Our mini Vacation at Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Playa del Carmen, Mexico

We are back from our mini honeymoon vacation! What a relaxing week! We had the best time ever! Playa del Carmen, Mexico is just beautiful. This beach is located at 45 minutes drive from Cancun. The neighborhood was very pleasant and clean, the people were super friendly and polite, everybody said Hola Amiga! (It means hello friend!), they make you feel at home.

We went to the Riu Palace Rivera Maya Hotel, it was beautiful, service was outstanding and the food was delicious!  And while you were sitting on the beach the waitresses passed walking with a tray full of drinks, offering water, beer, piña coladas etc. So you don’t have to worry about going back to the bar to get a drink. I would totally come back to this hotel next year when we go back! (Yes we are going back next year!) The water in the Ocean is warm and super clear! You can snorkel all day if you want.

View from our balcony

The Hotel's pool

Playa del Carmen beach at the hotel

Yoga on the Ruins

We visited Tulum’s ruins. Tulum was one of the last cities inhabited and built by the Mayas. This place was mystical and full of energy and history. The beach at Tulum is protected for nesting sea turtles. The main Beach was closed because the turtles’ eggs all over the beach.

The Maya civilization habited the Yucatan Peninsula and their architecture is considered on of the wonders of the world.

While visiting Tulum we went snorkeled in the middle of the ocean! The water was completely clear! It was incredible!

I got sick though from all the movement of the boat and I through up! After that I felt good again.

Tulum's beach

we went snorkel on that little boat!

ready to go snorkeling

We also went to one of the Cenotes called Dos Ojos (Cenotes are surface connections to subterranean water bodies. Water is often very clear, as the water comes from rain water infiltrating slowly through the ground. Cenotes are unique to this area, not only in Mexico but also the world.) What a magical place! It was located on a Maya Community place and it belongs to them. I was amazed by it’s beauty! We had a guide who took us to the caves in the Cenote. We had to use the snorkel equipment and wear a wet suit to go into and through the caves, because the water is very cold; and we also had to hold a little lantern to see where we were going since the caves are completely dark and at some points the caves’ ceilings got so low that you only had room to pass your head! It’s been scary at some points, but so worth it!

Cenote Dos Ojos

We also went to Cancun; it was beautiful as well, a lot more touristy and you can see the monsters hotels all over the “Zona hotelera”, but a little too busy for my taste. I prefer Playa del Carmen! A million times more relaxing!

All I have to say is that my husband and I had a wonderful vacation and we got to spend a lot of time together and we got to disconnect from all the problems and such. Very relaxing and lovely time!

Now back to normal again, but charged with positive Maya and relaxing energy!

LOVE

Hugs

Sabrina

Love this pattern!

Knitting

This colors are gone!

From the moment I saw this pattern I felt in love with it! The designer had a great idea when designing this pattern; It’s so easy yet very interesting and addictive!

I can’t wait to start! The only problem is that I haven’t decided on what yarn to use yet. I was thinking on the baby alpaca that my husband bought for me a while back, but for some reason I have the feeling that it’s not going to be enough. I guess I will have to go to the yarn shop today to see what I can find. I need about 600 yards of fingering.

OK, so I went to the yarn shop in Old Town Manassas and I found the perfect yarn at a bargain price!

I had the necessity to start this project right away and I did. I started knitting with like five different colors plus the main color. At the beginning at liked the way the colors where coming together until I didn’t like them anymore and I didn’t know why. So I asked my husband, who is an expert in colors, and he pointed out that the color that through everything out was the light blue because it was the only cold color out of all the colors I was working with. After covering the blue everything look different.

So I decided to ripped off almost all of my knitting and start all over again, only with two o three colors, not sure yet! You see for me it’s very important to pick the right colors, I have to love the colors other ways I cannot work with them. (I know, weird).

I am very satisfied with the colors now! Hahaha I hope I don’t have to rip it anymore.

This project is Raveled here

Life

I also wanted to share something cool… We are going on vacation! Yes, just for a few days, we are leaving tomorrow! This time we are going to Cancun, Mexico, well actually Playa del Carmen! We called this trip “Our little Honeymoon”. It’s our first time visiting the Caribbean Ocean, we can’t wait to get there! And I can’t wait to jump in that water!

