DIY: Pom Pom Cardigan

This is what happens when one feels the sudden urge to add more colours to one's life (and sees a pack of craft pom pom lying on the table).

Materials:
1 pack of craft pom poms
1 plain cardigan
Needle and thread

Steps:

1. Decide where you want to place your pom poms

2. Sew them on!

I've worn this cardigan to uni a couple of times and someone commented that this cardigan reminded her of Dorothy the Dinosaur. =_= I just want to be clear - that was not my intention...............

Dorothy the Dinosaur (via)

Anyway, I still have a couple of the pom poms left and I'm thinking of using them to dress up some plain hair accessories or something. We'll see! 

FO: (Not just) another hat

So... I knitted another hat as a present for my friend's 21st birthday! I made it using the pattern from here. As usual, I followed the pattern for the first half of it and ditched the pattern after that. Moreover, the pattern didn't really give specific instructions for decreasing the stitches, so I simply did whatever I thought would look good. Also, instead of using the brick-stitch all the way to the top, I used only the pink yarn for the top bit so that it would give better contrast when I add the white pom pom. But I feel that the pom pom I made is just a little too small. 

The hat

Cute fabric label

I also added a cute fabric label to the inside of the hat. I bought a whole bunch of these in various sizes and designs off Etsy. I'm really excited about adding these labels to all my future handmade stuff! :)

Work in progress...

Some things that I will do differently if I were to knit the same hat in the future:
- Make a bigger pom pom
- Use needles that are one size smaller when knitting the ribbed edge at the beginning (I can't believe I totally forgot about that... :S)
- Use variegated yarn for the contrasting yarn.... I imagine that the effect would be rather awesome...


All right, that's all for now! I'm off to take a short nap because my medicine is making me really tired. Yes... I've been sick for a week... and I really hope that I will be better soon. T_T

FO: Oh Shivers, Keep Me Warm Scarf

Wheee...! It's been less than a week since my holidays started and I have finished a scarf! More importantly, this is the very very first time that I tried knitting cables! Oh dear oh dear, can you see me jumping as I am typing this? (And the song 'Forever Young' that is currently playing on my computer is also getting my heart pumping and fist punching.)


Enough of the nonsense. Let's talk about the scarf! 


It's originally called the Mega Cabled Scarf and I got the free pattern from here. But because of the yarn that I used and the winter that is so cold right here in Sydney, I'm calling it the "Oh Shivers, Keep Me Warm Scarf". (And also because I am rather lame and I like interesting names.)

I made it using Moda Vera's Shiver yarn in purple. It's 100% acrylic with a really soft texture. I only used 2 balls of it for the main body of the scarf but I think I used around 1/3 of the 3rd ball for that 2 massive pom poms.

Talking about the pom poms! I have never seen and never made such massive pom poms. Trimming the pom poms really made my eyes water and my nose itch. I think I breathed in quite a bit of the fibres.

And this is the close-up of the gorgeous cables. I mean gorgeous in theory but perhaps not so much in this scarf since this is my first time trying cables. The cable stitch is one of the wonderful things that can be created with knitting. 


Did I mention that I knitted this pattern without using any cables needles? Yeah, I have no cables needles with me but I do have many knitting needles of different sizes. I think you can imagine what I did. It was a mess but I got used to it as I went along. You could probably guess which end of the scarf is the one where I started knitting. It's the end with the wonky cable stitches...

Last but not least, this scarf is not for me! I made this for a friend of mine. Maybe I'll be able to post some pictures of her wearing it after I have given it to her. That will happen in a few months' time.