Where did August go?

Wow! Month of August is almost over and I realized there were no knitting updates for this month. It has been a crazy month, we had relatives that came over first week of the month for my father in laws b-day celebration, hubby finished putting the floor up for my daughter's room and she also decided to paint it, then her car broke down and transmission need to be replaced, it is not in the budget , car is still working ok but she is scared to drive it so she decided to get a new car, we help with the down payment and the insurance but she will have to pay it herself, This is a big responsibility for her,and I am so proud of her <3
 On knitting updates I  joined a Ravelry group that meets every Friday morning  ,We already met twice, the first meeting was on 8-17 and it was really nice meeting other people with the same interest. I am looking forward to Friday mornings.
 Project updates: Finished my August Shawlette click here if you want to see it :)
I also finish another Skaterhead hat in Fall color, working on another one in Autumn Red ( i really like this one) , also finish 2 Cross Body Street Purse for my daughter, orange and black. I am trying to write the pattern for this as I just made them up as I go. So that is where August went here comes September that means Holidays is coming whether we like it or not. Better start making those Holiday presents Oh My!!
Here are some pictures of the Cross Body Street Purse. Enjoy your day!

HOT off the needle!!!!

I did it , Yes I did. I finish July shawl KAL project in 4 days including blocking. I was very hesitant in starting this project since I was not in the knitting mood at all but I want to complete the Shawl KAL that I signed up, the group is not strict about it but I want to do it for ME!.
I was leaning on knitting the Beginner choice Ashton but when they posted August Beginner choice  Budding Shawlette, i decided to use the yarn for it. There was 2 skein of  Simply Soft Caron in Autumn in my stash so I decided to do the Summer Flies. Once I cast on Summer Flies shawl, it just went so fast. The instructions were so easy , the FO's on the project page look all complicated but it was not. Another Instant gratification project to get my Knitting mojo back.
Happy knitting and Enjoy your day!
Here are some pictures!!!

Four Seasons! My shop....

I finally had the courage to open my own online shop for my knitting FO's (finished object)It has been sometime now that I have been thinking of opening a shop and also thinking of the Shop name,  there were some crazy, lame , funny, and interesting names we  came up with,  my 2 daughters are my consultant but then Four Seasons just came to me and I said that's it. I  have also search and look into different websites to open my shop like Etsy, Artfire, Zibbet, Ebay  etc.. Etsy is the most popular however there are so many fees involve, Artfire does not really appeal much, Ebay is too big and then there is Zibbet ,not as popular as Etsy but they are on its way, Also they offer Basic Free Account for Sellers to start of ,  When they say Free, it is really free, no fees, no charges for listings, no commissions ( 50 items limit), then you can upgrade to Premium account if you want to. Signing up for Basic Account is perfect  to try it out and if the shop business is good then I can go ahead and upgrade, and since there are no added fees my item prices will be more reasonable. It took about 2 days for me to set up the account, it is easy but I am just too fussy about things I would like to put in the shop info, my daughter Lorylaine help me with the banner. Now  the most important thing is to list my items, just need to take more photos.

 I  am also waiting for some of the designers to give me permission to sell the projects that I have made from their pattern, I have research about whether it is okay to sell products made using other Designers pattern but there so many conflicting information ,as a courtesy I ask for permission. It will probably be a good idea to design my own to avoid any issues in the future, in the meantime most of the items are from basic and generic pattern so I should be okay.

The shop should be officially open by Monday, (cross fingers) Wish me Luck. I hope you can take a few moments of your time to check it out. http://www.zibbet.com/FourSeasons

Happy Knitting and have a wonderful weekend.

Smile :)

Good Morning and Happy Friday to all! I don't have any knitting projects to show today, i am working on a hand warmer to match the Garden view shawl that I will give to a friend for her birthday. I do have some funny pictures to show. This are not created by me but were posted on Facebook and G+. I thought it would  bring a smile to everyone. Enjoy your day!

