Furballs looking forwards to Winter

 Furballs used to prefer cold than hot.  This series of dishcloth is inspired by furballs (have to say that no matter what or there could be consequences, lol) and revisiting the pine tree stitch I used last year.   This time I used the pine tree stitch and mixed with other stitch patterns to build up a winter scene.  I also engaged this pine tree stitch into different shapes and all have given me more inspiration for larger projects.

The first one to get published is Furballs`Winter Scene.  This is a combination of pine tree stitch and relief stitch forming a snowing day in a corner of the forest.  I gave a twist to this dishcloth by constructing a dome finish.  

I will add in more as more patterns in this series get published

Thank you for your support and meow meow again until next time :)

Furballs do not like BBQ ribs lol

Furballs are known to be picky eaters.  Moo moo and Tabby both had different taste buds.  Moo moo loved everything with diary product and baking good.  Tabby was more of international fusion and loved curry and chilli.  So both were not interested in BBQ ribs.

In the knitting world, ribs should be one of most knitted stitch pattern besides knit all in row (garter) and knit all in round (stockinette).  It starts as the most basic (k1, p1) and goes from there.  In this rib stitch collection, I used the rib stitch, rib lace and more, to knit up hats and fingerless gloves.  These rib lace patterns have the best of both world when knitting in one colour: great negative ease to hug the head for good fitting and lacy contruction gives the fabric a designer look

I started with Furballs' Apollo Beanie.  Naming is inspired by the helmet wear by Apollo, the sun god in Greek and Roman mythology.  This hat is constructed with three (3) stitch patterns. It is a top down hat with the simple ribs running from crown to body.  The ribs turn into travelling cables to make a visual band that change into broken ribs to form a short expanding brim to give some light blocking effect in winter when the sun is at a lower position in the sky

Besides the stitch patterns, the crown construction is also one of its stand out features.  Using short rows to shape the crown in two repeat sections making the construction pretty unorthodox.  

The second hat is Furballs' Pillar of the Pack.  When I was knitting up the swatch, it looked like Greek Cornithian column and there came my idea in its name.  It is a top down hat and the rib lace pattern runs from crown to brim. The lace rib pattern is a re-discovered pattern that I did a long scarf with long time ago.  I matched this lace rib pattern with a leave edge then, and this time with the hat, I just let the lace rib to shine on its own.  Fast knitting and a very forgiving fit

It has inherited the same concept in crown construction from Furballs' Apollo Hat and totally highlighted by the rib lace pattern on the side where the two repeat sections meet

Furballs' Ticky Tabby Hat  蜱斑大花貓帽 is the third hat.  This is also one of the hat in the Tabby Hat collection.  This hat is again a top down hat (getting boring now?) with the body using the rib with elongated relief stitch.  It is not lacy but rather more 3D with outstanding visual.  This stitch pattern, just like the rib lace pattern, has great negative ease and good fitting.  It is easy to fall in love with 3D relief stitch rib pattern

The crown here is a flat row bias square.  Another unorthodox construction

Furballs' Hole-ly Helmet  傻貓洞洞頭盔 is the fifth and latest design so far.  This is a bottom up hat (Finally!!) using the basic double lace rib and add in the unexpected cable stitch pattern to appeal to more knitters.  It is not a basic cable hat, but not far off.  It also comes with a pair of Furballs' Hole-ly Fingerless Gloves

All cable lines converge to the centre in crown like most typical bottom up hat and make up an interesting design on top view

Hope you enjoy this collection.  Meow meow for now :)

Furballs come in ALL furcoat patterns

My two furballs have two different furcoat patterns.  Moo Moo was a black and white patchy and Tabby was a dark stripy.  They inspired me to named this series with furcoat patterns.  This series of furballs' furcoat pattern included five (5) ideas and four (4) already visualized.  They have the same characteristics of flat square / rectangular crown, and therefore there is absolute no gap / hole in the crown and more possibility for stitch pattern and colourwork designs.  Each crown is also made with a different technique to form the square.  They are also all from top down but the crown does not need to start with minimal number of stitches and work their way down with increases

Body is attached to crown using simple modular technique

This series is also different from my past creation as they are more focused on colourwork to bring out the charm of the design

The first design is Furballs' Stripy Tabby Hat 間條大花貓帽.  This is the simpliest in this series.  As long as you can knit in flat row and round, all focus will be on stranded colourwork.  I designed the simpliest (yes, again) in two (2) colours but if more colour is the taste, it should be easy and colourwork suggestion is also given in the pattern

The second design is Furballs' Patchy Tabby Hat  斑塊大花貓帽.  This one is not as simple as it looks especially not familiar with modular technique.  All the hard work is putting in make up the beautiful crown and then using the same two (2) colour in another pattern making the fading look and all ended in a not too common garter stitch brim

