WIP Wednesday and Totoro Hat

10 days before Christmas! Oh my., I started knitting Christmas presents since August and still I have more to go at least in my mind. I should just be happy on what I have now instead of thinking adding more stuff like hats, mitts to go with the scarf. On top of that I will have to wrap and mail them too.And then I have some other projects in between. Well today's WIP Wednesday is a Faire Isle ear flap hat for Brianna's mom. My daughter gifted her an ear flap hat last week for her birthday and Brianna's mom loved it so Brianna ask(thru my daughter) if I can make one for her mom and she will supply the yarn (how sweet!). I told her I'll make one and not to worry about the yarn since I have the blue and white in my stash.I also finished my daughter's Totoro Hat and of course as usual it was small , thank God for blocking. I keep on forgetting to adjust the size even if the instructions says it will fit an adult head :)
Here are my pictures, enjoy and have a nice day!

Totoro Hat! If you are wondering what Totoro is, It was a character from a Japanese fantasy anime movie called My Neighbor Totoro.

Earflap hat, I still have to work on the sides and ties!

It's MONDAY...

Weekend went by fast, didn't get any knitting done,Saturday morning was nice, it was raining, i love the rain then we went to my brother in laws house to celebrate his birthday and watch the Pacquio Vs Marquez fight, it was not as exciting as their previous fights, oh well both of them made so much money. Sunday was laundry day and did some organizing around the house.We are also trying to replace all the faucets in the house, so much work so little time. Housechores gets in the way of my knitting :)



Oh!I have to post this picture of my new styrofoam head, it came in Thursday, my daughter told me it creeps her out:D , she looks great to me.



 
I also made some progress on my lace shawl, It seems I have been knitting this for a long time and yet it still looks small even for a shawlette, did 3 repeats of the lace pattern already. I will make sure to use lace needles next time since the needles I am using is blunt, it makes it harder and slower to work on the yarn, in fact I decided to stop working on it until I get a lace needle. I have ask some knitting friends on g+ what will be the best knitting lace needles, got several suggestions and I will either order online but  will visit my local yarn store (lys) first to see if they sell any. I normally go to Joann's but they do not sell the lace needles in-store.
Well here are the pics Happy knitting and have a fun Monday!

Shawl/Shawlette Progress....

Okay so far I made it to the first 22 rows of lace and working on the repeats. I did not have to ripped back my work since I have place a lifeline but im still keeping it just in case.It looks wonky right now hopefully it will look better after blocking.

Happy knitting and Enjoy your weekend!!

To Block or Not To Block!

Until last night I did not know that I can block Acrylic yarn. I have been using mostly acrylic yarn since it is the least expensive and easily available to me so I can do what I love to do, knitting :) hopefully someday I will be able to afford the fancy yarns. I have always been happy with the way my knitted projects look even if it was not block. If you have seen theEar flap hat I made for my daughter which came out a little too small so I was going to make her another one, however my son requested me to make one for him first which ended up too big I don't know why since i even did a gauge swatch so I knitted another one, And of course it turn out to be a little too small and I am not making another one, I heard and read about blocking but most of them were about other fancy yarns and that acrylic cant be block since it is not a natural fiber but I remember someone had mentioned that we can block acrylic so I did a Google search and lo and behold I found Bead Knitter Gallery, she talk about acrylic can be block, this is the link ( http://beadknitter.blogspot.com/2009/03/you-can-block-acrylic.html?showComment=1319658734282#c2787138813915084037). I followed her instructions and started steam blocking the hat , I was so happy with the result , it fits perfectly and it looks great. I have been steam blocking since this morning and I can say I'm a fan of blocking now.

Below is the example of a before and after for the Earflap Hat

     This is the hat before blocking,edges were uneven and you can see some puckering on the hat.

This is the hat after blocking edges are straight, no puckering and I actually like the texture too.

Happy Friday and have a good weekend!