New updates!

Thanksgiving is here! What a great holiday. You get to enjoy your family great homemade food and plenty of time to chill and maybe knit a little!

We are cooking a turkey breast tomorrow because we all like white meat and we are only four people at home, so it will be plenty. Of course we are going to make the yummy sweet potatoes, and smash potatoes and Flan for dessert! Ohhh and we are going to be baking our own bread!

I can't wait until tomorrow!

News

My Shop

I don’t know if you have notice but I renew the look of the blog a little, and since blogger has added new features I was able to add more pages and one of them is my SHOP!

Yes! I wanted to do that for a very long time and finally I could accomplish it!

My creating mood is on again, it finally came back! So, I have the felling that this long weekend is going to be very productive. I want to make new things; I have ideas many ideas… You’ll see!

Come visit my shop

I hope you like it!

Knitting

Ohhhh I also wanted to tell you that I have finished my Sylvi Coat! Oh my…. I am in love with it coat! I wasn’t able to take decent pictures yet, but I show you what I have so you can see it!

 I love it!!!! yes it was a lot of work, but the results are incredible. The pattern is really easy to follow and to be honest I didn't have any problems. The yarn worked perfect for this coat, after blocking it;s a lot softer and I like the stitch definition too.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, enjoy as much as you can!

Many hugs for you!

Sabrina

Baby Abigail's Cardigan

In the mean while I had to knit something cute and tiny for somebody special and beautiful!
Here is a little gift I made for my husband's coworker's baby Abigail! I choose a very cute pattern called

Baby's Lace Cardiganby Stefanie Jape, Raveled here. 

Well, the truth that I bought this yarn  a long time ago. I could never find the right project for it. Finally one day I came across this pattern and I loved it! Unfortunately, I had to make some modifications on the pattern since I didn't have enough yarn (but I really really wanted to use this yarn), but it came out pretty, don't you think? Colors of Candy and Rainbow together ideal for a little girl!

Becky ,the mom (she is very sweet) loved  it and as soon as my husband gave to her she sent me a beautiful thank you text and that same day in the evening  I received a pic of baby Abigail wearing the cardigan!
Too cute! I was so glad to see that the size was perfect!

Baby's Lace Cardigan by Stefanie Japel

Love buttons!

Baby Abigail!The cutest model!

Have a great week!
Hugs to you
Sabrina

My Leftie is finished!

Happy face!

Having this past long weekend gave me enough time not only to finish my knitting project but also to take pictures of it so you can see it.

Finally my Leftie is out of the needles! And I -LO-VE- IT!!! It came out just perfect, because the colors matched beautifully. I have to confessed that knitting garter stitch is not my favorite, because after a while it gets boring, so basically I had to make myself think about the final results to keep going and that’s how I got trough all the garter stitch part. Making the leaves was fun and after making a couple of them I got use to it and I didn’t need to fallow the pattern anymore. I made a total of 22 leaves and for my neck size it was plenty, because I am able to wrap it all around without a problem. You can find this project raveled here.

My Leftie Shawl

 All I have to say about this pattern is that is really easy and well explain and that the result is just beautiful. I highly recommend it!

It’s going to be hard to wait for cooler days to be able to use it, I can’t wait!

Now, well I am just looking for the next project, I can’t decide tough, maybe I just should find the right yarn for my Sylvi. I have to have a Sylvi!

Hugs to you

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

2012 is coming strong!

It’s almost the end of February; many things have happened this past two months, good things and difficult ones too. I would like to share with everybody that my father is doing well; he is stable (thanks God!). I got to spend Christmas down in Argentina, after 10 years! I flew down there because my dad was doing really bad, but fortunately he made it! And so, one day before Christmas he was released from the hospital, so after 10 years we got to spend Christmas together! I was so glad that God was helping us to make it through the holidays in a happier way, all of us at home, nobody missing, big smile on my face!

Well it was weird because my husband couldn't go, of course complete happiness is really hard to achieve, so in one hand I was happy and in the other hand I was missing him so much. Anyways, I spend a lot of time with my mom,dad and brother, helping out and making sure that everything was fine. I came back just in time to spend New Years with my husband.

Also last week on the 19^th it was our 8^th year Anniversary! Do you want to know what did? In the afternoon of the 19^th we went to the alpaca farm in Gainesville, and after spending nice quality time learning about these wonderful animals my husband Vic bought for me 6-½ oz of baby alpaca yarn!!! The cool thing was that the tag says all the alpaca’s names on it! and think about this…I've just petted them!!!!!! Vic help me to pick the colors, all the yarns were natural colors, so we decided on a nice cream color, this yarn is so soft just delightful! Vic is awesome! He really is! Each year for our Anniversary we go somewhere like for a mini-vacation, but this year our budget was a little tight so we are going to go next weekend, we don’t know where yet, but we love just to drive and get lost or take a last minute airplane somewhere. It’s going to be fun!

Knitting

I started the year knitting a stripe hat for my hubby. He loves the hats! And then he asked me if I could make another one they are basically  always the same color, but starting with black instead of gray this time. So I made it for him.

This year I want to take knitting to the next level. What I mean by this is that I want to work in some advanced knitting projects. I always wanted to knit a lace shawl, one with a really complicated pattern, but I’m always too intimidated by it.

Well, I’m very proud to announce that last Sunday I cast on for the Echo flower shawl!

 I’ve queued this pattern like 2 years ago!!! So it was about time!!!!

I think I’ll write just one post for this project, I have so much to say about it! Loving it so far! In my case this pattern requires 100% of my attention, I can’t watch T.V or get distracted because that will mean chaos!
This is the yarn that I picked for the Echo Flower shawl,

Cascade yarn Heritage Solid Color

My first rows!

I wanted to show some of my 2012 knitting goals:

The Eco Flower Shawl

Sylvi

Color Affection, by Veera Valimaki

 Setsuko, by PamPowers

Those are some of the projects that I would like to knit! Will see how much I can get accomplish.

All right people, I have to get going.

Thank you for stopping by, and I want to send you a big hug to you!

Sabrina

Sunflower Mittens

This past Christmas I've received a gift certificate for Joann’s from one of my best friends. She is too cute, she knew I like yarn and knitting accessories, but she doesn’t know much about yarn. So since I don’t buy a lot of yarn at this store I decided to go and buy the Vickie Howells yarn Sheepish. I wanted a bright color, something that I usually don’t knit with. I found a yellow that is so pretty and bright, exactly what I wanted. I also bought some yarn in two different shades of gray.

Well to be honest I bought one of each color, so my project needed to be small, that’s why I decided to make myself a par of Mittens. Since the only par I’ve ever made for me was on 2006, they very old, and they are huge! Hahaha.

To make this simple pair of mittens I used the same pattern that I used to make my first pair, which is a very simple and easy pattern.I used one skein of Sheepish yarn ( and I have like 3/4 left) and as a complementary color I used some nice 100% merino wool (yummy), that I had as left over from a hat I knitted for my husband.

I wanted a pair of mittens basically because I was tired of getting my hands so cold when touching the steering wheel. The yarn is super warm, soft and it has a pretty decent stitch definition for the price. The only down side is that it peels easily.

I called this project, my Sunflowers Mittens and is raveled here

I’m very happy with this quick and cute project.

Have you knit a lot of pair of mittens in your knitting years?

Have a great evening, and hugs for you!

Sabrina