Discovering colors

Good morning! I hope you are having a wonderful day.
This morning I woke up thinking about photography and how much I used to enjoy it. I never took classes but I just like to capture those special moments or those things when it feels like you are the only one looking at them.
This morning I took some pics of one of my projects, I noticed how similar the color was to the flowers on my deck and I felt in love!

It's funny how sometimes we don't think about nature, yarn and color combinations. Have you ever experienced spending hours trying to look for the right color combination for your new pattern? I have! and then all the sudden there is just in front of you the perfect color combination... coming from mother nature! I think that from now on I'll be very careful when choosing my colors.
The project that you see here with my flowers is something that I started last night experimenting with a new stitch. We'll see how it comes out.

And one more picture of a flower that I took and I was able to capture all the details and I love it!

See later and hugs for you!
Sabri

Castellano
Buen día, Espero que estés teniendo un hermoso día. Esta mañana me desperté pensando en fotografía y lo mucho que solía disfrutarlo. La verdad es que nunca tome clases pero me gusta capturar el momento justo, ese que sentís que nadie esta sientiendo excepto uno mismo.
Hoy he tomado unas fotos de un proyecto en el que estoy trabajando, estaba sentada en el balcón y me sentís cuenta que el color de las flores era casi igual al de la lana! y me fascino!
Es gracioso como a veces uno no piensa en la naturaleza, la lana y los colores, a lo que me refiero espor ejemplo, alguna vez les paso que perdieron horas tratando de encontrar la combinación perfecta para su nuevo proyecto y de repente aparece la idea y de donde viene de los colores de la naturaleza! Creo que desde ahora en mas voy a prestar mas atención a las combinaciones de los colores que voy a elegir! jajaja
El proyecto que estas viendo con las flores es algo que empecé a tejer anoche usando un punto nuevo para mi. Vamos a ver que tal me sale.
Los quiero!!!!
Un abrazo de oso!
Sabri

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

I am an ambitious knitter

Sylvi by Mari Muinonen

There is one pattern that I love since the first moment I saw it and because I was intimidated by its difficulty and length it has been sitting in my queue for a very long time. Yes I am talking about Sylvi coat! What a beautiful and ambitious pattern!

Well, last week I ordered the yarn to start knitting this pattern. I waited for 5 days to receive the package with the yarn and I finally got it like two days ago.

My needles are on fire! My Sylvi is in progress and I love it.

For the yarn I picked the Cascade Eco+ on a plum color, and I tell why I choose the yarn: well, first of all because is 100% wool and is going to be warm for winter and second because the price was great $19 for 478 yard of bulky yarn per skein. Not bad ha!

It’s true, I became and ambitious knitter. I like complicated projects now, and this one is going to take me a while, and because I just couldn’t resist I started knitting the back first… Surprisingly is not as complicated as it seems which is good.

I’ll be taking pics, so you can see.

Have a great weekend,

Many hugs for you

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

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

Lot of work today

I have been working a lot today, uploading all my finished projects to my Etsy shop. Finally the day was nice enough to let me take pics, well I have to say that I was on the mood for it as well, which made everything a lot easier.
I have a lot to show you, many new projects and some of them very interesting ones.
I decided that I'm not going to upload all the pics for my new project, but instead some of them and then you can go see the rest here. What I do want to show you is this cool project which is called

                                                                   "The Magic Scarf"

 You can use it as a scarf, very warm, soft and light, or maybe if it gets chilli you can just use it as a sweater!

                                                                  How cool is that?

I hope you like it, and I will show more of my projects later on.
Have a great Sunday, and enjoy the rest of it!
Hugs
Sabrina

Creativity

Creativity is what I have these days, but the problem is that it comes and goes. Sometimes I get images of hat designs on my mind right before falling sleep, and when I open my eyes thinking about them with a big smile on my face the whole thing disappears! Did this ever happen to you? My husband recommended me to have a little notebook handy on my nightstand in case something pops up, I took his input under consideration and then I put it on practice, so now I have a notebook and a sharp pen on my nightstand and three new designs!

These past two weeks have been really busy on my knitting life. I've been knitting lots of hats with the help of my mother in law,  (my little helper) for this shop in Richmond. I think I might have to deliver them this Sunday, not sure yet.
I knitted new models of slouchy hats; I specially love two of them! I have to say that new patterns keep me entertain and since it's been rainy for a couple of days, it's easier to be inside and just knit.
 I haven't buy any new yarn so far, but instead I REMIX my stash for new ideas, and it worked put perfectly; new combinations, new textures, new designs. It feels like I have all kinds of new yarn!
I will try to take some pictures if tomorrow gets nicer, so you can see my hats before I have to take them to the shop.
You have a great weekend, appreciate life, love the ones around you and hug them more often. Love is good.
Many hugs for you, and thank you for reading my blog!

