Knitted Summer Top

After a few interruptions, managed to finished this knitted top for Audrey in time for the hot weather in Shanghai. This Glamour Dress pattern was actually quite easy to knit and used double strand of aCloset's Bamboo Cotton Yarn. Perfect for the summer.

Just to add some interest, I added a crocheted edge in a contrasting colour. Quite happy with the way it turned out and now am doing another mini version for Audrey's dolly.

Sewing and Knitting

Found this post on SouleMama about Heather Ross's Mendocino SunDress and I knew I just had to try it. This is also sort of the current trend in Shanghai women wearing various summer dresses or tops with smocking. And it so happens I had a big big spool of elastic thread bought 4 years ago or a project which never materialized so it's never been used.

I found that House On Hill Road has an even better, more in-depth and detailed tutorial. ThreadBanger also has a video tutorial where I got the idea for the strap.

After Audrey's dress, I'm now working on a version for me using a really nice cotton poplin fabric (which I never really appreciated until just now) bought almost 5 years ago for only U$0.75 a metre, and never got a chance to use it until now.

Lessons learned: I've to sew slowly with the elastic thread to keep the stitches straight. And to add more spacing in between lines as I made them a bit more dense...

Discovering: Pudong

Only recently, we discovered a few new places in Pudong (the other side of the Huangpu River) and just cannot imagine we've lived in Shanghai for the last 9 years and only managed to really explore these places.

I'm talking about the Shanghai Science & Technology Museum and the Century Park which is just adjacent to the museum.

There were just too many things to see at the Museum that we didn't get to see them all in the few hours we were there. Since then we've been back a couple times to watch the iMax shows. The kids were just running around wanting to touch and try everything but didn't know what to touch and try first!After the museum, we decided to find our way to the Century Park and managed to get there in time for the Musical Fountain to start. We'd promised the kids a weekend before that they can go into the fountain this time. So it was the perfect ending to our day at the museum.

Really cool places which we will definitely frequent some more on the weekends.