 

Garden View Shawl

Its end of January and I have finished the Garden View shawl, its a very easy, quick knit shawl.  I will make another one but would be bigger. I will be giving this to a friend as a birthday present, hope she likes it.This is the February Shawl for the Ravelry group. There is no choices for March Shawl as of yet, can't wait to find out which ones will be winner. The moderators for the group are so nice and awesome,the group does not have any hard and fast rule,you can knit every month or skip a month and its ok, everybody helps each other. There are a lot of awesome projects from other group members. Since I am new to knitting lace shawl, this a good way to learn , now if I can only get my brain to handle reading chart instructions. I still have to rely on the written instructions to knit the shawls, its easier for me to understand. Well here are some pictures of my Garden View Shawl ( I really need a better camera). Happy knitting everyone.

FO Fridays

Finally, My lace shawl is finish. I stayed until midnight on Wednesday to finish the lace edgings. It's not perfect but I think I did ok. I took a lot of pictures to get the best one since i have bad lighting in the room. Several things I have learned working on this shawl is to always have a lifeline, a lot of stitch markers, i also learned how to double decrease (DD) and more patience. I will definitely make another one of this shawl maybe in a light pink or white , i have some yarn stash that I can use. By the way the shawl is called 198 Yards of Heaven and the pattern is available in Ravelry. Most of my projects pattern was from the website and there are a lot of free patterns, I actually have only use the free patterns on all of my projects.I joined the 12dozen shawl 2012 group on Ravelry so I will be making 1 shawl for the group every month.I already Cast on the project for February Shawl last night  which is the Garden View, we choose 2 projects every month a beginner and advanced.I've chosen Beginner projects for January and February. Well without further a do here are some photos of my finish lace shawl :) Have a great weekend everyone!

198 yards of heaven

Yarn Finds and more!

Happy new year again to all! Days went flying by and its almost half of January, before we know it another year will pass. This is my first blog of the year 2012. I have been knitting and have finish a sock before 12midnight of 2011 so I was actually wearing it on New year. I also finish a matching hat and scarf, I'm thinking about giving it to a previous co worker as a late Christmas present and a slouchy hat for my daughter, I also managed to knit a mitten for my daughter's friend.. I  also finish baby hats and socks for a niece and the most exciting well at least for me was finding this $1.00 yarn from my local dollar store.Im always on the lookout for bargain yarns.  I bought 9 skein/ball color summer rose,cerulean and thistle.They are made by Caron. I know they are acrylic/nylon,but who cares, watch out yarn-snobs!I love the colors and will probably use the summer rose for KAL i joined on Ravelry for the February project. Yes! I'm still working on the January KAL which is 198yds of heaven, I will definitely finish that before end of January(cross fingers). Enjoy your day and here are some pictures :)

My yarn finds!

A slouchy hat for my daughter

My New years day stripey socks.

Pompom Hat and Scarf

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!

Those little voices in my head....

Did you ever have that time when you just want to scream at your brain to stop thinking, I swear sometimes i want to have an on and off switch for my brain to stop running a million miles per hour :D There is so much to do and so little time maybe because it is just 16 days before Christmas and I'm not finish with my knitting presents, I need to do some finishing touches on some and additional accessories, i guess others will have store bought  presents or a Christmas card (that's it). I have to buy the Christmas tree so we can start decorating for Christmas, my son put up Christmas lights and decorations outside yesterday and I did some garage cleaning, the girls dump all their new guitar boxes ( they had an early Christmas present from their dad) need more work but its less clutter. We also have some home improvement going on,replace the sink, needs new carpet, paint the girls room, fixed backyard, we're also turning a loft into a bedroom for my son, he use to have his own room and the girls shares a room but when he went to college the youngest one took over his room and when he came back she would not give it up, both girls want to have their own room. It would be less of an issue if we do not have to submit a permit but of course we have to follow the rules and go thru proper procedure, we decided to build it ourselves (which means hubby and son) since it is cost effective but this person at the city building department is giving us a hard time when we try to submit the plan requirements, she knows we are not engineers/architects and kept on asking for stuff we do not understand instead of explaining it layman's term. She scribbled some notes on the papers and basically shun us out and told us they will be closing soon and she has other people waiting. We'll try again Monday and hopefully get a more helpful person. And also I need a job, left my job 3 months ago reason would be another story. I'm trying to write all this out so my brain will stop thinking. Of course I still worry about my children constantly and my mother who is in the Philippines, it's her birthday on Christmas day I wish I could be with her , have not seen her for more than 3 years. Oh and I was also able to finish the baby blanket, hat, booties and mitts that I was knitting in time but my nephew has to delay his flight to Australia, he was in a car accident, he is alright but needed some medical attention. That would give me more time to make another set of baby stuff . I'm currently working on a Totoro hat for my daughter, still have my lace shawl on hold :( wont be able to work on that until next year. My other daughter and my son is also requesting for beanie hats. I better stop this and start knitting. Enjoy your day!
Here are some pictures of the baby stuff I made :)