Of course I won’t bring my knitting to a tropical place. I won’t be thinking about knitting, I will be thinking about how fortunate we are to be at such a beautiful place! Too much to do, a men to love, good food to eat, a beach to enjoy and places to see! hahahaha

I’ll post some pics when I get back.

Happy Knitting

Hugs

And have a great week!

Sabrina

And the winner is....

Yes remember that I told you that I was going to enter the cardigan to the Prince William County Fair? Well I did and guess what? My Mythos won the first place (blue ribbon)!! I was so like O-M-G! I just couldn't believe it. My cardigan just came out of my needles and it's the winner? wauu awesome! I was not expecting that price! All my work was so worth it!
I also enter my Echo shawl and my Cloud Bolero and they both won the "third place", so yes I was so happy and proud. Here are some pics of my items.

                                                                     My Mythos

                                                                       Yay!!!

My Echo Flower Shawl won 3rd Place

My Cloud Bolero won 3rd Place!

I wanted to share with you this wonderful knittng experience it was fun, I might do it again next year.
Many hugs for you and thank you for stopping by!
Sabrina

Completely finished and Proud

Last night when I came back from work the first thing I did was to go upstairs to my office and checked if my cardigan was dried! It was a relieved to see that the yarn was obedient enough to stay blocked the way I wanted. I was so worried that for some reason the back was going to be to short, but fortunately was not the case.

I am very pleased with the results of this project. Now when I look at it I think that it was so worth it to be knitting for almost a month, (even my husband was tired of seeing me working on this project) of course including all the fixing and frogging.

I am very pleased with the results of this cardigan, so I decided to go ahead and enter the cardigan to the Prince William County Fair Knitting Competition for the first time! We'll see what happens.

The whole project is raveled here

Techniques I’ve learned while making this pattern

*Mastered short rows wrap and turn. For this I watched a very interesting free video class online from Crafty

*Mastered grafting or sewing

I used mattress stitch (used on sleeves and sides). Great video to learn this technique here 

I also used Kitchener stitch (used on back and part of the sides). Great video to learn this way of seaming here 

Complementary great video to learn how to sew stitches going into different ways here 

It was my first time knitting a cardigan in two separate halves using fingering yarn. When I started I thought it was going to take forever, but it wasn’t that bad. Great for a summer project since the yarn is light to the touch.

Today I can say that I really like the feeling of a fingering cardigan. I can’t wait to this fall to start using it!

I think that fingering projects are my new favorite…mmm… what’s next?

Happy knitting to you and my hugs!

Sabrina

Seaming or Grafting

The reason why I want to dedicate this entry to seaming is because for me it’s one of the hardest techniques to accomplish in my knitting. I could justify myself saying that I hate seaming, or that it’s a waste of time, etc, etc. The truth is that I am NOT good at it. Seaming or grafting is my number one weakness when it comes to knitting. I always tried to knit sweaters from the top down to avoid the seaming, but let’s be honest it’s time to take care of this technique.

These past days I finished knitting the Mythos cardigan. The gauge was perfect (so far, it's blocking); the yarn looks and feels beautiful but my seaming sucks! This cardigan has a lot of grafting (and I mean A LOT) There is even a part on the cardigan where all the stitches go to different directions. I had to re-do the seaming many times, until I got tired and frustrated and decided to put the project away until figuring out how to do it right. I decided to start a researched about seaming or also called grafting knitting.

First, I read all the different ways of seaming. (I already knew this, but I always tried to avoid it). All this information helped me to refresh my memory, but it wasn’t enough. Second, I started looking for videos and paying really close attention to all the details. The videos that I found were OK, but they were not showing what I was actually looking for. Finally, I found the gem video! I could not believe that after doing so much research this video showed exactly what I was looking for. The women in this video explains everything so well, and it’s so easy to understand. The fact that she shows and explains how to seam all the stitches that are going in different directions to me is priceless, because almost none of the videos do. I learned so much with this video; everything makes sense now. I just wanted to share the link with you guys in case you need to see how is done, here it is Link. 

Right now my Mythos is blocking, I can't wait to see the results. I hope it doesn't stretch! 

I will tell you later!

Hugs to you and thank you for being there for me!

Sabrina