The third design is Furballs' Spotty Tabby Hat.  This one has a two (2) colour mitering square as crown and follow with modular technique to make up the two (2) colour work in body.  This one is knitted technically all in flat row.  It is more demanding in understanding the concept and technique, but a good challenge for those that hate knitting in round

The fourth design is Furballs' Ticky Tabby Hat.  This one is more focused on stitch pattern and therefore move away from the rest as it is only in one colour in the first design.  Later a colourwork version is made and perhaps could be available later.  The crown gives an unexpected delight when looking from the "sides" seeing the garter row fanning from a center point

I have two (2) more ideas on this series, Furballs' Swirling Tabby Hat and Furballs' Tortoise Shell Tabby hat but not right now.  It is my attempt to offer alternatives to the knitting hat community and hope everyone will enjoy it.

Happy knitting and Meow Meow for now

Furballs chewing on power cords

 

When brain is short circuited, thoughts and congnition are going down south.  Craziness is not far off. Tabby loved to chew on cords, and for some EPS reason, he would know to skip the high power one and focus on those small power cords like those that link with the speakers, etc.  Although he did not have a Afro fur cut afterward, I think it did do some demage to his brain and that was why he was a bit more escentric than his brother moo moo. 

This series started about two (2) years ago trying to make short row hat with decorative design making it an upgrade from the basic pattern.  I chose traveling cable as decorative design so as to hide the decrease / increase line in crown

Furballs' Complicated Short Circuit Hat is the first attempt.  It is a two end short row hat with the turning on both end portion of the row.  With this knid of turning, the hat is knitted from front to back (and yes you could say back to front too, it is all about prespective).  In order to make the fitting better and keep with the decorative traveling cable pattern, somehow with use a creative concept to reduce the excessive fabrics on both end of turn and floating short turn to maintain the stitch pattern.  It is definitely an "out of the box" design and creative use of existing knitting techniques, therefore it might be considered "crazy" idea, and there comes the inspiration of pattern name

Furballs' Omega Circuit Hat 循還不息 is not the next creation in the series but the second to publish.  It is a sideway short row hat that the short turns at one end only.  We keep similar traveling cable pattern to hightlight the different look when it is running sideway.  Also change of background stitch pattern is added to increase interest both in presentation and knitting.  The starting row will fmally meet the ending row and there comes Omega

Furballs' Circuit Rerun 傻貓電路重鋪 is the third in creation using the same traveling cable pattern.  This time it is a "standard" top down hat.  Cable lines radiating out from centre and expanding into traveling cable pattern and ended with designer rib.  All increase lines is well hiden in the cable lines

Furballs' Circuit Rerun Again 傻貓電路再次重鋪 is the fourth one using the reverse contruction to Furballs' Circuit Rerun.  Started from bottom up with designer rib, part of the k columns seamlessly float into the body as traveling cables.  Decreases are well hidden in cable lines and turn into simple decrease line for the last part of the crown.  These lines are all converging to the centre

Hope you enjoy this series as much as I did.  Happy knitting and meow meow until next time :)

LEMON furballs knitting LEMON hats lol

There is nothing look remotely lemony in the hats.  They are collected in Lemon Hat series is because the stitch patterns in the hats' body are from Lemon dishcloths series.  So why lemon?  It is all about the furballs.  I called them lemon furballs because they had bad habits and I sometimes threatened them with recycle and return policy from animals shelther where I adopted them lol  Yeah as if they cared.  They just gave me dirty look and moved on lol

There are at least four (4) in this series.  Three (3) made up, two (2) published and one (1) is waiting for the light bulb moment

Furballs' Lemon Twist Helmet is basically rib type of hat knitted from bottom up.  Faux and standard cables are incorporated in the knit columns of the rib.  Decreases are hidden in the cables and converge to centre using drawstring bind off.  Simple in construction with cables bringing in enough challenge to make the knitting interesting

There is also a matching cowl, Furballs' Lemon Twist Cowl.  It is a fold on itself double layer cowl making it good with breaking the wind and keep neck warm

Here is the inspirational dishcloth

Furballs' Lemon Tea Helmet 傻貓檸檬茶頭盔 is also a bottom up hat.  It starts with a designed rib pattern such that it flows seamlessly to form the lace / traveling cable to make up the leaf pattern.  The cable lines are converged to center and use drawstring bind off to close

Here is the inspirational dishcloth

Furballs' Lemon Balm Helmet 傻貓檸檬香蜂草頭盔 is the one on back burner.  It is knitted from bottom up and the pattern is a good different from the other two (2) with this pattern based more on horizontal wavy line.  Even decreases in crown and converging to center using drawstring bind off

Here is the inspiration dishcloth

Adding in another Lemon hat: Furballs' Lemon Bee Helmet 傻貓檸檬蜂頭盔.  It uses bee stitch in various combination to get the look.  Easy to knit and it has a thicker feel to the other single layer fabric.

