I'm Back!

Hi! It's been so long since I last blogged. Thank you for those that inquired about my blog.

In the last few months, I have purchased several new patterns that I would like to knit. Several of them are from webs. They are: Lily of the Valley Pullover by Kirsten Hipsky, #276 Hosta Leaf Cardigan (LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this) by Cheryl Burke, Tarconic V-Neck Pullover by Jen Ronning, and #301 Oriel Lace Cardigan by Kirsten Hipsky (which is my current fo). I also purchased the pattern, Cherry By Anna Bell. I hope to make this cardigan as part of my summer must knits.

What's currently on my needles is the Sundrop Cardigan by Kirsten Hipsky. I'm using Cottonease for this project. I really wanted to make this cardigan in white but since I'm trying to stick to my stash, I'm knitting this in a pink color. It will actually go well with a pink dress that I have. I'm hoping (keeping my fingers crossed) that I will have this done by Easter. A little over 5 days...sounds possible, but with my daughter on spring break and with her cold, Easter Egg Hunt and Bible Study, I may not complete it in time.

While surfing through Ravelry, I noticed that Stitches South will be in Atlanta from 22-25th of April. I wasn't sure if I was going. After checking with Hubby's work schedule, I realize that I probably will be able to go one day! It will be a 2 ~ 3 hour drive but it will be worth it. It's a good excuse for me to buy yarn since I've been itching to buy some DK yarn for some of the projects I plan to do! It will be exciting to around all that yarn and yarn fanatics. Maybe I'll even recognize some of the people from Ravelry. How cool is that?

Thanks for thinking of me, emailing me and leaving comments on my blog! (I'm sorry I didn't reply to some of the comments and I'll have to translate some of them because I can't read Chinese).

Have a great day everyone!

Here's my current fo:

Also, I took this one day when it actually snowed here! It's hard to believe since we get snow like every 7 years....my daughter was enjoying the snow. :)

Personal Security ~ Computer Virus

My PC has a virus. While hubby was on the computer, I thought my anti-virus program popped up showing tons of infected file. In a panic, I clicked on removes files...that was it. I download this terrible computer virus on my PC. For the past 24 hours, I have been frantic on removing this virus. While online, I saw some post on how to remove this program. I proceeded to download some of the programs, but I can't get any of them to run! My PC is now totally infected. I've admitted defeat and I will probably be taking my computer to an IT for repair. In the meantime, I'm glad I have my laptop! (I purchased it last year while my PC was under another VIRUS attack). I'm trying not to get too bummed out!

On the knitting front, I've starting another project. I'm currently knitting the knit cable hoodie from Lion Brand. I wanted an easy project to do. It's been a life saver really. While I've been waiting for some of the virus programs to load (from the previous 24 hours), I've been working on this hoodie. It's actually been relaxing in the mist of chaos! I've finished with the back and now I've started on the front. My goal is to finish this by my birthday but I think I'm being too unrealistic! Oh well, I'll just gradually work on this and see how far I get with this. Otherwise, this will be my New Year's Eve sweater.

On a positive note, I'm thrill to report that my daughter wore her Astronaut/Butterfly/Cowgirl vest today. She already had a different outfit on and I decided to put the sweater on her. She didn't seem to mind it too much so I thought I change her whole outfit and put on a green turtle neck underneath. To my surprise she didn't mind! I'm so thrilled, she's wearing the sweater I made her to school! I took some action shots but it may be a while before I can load any pictures.

Here's to wishing everyone Happy Holidays !!!!! :)

Felted Slippers

As usual, I'm pressed for time so I hope I can write this blog with minimum typos!


I wanted to make the French Press Felted Slippers by Melynda Bernadi but I decided to try another slipper pattern. (Less sewing and on a large needle with only 1 strand of worsted yarn). The pattern I used is from Knit.1, winter 2007 Felted Slippers pattern. This was a very easy pattern which knitted up quickly on a size 10 needle. I used about 1 1/2 skein of Brown Sheep Wool Yarn. At first I was worried that the slippers would not felt to size, since the lactual length after knitting is 15 1/4" and the finished (felt) length, 8 1/2". After knitting up the first slipper, I decided to purchase the French Press Felted Slippers. I'm glad I did because in the pattern, there were good tips on how to felt since this was my first attemp ever! I checked every 5 minutes to make sure I didn't "over" felt. Around 45 minutes, it finally felt to the correct size! I was over joyed! Now that I know the first slipper felt to size, I was anxious to make the second slipper. I love how it made the slippers look! Next time though, I would put the slippers in a zipped pillow case so there wouldn't be so much lint/fuzz on them!


Here's a photo of how "big" the slippers are before felting:







Jasmine checking herself out in the mirror while modeling my slippers....