I finished my Shawl Collar Vest!

Satisfaction and happiness is what this finished project makes me feel! I finished the Collar Shawl and it came out perfect! I'm so pleased with the results.
 What a great and easy pattern, Jennifer thank you so much for sharing this with us!
I also wanted to say that the yarn is so soft and colorful, very satisfied with that too.
You can find it on raveled here
Today is a really happy Tuesday!

Back view

My Collar Shawl

Loving the big collar

Many hugs for you,
Sabrina

Feelings and Knitting

Sometimes we feel passion for what we do, sometimes we are disappointed with the results. Other times we get bored of working on the same thing and we get anxious to finish so we can start something new. We're always looking for what are we going to make next!and sometimes we just fell in love with our project!
And that's what I'm feeling right now!
What are you feeling for your actual project now?

Happy Knitting!
Sabrina

My Kniting Adventure

I’m going through a knitting adventure process, yes that’s right. That’s how I can put it.

Don’t you need knitting adventures too? Don’t you like the emotion of knitting something completely new? It’s like your brain asks for it, isn’t it?

First of all, I want to say that I’ve been saving on my favorites from Ravelry all these amazing patterns for a long time, always thinking that some day I’ll get to make them. What was really happening, was that I was lying to myself, why? Well, because whenever the time to start a new project came I was choosing easy ones. I had a long talk with myself and I decided that needed to end. (I’m not crazy. I’m sure you talk to yourself too sometimes, don’t you?)

For those reasons two days ago I started a new project that I wanted to make for a long time. The pattern is called “Shawl Collar vest” by Jennifer Miller and it’s lovely and it’s FREE!

This is my new adventure, and I say this because I’ve never knitted a circular vest yet.

 Even though the pattern looked easy and short I was scared! The fact that you need to start the pattern back and forth and the change it to knitting in a round was strange to me. I couldn’t figure it out right away, so on Sunday and I wrote to Jennifer and asked the questions I had about the pattern, she replied right away, which it was really helpful. Thank you Jennifer! After that little stumble my brain started to process the information properly and truly and now is surprisingly going great.

Secondly, since my budget is limited, I try not to expend a lot of money on yarn (it’s really hard!), so right next to my work there is Hancock Fabric store and sometimes I find sells, like the other day! I found Amazing from Lion Brand at a bargain price so I bought like 4 skins of it. This is the yarn that I’m using for this project; I love the color, the texture and the ease of the yarn.

Finally, keep in mind that knitting adventures are great time to time, getting out of our comfort zones helps us develop new techniques. I’m trilled about this project so we will have to wait and see for the results.

My friends thank you so much for stopping by and say hi.

 Big hug for you all,

Sabrina

My Original Girly Hat

I know that it's the second post of the day, but I wanted to tell you that I've decided to put on sale my original design for the hat that was publish on " Knitting a day Calendar 2011", the Girly Hat.

This is the only hat I made on this design and I decided to put it on sale at my shop,
You can find it here.
I hope you like it!

Knitting and Summer time

Knitting and hot weather don’t match! It’s been difficult for me to concentrate on knitting when outside it’s about 101 degrees being the real feel 109!

Of course, Summer time it’s always difficult for me to focus on knitting, I love to be out on the water, swimming and socializing. Yesterday I meant to work on my Owls sweater, but we were invited to a pool party for lunch, so honestly the thoughts of temptation about the first splash of the season and being out with my hubby and friends  was stronger than the knitting, and I gave up the knitting moment that I had forcedly created, put everything away and went to get ready for the pool! It was so much fun!

We had  such a good time with dear friends, good food, and drinks and a pool! It was a really a beautiful day to be at the pool hanging out with my dearest people!!

After spending almost all the afternoon at my friend’s pool party, when we got home we were so tired that without wanting, we both passed out on the couch, ending in an unexpected long nap (it felt so good though)!

Finally after dinner I sat down on my couch, and while chilling with my hubby I manage to finish the second sleeve for my sweater, Yay! After all mission accomplished!

It was a great weekend, full of happy moments and romance! 

Love summer time, it makes me feel happy!

This morning I thought: Well, this evening I’ll put all my sweater all together, and I’ll start knitting a couple of rows…(that’s what I thought) My husband called me and said that this afternoon we have to go to my best friends house because it’s his son’s birthday, (we were there yesterday celebrating, they are the ones with the pool!)… Oh my…having fun outdoors wins again! We are going to a pool party again tonight!!!! We will be having a great time again, with a barbeque and swimming at night! The temperature today is 97, with a real feel of 105!

Question: DO you think that after leaving my house around 7:00pm and having a great time at the party when I come back home around 10:00pm I will feel like knitting? I don’t even know!