I hope you like this series and hope to see you all soon.  MEOW MEOW for now

Secret Blankie for F-U-R-B-A-L-L-S

Secret Blankie for F-U-R-B-A-L-L-S is a project I did a year back together with Furballs' Leafy Blankie.  I love both of them.  The former is more upbeat while the latter is cozy and calm

Furballs' Leafy Blankie was published in 2021 with the all twelve (12) different blocks in one (1) pattern knitted with three (3) blocks across the row at any one time.  The So it is totally seamless and in two (2) strings with minimal four (4) end tails to weave in.  The inspiration is from the forest floor (and yes, for city furballs, it will be the backyard).  Different leaves in various shapes and styles are featured with the square swirling mimicking the reflection from the water puddle on forest floor

A different approach is used in Secret Blankie for F-U-R-B-A-L-L-S.  It is knitted block by block and sew / knit / crochet them together (do whatever it takes lol) and a non - sewing version might be added in later depending on my time.  Each block represents a month in a year and featuring an associated motif

The first one goes with winter and January Snowflake / 一月漂雪飛花 is a good motify for the blankie.  Using long floats management in mosiac knitting, it is possible to draw up this design with long horizontal row

Late January to early February is usually when the Chinese New Year falls into, so we have the February Gold fish / 二月魚躍龍門 as motif.  Picture a little carp swimming against the current in a river and finally jumping over a high gate.  Yes it is like the Salmon in the wild.  For more fish and related knit pattern, please check out here on Ravelry

Nothing much happening in March, so furballs really need some March Catnip / 三月薄荷漂香 to brighten up the day.  For more leaf and releated knit pattern, please check out here on Ravelry

Easter does float between March and April, and we have April Easter Egg / 四月復活彩蛋for the month of April. For more Easter egg and related knit pattern, please check out here on Ravelry

After the exciting April with the Easter egg hunt, it is now to calm down chewing on the May Stinky Sock.  For more sock and sock releated knit pattern, please check out here on Ravelry

June Summer Leaf is finally here with hot weather and green leaves.  For more leaf and leaf related pattern, please check out here on Raverly

When it becomes too hat, rain will pour and July Umbrella is here for the unpredictable weather

August Cat month is the most celebrated festivity in our household.  For more furball and furballs releated pattern, please check out here on Raverly

September Cat Paw is more recalling the Labour Day.  For more cat paw and cat paw related pattern, please check out here on Ravelry

Halloween in October for furballs is playing with October Hanging Spider

We choose US Thanksgiving for the month of November and knit up a "Art Deco" style November Turkey

By the last month in the year, Furballs' nemesis, December Holiday Tree, makes up the last block in the Blankie.  For more tree and related knit pattern, please check out here on Ravelry

Hope I will be able to publish one pattern each month in 2023.  Meow Meow until next time

Furballs love to 逗利是

Chinese New Year is the most important time for Chinese around the world.  Here is a few of my works for the festivity

Furballs Strike by Luck 鴻運當頭 is the last creation in the collection but the first to publish because I can see that it will take some time [ average six (6) hours for a hat and two (2) hours for a dishcloth ] to make this hat.  This hat is made from top down and using short row in the round to shape the crown.  This leave half the hat from top to bottom as a creative panel with no decrease line interruption, totally made in heaven for this design.  For more of this kind of crown construction designs, please take a look here

Furballs are so Fortunate 福 is a design I had done years back and never really make it into a k&p pattern.  I think now is the time.  It will look so lonely by itself, so there come the others to make it meaningful and complete

The second one is Billionaire Furballs 祿.  My first try was not good enough.  It was after the last two in this collection that I went back to redo it again.  It is in a more quick and loose style of calligraphy most notable the top quarter of the character.  It makes a good gift for graduation (as suggested by one of the knit testers) and promtion too

The third one is Long Live the Furballs 壽.  This one uses the simplified format of the character in order to fit into the size of the design.  It is good for occasion like birthday

Furballs have it ALL 全 rounds up the whole collection.  A simple character that embrace the completeness, totality and perfection

In 2024, year of the dragon, Furballs Land Safetly on all Fours 出入平安, is the main piece that came out of my "factory".  This is an aggressive piece with 4 characters in one k and p design.  Also ideal as house warming gift

Continue with more Chinese New Year design, here come Fuballs are so Fortunate 1 - 5 五福臨門. 

For more Chinese New Year designs, please visit Chinese Furballs in Ravelry

Fuballs and I wish you all a Happy Chinese Year :)  Meow Meow until next time