For the last few days, I've been trying to find my next knitting project. Quite honest, I've been feeling a bit discouraged about knitting. I thought about knitting the #99 Flutter-Sleeved Blousy Lace Cardigan by Sweaterbabe or the Vine Yoke Cardigan by Ysolda Teague but I wasn't sure. This morning, I got up at 5am. I decided to plug in the Christmas Tree and drink a cup of hot chocolate while looking through Ravelry. It was actually very relaxing and I finally found my next project! I decided to knit the Cable Luxe Tunic by Lion Brand Yarn. I always loved this sweater but I always thought it would be too hard to knit up...so 3? years later, I'm finally attempting to knit this! All the cables are very intimidating since I am so new at it! I know this will be somewhat of a long term project! Let's face it, with an active 4 yo, I'm not going to get much knitting done since I have to really concentrate on this pattern! Wish me luck!

On a final note, I was actually thinking of knitting/crocheting up little christmas ornaments for the children in my daughter's preschool class (16 in total). I thought maybe little candy canes, snow flakes or reindeer ornaments would be cute....I have a week to make these before her christmas party!

Happy Holidays ~

Busy Month of November

November just flew by! I was looking at the date of my last blog entry and it was back in October... I've been busy, or trying to stay busy. I decided that I needed more adult activity and I've attended a few MOPs meeting (Mothers of Preschoolers). I've also attended my very first Knitting Group. It was a long drive, 2 hours but I wanted to meet up with people who share my common interest in Knitting.



As far as my knitting projects, I've been steadily working on some new and not so new projects. I started on the February Lady Sweater. This sweater took me about the whole month of November to complete. I think it took so long because the lace is so boring and I decided to re-do the front band on my feather weight cardigan (more on that later). The yarn I used for my February Lady Sweater is Plymouth Encore. This was one of my very first purchase from the LYS. I think I always had this sweater in mind for this yarn. Unfortunately, I'm not too thrilled with the color and one of the skeins had so many knots, it was awful! I did manage to finish my sweater. The modifications I made are to the underarm area (to eliminate most of the puffiness) and adding length to the sleeves. It's a very easy pattern , just tedious!

I also managed to re-do the front band to my Feather Weight Cardigan. I had made this cardigan in the summer using a lace weight yarn. While pulling on the band one day, I manage to snap the yarn...so I decided that this was a good time to re-do the band. I needed a break from my February Lace Sweater. I didn't realize that when I had picked up the stitches before, I did not pick up every stitch around the neck area. This time I did. I also decided to go with stockinette stitch and just do some rows of seed stitch to finish off the band. I was hoping this would eliminate some of the "curling". I switched from a size 6 needle to a size 7 needle for the seed stitch and used a size 8 needle for the bind off. I'm happy with the front being longer but I HATE the neckline now! I've decided for now, I'm not going to frog it and keep it as it. I'll probably wash it later and just let the neckline roll! (Yes, it still rolls w/o blocking). Here's a photo with the cardigan blocked:








My final project for the month of November was the Cowgirl, Astronault, Cowgirl Vest for my daughter. I usually only make projects for myself but lately, I've actually been making projects for other people. (I forgot to mention that I also made a pair of leg warmers for hubby somewhere between the February Lace Sweater and the front band of the Feather Weight Cardigan). I was inspired to make a sweater for my daughter because of preschool. I was noticing the cute outfits the other littler girls were wearing and I thought to myself that I could make something cute, if not cuter for her! So with that in mind, I searched for patterns and found this vest. I wanted to make this vest in a variegated pink/red combo but I couldn't find any yarn in those colors I liked. Instead I decided to go with a green theme. I had trouble deciding on what color to make the band, but with help from fellow raveler's and hubby I decided upon beige. The bottom half of the vest went very quickly. I was excited and looking forward to getting this done way before my mother in law's visit.... I wish that the rest of the vest went as well, but I had to frog almost every step along the way...After the decreases for each front side and each back side, the stitch count would not match up! I had to modify the decreases to make the stitches come out to 12. It was very frustating and my poor husband had to hear me complain! I feel guilty because the person was nice enough to provide a free pattern and it it a very beautiful vest! After a lot of perseverance and frogging, I did complete this sweater in a week's time. I'm happy with my color combination and I hope someday I can get my daughter to wear i for longer than a few minutes! If not, I'll always have something to show her when she's older, that her mommy lovingly made this sweater just for her!





Me with Hubby's Leg Warmers (With "X" and "O" lace pattern):

And finally my daughter's vest: (I actually found some cute butterfly buttons)!!!

Ophelia Done

It's been a busy week. Jasmine has the whole week off and our friends from New Mexico came for a short 2 day visit. (I was a bit anxious but it turned out to be great). Our kids got a long well. We had 2 days of beautiful weather so they were able to get out on the lake and go swimming! We also went to Chuck E. Cheese and had a blast. We won lots of tickets and traded them in for candy and trinkets. We ended it all with a delicious meal, cooked mostly by hubby. It was sad to see them go.

