Skaterhead Beanie with pompoms

My daughters got me into watching this Korean soap opera Boys over Flowers on Netflix. It is such a cute young love story, reminds me of the good old days, crushes and cuteness :D I enjoyed it watching with my girls sometimes with my husband too yep! that's true he did not finish it but he was curious with the ending. My younger daughter and me actually watch half of the season on Saturday.Our favorite character is JiHoo a very caring and gentle boy and Jan Di,the corky and cute girl. We were bummed that they did not end up together. OOPS spoiler !The cast wears a lot of beanies so I was inspired into knitting them, I especially loved the ones worn by Jan Di (main character) and GaEl (best friend). While we were watching I was knitting a skaterhead beanie which resembles several of the beanies I just needed to add an extra large pompom and adjusted the length.They turned out really cute. I will be making several of them for Christmas presents.By the way I am still knitting shawls for the KAL and I am almost done with the September shawl, the Bind off is killing me. I will try to get it done today.
Here are the pictures of the beanies.Enjoy!

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 :)

 

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!!

Lifelines in knitting

Wow it's November already, hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween, I still have sugar rush just by giving treats to little monsters and also big ones in my neighborhood. I manage to have 3 projects in my needles so far, 2 projects are pretty much the easy shawl and the one row scarf, yes I'm still working on my Christmas presents, hopefully ill get them done by the end of this month. I actually challenge myself by knitting my first lace shawl. I use a pattern that I got from Ravelry, it should be a beginner lace shawl/shawlette but I actually frogged it so many times but I am not going to give it up, so far I am on Row 9 ... 63 more to go :D and I do not want to ripped my project back from the beginning if I make another mistake which I am sure will happen so I decided to try the lifeline which is pretty much a scrap yarn threaded through the live stitches on the project, as you continue knitting,the scrap yarn will stay on the stitches and if for some reason you make or I make a mistake and needs to rip back I only have to rip back up to the lifeline (scrap yarn on your stitches), this makes a lot of sense and it would help prevent frustration from starting all over again especially when working on lace pattern. On the picture below is what i have knitted so far and as you can see there is a white scrap yarn for my lifeline, I will keep going and plan to place lifeline maybe every 5 rows just to be safe. I will try to post more pictures of my progress. Happy Knitting!!

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!

Fingerless Mitts

Photos of the most recent FO's, fingerless mitts I made for my daughters. The pattern is available in Ravelry, http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/alices-mitts.