 

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!

WIP Wednesday

Happy WIP Wednesday! What do I have on my needle right now? Hmm, lets see a Lace shawl, another shawl, a scarf, a cowl and a helmet liner. What did I get myself into. I'm suppose to have only 3, oh well I guess I have to control  myself casting on another project until I finished one. Speaking of finish project I was able to make me a fingerless mitts yesterday, my hand got so called on MOnday and I could not knit wearing gloves, i'm glad i actually finish it or else it will be the 6th project on my needle. Moving on to my Lace Shawl ,so far so good, I'm on the last row of the lace repeat, I'll probably do one more repeat (oh no!!), since it seems really small, of course I'm still keeping my lifeline, especially now that I have gone that far, probably farther if I just work on this one, good luck on that, I tend to work on other projects when I get too tired of the pattern or gets frustrated, that's why there's always an easy project on my needles to switch into just to get me going. Enough of my babbling, here are some of my pictures. Enjoy your day and keep on knitting, i know I will :)

Here is my progress on the lace shawl that I am working on , the cable needle does not want to cooperate hence the wonky edge, Hopefully next picture will be a finished project.

Finished Fingerless mitts :)

This photo shows folded cuffs!

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!!

FO Fridays

Its FO Fridays so here are some of my finished projects. It is also I LOVE YARN DAY Today!!!!

Earflap Hat I made for my daughter, As I suspected its a little bit small, so I will have to make her a new one .

 A simple easy lace scarf. I used 2 yarns together. A very light rose finger weight yarn and a ribbon yarn (from one of my recycled sweater stash).

This is a hat and scarf for one of my friends 9 yr old son. Basic Ribbed hat and One row handspun scarf. For the yarn. I used Joans sensations Rainbow Classic.

HAPPY FRIDAY !!!!!

WIP Wednesday

I started this earflap hat for my daughter on Monday, and I should finished it today. Im thinking it might be small for her since she wears her hat differently, she does not pull it all the way down, I guess Ill just wait and see until its all done.

FO's and WIP's

Here are some of my FO's (finished objects) and WIP's (work in progress). Happy knitting and have a great weekend!
                                           This is my Cozy Wrap.

                                          Shawl and more scarves!

My work in progress (WIP).  I try to only have 2 projects in my needles so I can switch back and forth when I get tired of working on one project. It's too overwhelming for me if I have more than 2.

Your Yarn is the STAR!!

I love working with yarns that have texture like boucle, fun fur ,homespun etc.. They always give you different final product and you don't have to use difficult pattern. I have always just use garter stitch to make simple scarf and yet they look like something that was complicated ( from a non knitter point of view :D ). 

I tried using lace patterns on some yarn with texture but ended up frogging them in the end since the designs does not show much. For me just using plain knitting works well with textured yarn. I found this yarn from my stash and taught I could make another scarf to add to my Christmas knitting projects/presents.This should not take long as I'm using a size 17 needle and just knitting every row.  Ill post a picture once its done. Happy Knitting..

This is what i have done so far: