Fingerless mitts for lena

Finally I got 1 item done on my Xmas list. I hope lena will love wearing these. Although, I wish I had enough time to knit her a shawl or a pair of socks to go with it. No time though, I've moved on to finishing Vi's leg warmers. Man, those things take a while to do. They have been sitting in my basket for close to a year now. Meanwhile, I've also managed to squeeze in the black scarf for my gf's son who came and asked me very nicely to knit him a black scarf. After I told him yes I will, he rummaged through my yarn stash looking to see if I really had black yarn! I felt like a beginner knitter as I was casting on for the scarf though. I did not start out knitting a scarf or a pot holder though, I was very ambitious and wanted to start out with a cardigan.  Needless to say, the unfinished project is in a drawer somewhere since I am now a yarn snob and cannot bring myself to knit with acrylic yarn. Oh how naive I was...

New yarn

Look at the gorgeous color for my new sock yarn!  Yes, I know I'm going a little bit overboard here hoarding sock yarn but I'm planning to knit them all up within this next month for gifts for my kids. Cannot wait to wind them up!

Japanese pattern book

Look at this! Freshly just arrived in my mailbox this morning. I'm so excited. I've been wanting this particular one forever and found it on eBay. There are some gorgeous patterns in this book.

Now, the real fun begins. I have to decipher the patterns ofcourse since I cannot read Japanese.  Oh, the challenges I set for myself...

My toy

Look at what my bff got for me as an early Xmas present ! A swift and yarn winder. All because I complained to her that I wasted one whole afternoon trying to wind up some Malabrigo sock yarn to knit her a cardigan. Best bff ever.
The boys loved to help me with it in the beginning then the novelty wore off and now they've left the fun job for me. I still get a kick at winding up 6 balls of yarn in 30 minutes. I guess I should finish up that "Celery" cardigan for her before summer comes upon us again.

My Modern Garden

This cardigan was done with my Elsebeth Lavold silky wool. I love the feel of the yarn even though I don't love doubling up on the yarn to get it bulky enough for size 11 us needles. I wore it out 1 day when my bff came down to see me and she literally stole it off my back!  But I must admit, she looks darn cute in it, better than me so I didn't mind gifting it to her.

It only took me 2 weeks to knit that one up so I didn't have emotional attachments to it yet.  I need to remember not to wear my turtle sweater around her. That sweater will go with me to the end! Lol

My Turtle sweater !

Look at this, I have been hard at work knitting and finishing this pullover. The turtle design was giving me such problems that I had to just put them aside for a few months. Finally last weekend I declared to myself that it's not going to get done sitting there in my yarn stash box. So I worked diligently for 2 days straight and got it finished. So in love with it! And I also burned the pattern so as I will not get tempted to do another one. However, I've already promised my niece that I will make her a Totoro pullover. I know, what have I done right.

Meanwhile, I've been knitting the Turkish bed socks one pair after another since my oldest keeps stealing them from me. Somehow he loves wearing them so I'm going to have to knit up some hot pink ones so I can have them to wear.

I'm also working on fingerless mittens for lena. Will have to get some pix up to show you the design. I've been absolutely in love with it but after having done one in blue sock yarn, I forgot the name of yarn, I decided that it didn't match her at all and it was too tight. So I spent a few more days contemplating on a different yarn and finally decided to use my lovely Madelinetosh Merino Light on her. After all, lena is my favorite niece.

Anyway, have been quiet in the blogging world because Adam has been teething like crazy and have been cranky and clingy and therefore I could only sit and hold him and not get anything done. All those teeth better grow in quickly and give me back my sweet boy.

Yarn for Garden cardigan

I got this yarn to try out at Let's Knit store in Gardena. The store was nicely stocked with yarn but was also nicely cramped and suffocating. But lena and I still managed to spend an hour there. She got some nice gold paper to fold cranes while I got the silky wool by elsebeth lavold. Who can pass up a yarn with the name silky wool right. I thought it'd be the perfect yarn for the Garden cardigan. I would just have to double the strand and since they didn't have needles bigger than a 13, I had to use that even though gauge calls for 15. I'm hoping it will work out. It was very hard getting used to working with such huge needles since I've been working with size 2's for socks. Right now I have about 5 rows left then have to graft up the under arms and find some buttons for it. Can't wait !

Shibui

This 1 skein of Shibui I got because it was on sale and I wasn't sure how nice the yarn is. Let me tell you, it gorgeous and soft from the feel of it. I will have to knit myself a pair of slipper socks with this 1 skein for sure.

Sweet Georgia!

Look at that beautiful color of this yarn that I got at "eat, sleep, knit" . I was so excited to find this there and the shipping was incredibly quick! The yarn is so nice and soft, one of my new favorites. I'm thinking of making the "Olive" pullover with this and the Orange Fabel for the yoke. The 2 orange shades are very similar.

Sock yarn!

Look at this beautiful array of colors of Fabel yarn from Nordic Mart! The boys have already picked out their colors. Mikey wants the dark purple as his next pair and B wants the aquamarine one. I love these in that I can get a pair made from 1 skein with enough leftovers to make Adam a pair as soon as I can get the dimensions right.

Another pair done

Another pair of slipper socks done for Mikey. Now billy wants a paid too. Working on his second one right now but then got distracted with new yarn coming in the mail from Webs and Nordic mart and Eat, sleep, knit. I know, will post those pix soon 

Mikey's Turkish bed socks

This is currently my obsession to knit. After knitting up this pair for my son, he wore it for 2 days and 2 nights saying they are so comfortable that he didn't want to take them off. Plus, he's requesting for a pair in every color. This, coming from a boy who's always hot. I do love to knit these with garn studio's fabel superwash though and just got 8 new colors! And now, my second son wants a pair of his own too. I just hope they hold up after washing and being abused by these boys of mine. I also tried to downsizing to make baby a pair but it came out too small. Back to the drawing board.

My Risata grass arrived!

Thanks to a kind lady from TX I can now continue with my turtle project. I had given up on it actually and was close to frogging it since the lady from OR promised that she would send it out to me that day but never did. I just happened to say to myself, I'll just check my Ravelry mailbox again just to be sure. And guess what, there was a message in there waiting for me saying that she has a skein to sell me. And the rest, as they say, is history. The only problem now is that I've moved onto 3 other projects and so my turtles must wait for me ...

Another project out of yarn ?

I think I have a problem with not buying enough yarn. I bought 2 skeins of Magic Garden buttons yarn when I went to Alamitos bay yarn company thinking I'm going to make a cute something for Adam. I did find a cute pattern for a sweater for Adam on Ravelry. So after running out of yarn on my turtle sweater, I decided to start on Adam's. And again, as I knitted along, I came to realize that again, I don't have enough yarn. I would need Atleast 2 more skeins to make a matching beanie for Adam. Time to beg for a ride to Alamitos ...

My cute toy

Look what I picked up at my LYS, Alamitos Bay Yarn Company in Long Beach!  I was driven there by my lovely niece, Lena and her equally lovely bf. We got lost heading there since my GPS pointed us to the riverbed as our destination.  I was willing to swim for some yarn but my niece was not. We called the ladies at the shop and they were very nice and directed us to the shop while I was on the phone with them. I was loving them already. Also, it was 15 minutes to closing time and I was really worried about not having enough time. But she told me not to worry about it and did not kick us out.  The shop was perfectly beautiful, stacked with gorgeous yarn and projects. I ended up picking up some cotton yarn for lena's next Totoro sweater, and also 2 cute skeins of a green tweed for a sweater for Adam.

I am definitely out of yarn to continue my turtle sweater. Waiting for a lovely lady in Oregon to send me a skein of her yarn. I pleaded my case on Ravelry and got quite a few responses of people trying to help me. I love fellow knitters!  

Arrgh, out of yarn.

I'm in a bind. As I'm knitting up my turtles, I realized that I'm running out of the green  yarn and won't have enough so I decided to hop on knitpicks to order one more skein of grass risata. Imagine my horror when there were none to be found. I even called them up in case they had a skein sitting around. All I need is 1 more. No luck. Company is discontinuing the yarn. WTH. Why would they do that to me. The CS gal suggested that I try Revelry. Of course, being my only choice left, I will have to do that after I stop hyperventilating.

Tori's leg warmers

Nothing much has been happening with my turtle sweater because I've just been knitting the stockingnette part of the body, all 17 inches of it. It is now done and I'm starting the sleeve caps before joining the body to knit the yoke.

Meanwhile, I've also been working on these leg warmers for Tori. I started these at the beginning of the summer and still trying to finish them up. I have to knit both leg warmers at the same time because if I don't , she would never get the second one. Also, it's easier to do decreases if I do one after the other. 

Turtle Mania

My current project is unnamed no more! I've decided to do turtles at the yoke, thanks to Paper Turtles Chart by Genevieve Noel in Ravelry.  Plus, instead of introducing a third color, I think I will just keep it at the blue and green. The body of the sweater is blue and then I'll just do the design for the turtle in green.  
Basically, this is part of the chart. They will be in sets of 2 turtles looking at each other with little fish swimming along sides.  The kids helped me decide on this design because Adam was wearing a t-shirt yesterday with a cute turtle design on it.  Also, I'm thinking that the blue/green combination of colors match with turtles more than any other animals that I've been thinking about. 


It seems like I've been obsessed with this project for a few days and I'm just glad that I've come to this conclusion.  Now, I'm looking at yarn for another Totoro sweater for Lena, something more colorful and thinner.  I would also like to do another one with the original paper dolls for ThiThi but I'm still debating on whether to do that or not.  I still have to finish the leg warmers for Tori.  The leg warmers have taken a back seat to this new obsession of mine to do colorwork.  I never thought that I could knit up a sweater with designs on it!  I started knitting less than a year ago and I've been wondering ever since why I did not take up knitting earlier.  Oh, that's right, I was busy crocheting hats for the boys.  I do love knitting so much more than crocheting though.

Unnamed project

On my way for my second "paper dolls" sweater.  Border is knit picks risata in green and body is classic elite firefly in a shade of blue. I think the design part will be in a beige color.  I love it that I can email my pix from my phone and have it uploaded to my blog. Oh, how I love technology. lol.  I'm quite in love with the color for this project. The only thing that nags at me every time I pick this up to knit is that line in the middle of my corrugated rib. Stupid me, I changed how I held my yarn mid-way through the rib because my fingers were wearing me out.  Little did I know, that temporary change created a line right in the middle of my ribbing.  But I am too lazy to frog it, and hoping it will go away after washing and blocking. Crossing my fingers.

Totoro, my totoro

This is my Totoro version of  Kate Davies' Paper Dolls knitted for my favorite niece Lena.  My very first stranded knit work and I'm very proud of it even though it turned out too thick for Lena to wear in California. I am attempting #2 for myself with fingering weight. However, I'm not sure if I want to do Totoros again or Owls or the original Paper Dolls. Oh, decisions, decisions.  It's a good thing I have a lot of knitting to do for the body before I have to decide on the design.