lushness on the hills, the clear cleanness of the air, and the movement of the clouds after the rain.  (This is Aberdeen to the left, Mt. Nicholson in the middle, and Central and Wan Chai to the right.)

We went back to Paris Cotton Singlets in the afternoon, looking for this Jaeger booklet,

but it was apparently the only one they did not have, so I ordered it online later from Woodland Woolworks.  I've coveted the cardigan version of this cover pattern for a long time....

And here is Ostrich Plume so far --

Sorry for the rather ghoulish lighting, but in fact by the time I took this photo, the scene from the same window was pure white.  We are truly up in the clouds here.

"Mu Qin Jie You Lai"

("The Mothers' Day" in Mandarin, according to Laura's lesson plan for last week!)

We had a thunderstorm in the morning, but it was just a bit of rain by the time we went out.  We went to California Pizza Kitchen in Times Square for lunch and then -- admire my cunning plan! -- walked around the corner to look for this --

New Style Yarn Co., at their current location in 1/F 87 Percival Street in Causeway Bay.  We had a little trouble finding it, as not only do many of the shops neglect to put their numbers on the door or window (this is universal -- why??), but I wasn't expecting from the phone book address, which didn't have the "1/F", that the shop might be upstairs.  I should know this by now, after two months in Hong Kong, shouldn't I!  Well, David spotted the staircase (just behind the bicycle in the photo) with "New Style Yarn Co." painted in large, friendly letters on every other step, and there it was.

There were half-a-dozen or so women knitting and chatting away around a big table in the middle of the little shop, and David sat on the girls while I browsed for a while, then told the smiling shoplady that I'd come back another day without the children, and we went out again.

(I am on something of a quest to find the Hong Kong yarn shops listed here at WoolWorks.  It's a ten-year-old list, but so far a number of them are still around.  I'll email WoolWorks an update at the end of the summer.)

Meandering up the streets afterwards we came upon, by happy coincidence,

Paris Cotton Singlets Co. Ltd., at 13 Pak Sha Road, also in Causeway Bay.  A strange combination of knitting wools and men's sport shirts, the shirts available for browsing and the wools -- a little bit of a lot of things, Rowan, Jaeger, Japanese and Italian brands -- packed safely away in plastic bags behind the counter.  I did buy two balls of merino/acrylic, tentatively for socks.  It was a bit awkward, with the three salesmen all looking at me expectantly, as though perhaps I should already know what I want and simply point to it immediately.  I may go back and browse the Rowan and Jaeger books, though -- it really would be a lot easier if I already had a pattern in mind....

So this -- not counting the spaghetti-sauce chins, the wet umbrellas, the thunder fears, and the fight over the pink plate at breakfast -- was what I got for Mother's Day, along with some very sweet smiles and kisses.

True to its Name

Went out this morning while the girls were in school, and found Cheer Wool in Wan Chai, at Hennessy Road and Landale Street.  I saw it a few weeks ago from the top of a tram, and it seemed to disappear ever since, like Brigadoon.  (I'm afraid the yellow pages were very little help.)  I found it eventually, by walking east from the bus stop at the Pacific Place mall until I saw it again, which actually took much longer than it should have, as I'd gotten there far too early and it was locked and shuttered.  But time passed, and I walked around and back again until it was, as the name promised, bright and cheerfully open.

The saleslady was very helpful, and through sign language and halting English (hers, as my Cantonese, to my shame, extends only to "ni hao" and "mm-goy") we browsed through the stock.  She admired the patterns in my copy of "Scarf Style" and I picked out some Grignasco Merinogold, in a lovely murrey color, six balls at HK$35 each -- a steal at about US$5 -- for "Ene's Scarf".  I also got one ball of Anny Blatt Adélie in Glacier -- HK$68 -- have no idea what to do with this, really.  The colors appealed to me -- perhaps a simple scarf, nothing fancy so as to enjoy the colors and texture.  I'll swatch it and see how it goes before making up my mind.  The colors don't seem to show up very well in this photo -- it's a multi-textured yarn of one smooth ply alternating between ice blue and green, twisted with a bouclé-type strand that alternates between ice blue, yellow, a slightly darker blue, and green.  The mohair gives it a bit of a halo, and the viscose makes it shimmer.  I also picked up a pair of Aero circular needles for HK$28 for the merino.

I had to laugh when I came out of the shop with the bag of wool in my arms, as the morning had been grey and hazy, but was suddenly bright and sunny, and I could have sworn that I even heard birds singing!

The Peak

Went to Victoria Peak yesterday -- found something that should make a lovely knitting bag --

Nice and roomy, although not much in the way of pockets for organizing -- but the colors are wonderful!

What is a Bluestocking? and Rosedale

After reading knitting blogs a bit obsessively over the past few months, I've decided to try my hand at it.  I've been impressed enough with the Yarn Harlot, the Knitting Wench, Atropos, and others to have finished a Clapotis in record time, and the urge to record my knitting in words and pictures as well is by now insatiable.  And yes, "blog envy," as the Knitting Wench says, is a pretty good way of putting it!

When I can get past the basics of TypePad, I will post a brief "About Me," but for now I will write that I am a married at-home mother of two pre-school daughters, an English major and former library cataloger, located for the next six months or so in Hong Kong, but otherwise from Southern California.  I have been knitting off and on for about 25 years, I think, partly self-taught from the old "Golden Hands" series and partly learning from my mother, an experienced and dedicated knitter. 

("Former" cataloger -- is there such a thing?  Once a cataloger, always....)

"Bluestocking" is an 18th-century word, even now usually derogatory, for a bookish woman (see a longer explanation at Bartleby).  The "stocking" part is, of course, a nice little pun that probably needs no explanation on a knitting blog....

Here is the first picture of my current work-in-progress, a Rosedale cardigan by Amy Swenson, in Noro Silk Garden #39 --

I started it here in Hong Kong last Tuesday, on the back first, as I had brought only one pair of needles, size 7 straights (the sleeves are to be worked in the round), and it has quickly managed to fill those almost to bursting.

We found a yarn shop this afternoon, Mui Tong Co., at 28 Bonham Strand in Central, near the Sheung Wan MTR station.  All I bought this time was needles -- this set me back a mere HK$199, about US$25.  The shop is definitely worth another trip, when the Rosedale is finished, and I will be thinking about projects for Filatura di Crosa wools, as that seems to be Mui Tong's specialty.