You guys enjoy the outdoors, life is beautiful and as much as I love to knit I also love to move around and have fun activities and visit friends and spend time with my hubby, so sometimes knitting has to wait, especially on Summer time!

Today I send you a free summer hug!

Happy knitting and enjoy life

Sabrina

The results of my Owls sweater

Here I recollect all the pictures that I've taken in the process of making this beautiful sweater. As I said before I will have to rip it and fix it. Now that I've assimilated the situation it's not a big deal. This things happen sometimes. Before taken it apart I wanted to show you everything.
So here we go:

So happy to start

Wau I already knitted all this!

I love the look of it!

Disappointment,too tight

The shaping of the back looks good

So this is what it was like, all the stages that I went through while knitting this sweater.
I have to tell you that I feel very proud that I finished it!
Complete notes on my Ravelry
and start over is not that bad, I like knitting so I will enjoy it again!
Hugs to you my friends!

Sabrina

My sweater is finished but with tears!

Oh my! Were do I start. Remember that I was knitting the Owls sweater? You do, well I finished it! It came out beautifully except for the little detail that is that the armpits are soooooo tight!! I feel so disappointed! You see I followed every single instruction I even made the sweater a size bigger than mine, but still to small. The thing is that the whole sweater fits me like a glove except for the under arm, so tight that if I keep it like this, I won’t be able to wear anything under it. Nop, no my type, I like it tight but not that tight! I feel like my owls are going to explode in any minute!

 So this is what I am going to do. I will get home, I will take a picture of the sweater and me, I will show it to you, and then I’m going to unravel it and I’ll start all over again!

And this time I’ll go for the 40”.

So yes, I’m very mad at the sweater and myself because I put a lot of work on it, for nothing, and it wasn’t like I was not trying it on while I was knitting, I tried it on  a million times, until I started making the owls.

Oh well it’s nothing that I can do except start all over again and make perfect this time.

I'll show it to you later on so you can see that I’m not lying.

Many hugs to you, and I do accept hugs today! I need them! hahaha

Sabrina

PS: Yesterday I was finally able to update all my finished projects on my Ravelry you can find me as Sabrina F. Santa Cruz like a designer or as Sabry like a member.

Knitting and finished projects

I can believe that Thanks Giving is so close! We already bought the turkey and all the rest of the food, delicious! So Thanks Giving is already here and the weather is still like spring time! How cool is that? I wonder if winter is going to come this year…mmm… I wonder if it is going to get cold enough to be able to use my chunky knits? I hope so! Last Sunday I started a new project from the Twinkle's Big City Knits, yes another one. I love that book, and there are like 4 more projects that I really like, so you will be seeing more chunky knits from me. Well the pattern that I am doing right now is called Balthazar vest. I am using Landscapes yarn- Rose garden- from Lion Brand. Super soft and light and very warm. So far I love it. I don’t know if it’s going to be enough yarn though; and if I run out of yarn it is going to be a problem because that specific yarn has been discontinued. Yes I know, I should have thought about that before starting, but the thing is that I have all this yarn and I needed it to use it. So we’ll see what happens.

Today I also updated Ravelry with pictures of my finish projects; one of them was my February Lady Sweater. I like when everything looks nice and completed.

Here is my February Lady Sweater finished (with modifications on the lace  pattern)

November has been a very active knitting moth for me. I finished two projects fro myself already and I will probably finish one more, and they are all for me!!

Well I let you go back toy do your things. Thank you for reading and as I always say

Hugs!!!!

Sabrina

Knitting crisis!

You have not idea how many times I remake the neck of the shopping tunic! OMG! It's driving me crazy! This is looking really bad. I do NOT like the look, shape or form of that neck, It turns out freaking HUGE! 

Nooooo, I am way too short for that type of neck I look like a big" walking sweater".  Patience Sabrina, breath, it is going to be only the 4^th time that you un-knit this project, breath. You have to redo it again, so take  it easy lady! I know, I know i said to myself! Even though I talk to myself i am NOT crazy (well just a little bit).

So last night that’s what I did, while watching the Pacific (HBO war mini series) with my husband, I  un-knitted all the neck again to the shoulders; I left it ready to start knitting again, this afternoon when I come back home from work, I just want to finish it! In the mean while I say to myself “

“La paciencia es un árbol de raíz amarga pero de frutos muy dulces.”

“Patience is a tree of sour roots, but really sweet fruits”

I also wanted to share with you that my adorable husband got us tickets to go to the U2 concert for June 2011!!!! He was alerted so he new the first day the tickets went on sale and he got row 11 baby!!!!! I will see Bono so close that is going to be awesome! Besides U2 has a couple of songs that are very special to us, so is going to be a magic night.

I can’t wait!!!

To all the knitters, patience is the key for a wonderful project!

Hugs everybody,

Sabrina