I received a package from my mom yesterday. She said her friend had knitted some items for Jasmine. (I had previously sent her a package with some of the yarn in my stash so I was curious to see what she had made). Wow, when I opened the package I found a pair of leg warmers (for me), a child cardigan and a child hat. She is so talented. I'm so impressed with her knitting skills and how she was able to mix and match the colors together! I wish I could knit like her! Here are the some photos of what she made ~ all without a pattern, I might add! (BTW, the pictures do not do them justice)...

Leg Warmers & Cardigan with cables:

and the hat...

I did manage to finish my Ophelia this week. http://amingledyarn.wordpress.com. It was a wonderful pattern! (I had so much trouble during my first attempt because stress + knitting for me = disaster, no matter how easy the pattern is). I love, love this pattern. The pattern is beautiful and it's such a fun, easy knit. It's knitted on a worsted yarn on a size 9 needle so it's a quick knit. I only used a little over 2 skeins of the cascade 220 yarn in a small (32"). If I had left off the i-cord, it would of been ONLY 2 skeins! The small size is a bit small so I added another 3-4 rows of single crochet along the front and neck. I also added buttons to the lower half of the cardigan. The only other modification was adding about 1" to the length. In the future, I would length the cardigan by another 1" or 2" and perhaps decreased 3-6 stitches on each of the front pieces as other people had suggested. What a great pattern! I enjoyed it so much, I'll be making more of her designs in the future.

Another photo taken outside to show better details of the cardigan...

Vine and Leaf Hat

When I saw the fall issue of VogueKnitting, I had to buy it. I love the beret the model was wearing on the cover. The pattern is called the vine and leaf beret by Angela Hahn. It's knitted on a size 3, 16" circular needle. (I have not used a size 3 needle for a project before). The pattern wasn't all that difficult since most of it was following a chart. I did make a few slight modifications, but overall the hat turned out just like the picture. It was a bit big so I washed it and put it in the dryer. It seems to be a better fit now.

I think I'm done with my hat phase for a while so I've been searching for a new project to start. I really wanted to make the vine yoke cardigan by Ysolda Teague but I'm a bit intimidated by the pattern. For some reason, I'm worried that it may be too difficult for me and that it was beyond my current knitting level. After some thought, I decided to try to Ophelia again. I actually attempted to make the Ophelia prior to knitting the beret but I ended frogging the rows I had completed. The pattern seems very straight forward and easy to follow so far. I only have 3 skeins of the cascade 220 so I'm making the small. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will fit, if not I'll be making some modifications by adding a button band!

Here's a few photos of my hat:

Maple Street Cardigan and HATS!!!

I had been procrastinating on my Maple Street Cardigan for a while now. I was a bit reluctant to finish this because I was afraid it wasn't going to fit right and the front band had to be seamed. On Saturday, I was determined to pick up my cardigan and work on it. Unfortunately, there was a power outage due to a thunderstorm. So instead, I worked on another hat! I had to finish my hat first but I did finally work on it on Monday. Instead of knitting the front band, I decided to crochet the band. What the heck, if it didn't work out I could always frog it and follow the directions then. I was surprised at how much I liked the crochet band. I ended up crocheting 5 rows of single crochet (approx. 1 inch) on each side. This gave me the extra inch or so I needed to make it a better fit. I also decided to crochet 2 rows of single crochet around the neckline to prevent it from rolling. I'm actually thrilled with how this came together. Now I'm wondering why I was so afraid to finish this!

The pattern for this cardigan is from the Fall Issue of Interweave Knits Magazine. The photo actually showed a cropped version and I decided I wanted it to be longer. I increased the length to approx. 24" and lengthened the sleeves too. The other modifications I made are: knitting the sleeves on a size 6, 16" circular needles instead of DPNs and crocheting the front bands and neck. I also left off the ruffles. I really LOVE the ruffles but in the end I decided I would get more wear from this if I left it off.

In the last few week I was getting discouraged about knitting ~ so I wanted to knit up something fast and easy. I decided to make some hats. So what if I don't really wear hats...? I started on the Slouchy Copy Cat Hat. I was thrilled that the hat was working up so quickly. I could finish it in 2 days of easy, no pressure knitting! How thrilling. And I was able to use yarn left off from my lush and lacy cardigan. I was hook. I immediately started on another one. This time, I made it a bit smaller since the first one was too slouchy. My third hat, I started during the power outage. It was kind of interesting trying to knit with a flash light! I decided to use the general pattern idea from the Slouchy Copy Cat Hat but add some lace to it. I still had the pattern from the #100 Little Lacy Vest so I used the falling leaves lace pattern. Making these hats were fun and I think it got me back on track to knitting!

Hat #1:

Hat #2:

Hat #3 (Not Blocked):