I don't monitor my blog followers and don't know who, if any, read my posts, but if you do, thank you for your support! 

Now, I know 13 is known to be a superstitious number, but I think, for me, it'll be a good. 

So, I'm starting off 2013 with a fresh project, and it's aptly named, "It's a mystery".  This is the annual sock mystery kal hosted by Kirsten Kapur from Through the Loops.  We received the 1st clue today, and I cast on and finished the 1st clue.  Each clue to be released weekly, so I'll have time to give attention to other projects while waiting for the 2nd clue's release.  I love knitting mystery kals', its always nice to see the pattern progress and not know what the end result is.

This was last year's clue 2012:

Here's the 1st clue for 2013:

I went with Marmalade from Scout's Swag, a beautiful speckled yellow I picked up years ago in a dye class Scout held at Knit One Knit Two in Berkeley.  The first clue is only the cuff portion, and started off with a picot edging, which immediately made me happy with my yarn choice.  I think the speckled yellow is very fitting for the fun and flirty picot edging.  Now I'm really excited for the next clue!

Aside from this new project, I'm now actively searching my stash for a lace yarn to start another knit mystery hosted by Susanna IC.  This one is a shawl with beads!  This will be my 2nd time doing a Susanna IC mystery kal.    For now those are what's going to be hitting my needles,  but I have more to start, I'll share as those come to fruition. 

Last year's Susanna IC mystery shawl:

I'll be posting again, to share clue 2 of TTL Sock Mystery and clue 1 of Susanna IC Mystery too!  2013 will be a blogging year!

~Rocky

I'm still working Geschenk, its coming along nicely, I've got about 3 repeats done of the 3rd chart.  I'll share that soon. 

While browsing through my FB Feeds, I came across a new project, a Mystery at that!  It's so hard for me to avoid a good mystery knit.  This was inspired by Marisol's FB post, thus I headed down to the yarn store on none other than Small Business Saturday!  While I didn't need yarn to buy for this project, I felt the compulsion to buy new yarn.  It literally had been many many months prior to that since my last yarn purchase, amazing, but true!

I picked up these lovelies, Malabrigo Rasta in Soriano.

I absolutely love the Rasta from Malabrigo, so soft and such gorgeous colors. 

The Mystery cowl knits up fast, I finished the 1st clue Sunday!

I finished the 2nd clue yesterday evening, no pics yet, but tonight I'll start the last clue.  It'll be any day now that I'll be sharing a fabolous new FO!  BTW, this Mystery Cowl KAL is hosted by Star Athena, who has such lovely patterns!

I love a fast knit, it's great to regain your knitting rhythm. 

Enjoy the remainder of your week!

~Rocky

I've been itching to start a number of projects and organize restless WIPs.  I decided a number of WIPs just didn't hold my interest anymore, so I frogged them and re-purposed the yarn.  

One of those projects, formerly the Lacy Prairie shawl, knit with A Verb For Keeping Warm's Floating in Hyacinth.  Yarn from Knitting Ranch 8)

I've now started the Geschenk shawl by Romi Hill. 

This is wee beginnings of the shawl, and the yarn is fitting it perfectly.  Some other projects I'll be starting soon, and I promise to share.

For anyone out there? How's everyong been?  I'd love to hear from you. :D

Happy Fall! 

R

I recently finished another project and was itching to start a new project but just couldn't muster up the task of digging thru the packed boxes to choose a yarn and I'm being careful on my budget, so no new yarns for me 8(, gosh is that hard to stick too.  It's an addiction, I swear!

Anyways, I got lucky, and before we moved, I had stashed a few projects in my beautiful Lantern Moon Flower Power Bag.  I choose to finish the Cranked socks I had started back in April 2011 for the Knit Purl Hunter KAL.  I don't remember why I didn't finish the socks back then, probably moved onto another project.

I picked these up again this past week and turned them into ankle socks.  I absolutely love ankle socks, and these came out with a perfect fit. 

It's always nice to have a new pair of socks done. 

Pattern: Cranked for Knit Purl Hunter Trekking KAL
Yarn: Trekking Maxima Color #906 from Green Planet Yarn LYS.
Started: 04/15/11
Finished: 06/10/12
Mods: None

Now, onto another project, but I think I just may splurge and pickup some new yarn.....

But my oh my how things have vastly changed for me, first I had to speed move to a new residence, I won't go into the details, but lets just say that I got stuck having to speed house hunt and plan a move in under 2 weeks.   It was stressful for us, and my husband did say everything would turn out ok, and knowing now how things panned out, everything did turn out ok, even better than we had it before.

I amazingly was able to land a new home, just a few miles down the way from we were living, and the house is just so nice!  Much nicer than our former home, not that our former home wasn't nice, it was just dated.  We landed a nicer home, very nice neighborhood, and we have AC once again!  Just in time for the summer!  Our new home has 2 Orange trees, an Apple tree, a Lemon tree, and a Guava tree!  I love seeing all the apples, just little babies, growing each day.  So much lovely fruit, can't wait until we can harvest.  Were already enjoying the lemons and oranges, and we love it.  Our former residence did have a lemon tree too, we were really sad to see it go when we had to start looking for a new home, little did we know we'd end up where were at with yet another lemon tree, and much more.

So, that's just the house ventures, crazyiness, but we survived it.  Onto our other venture, we finally purchased a new vehicle, got a new truck, while the former truck, which we still love, will go on to my son.  Were in transition with the vehicles right now, but soon, he'll be driving the old reliable Ford, and will have the new cool Ford for us, and then of course I have my car as well.   It's odd having a new car, its been so long since we've purchased anything.

Oh, and one last new adventure, I got a promotion at work, one I had been vying for these past months.  It's a big opportunity and challenge for me, but it's a nice change to be in that position.  I'm excited, eager, nervous, calm, observant, all at the same time. 

Sadly, amiss all these changing times, my Aunt Connie past away as well.  It was a complete shock, and very upsetting for me.  I'm still amazed she's gone, she was always supportive of me and the one person, who had alot of similiarities with me.  I miss her, but she'll always be apart of me, we have very similar spirits.

So many things, both good and bad, and all at once, it was extremely hard to knit, or do anything of that sort during this time, but I managed to pull off a mystery knit, I can't provide details, as its a new pattern, not mines, but one of my favorite designers.

Here's a peak at the FO, once it's ready to reveal, I'll post an update, but for now, just a tease.

Enjoy your weekend!

~Rocky

This is "Virgie's Fern", a slouch hat, quick knit, using Bulky weight yarn.  The lace pattern repeat, is easy to remember and get into a rhythm.

Side View

Crown View

This is available at my pattern store at Ravelry or Craftsy.

I plan to have another pattern in the next month, the next one is a blouse, and I'm super excited about it! 

I hope you take a look at the new pattern!

~Rocky

Now I know everyone can be a designer and easily publish a pattern, give it free or sell it, designer's choice, and that's one of the things I love about the knitting world.  Some do it casually, some do it as they have inspiration, some do it  full time.

This world is what you make of it, and the passion I have for knitting has been constantly evolving over the years.  I've published a few patterns thus far, but I've been really focusing on putting the bulk of my time toward's designing.  I have a number of patterns in queue for design, one of which is a new Spring/Summer blouse.   The whole process is alot of research, alot of decisions, etc.  I've made great headway over the past week, and now am finally going to cast on the first prototype.   I still have WIPs sitting, waiting to be finished, and I want to finish them, but at the same time I'm torn because I need to continue work on my designs.  So it's been a delicate balance, but its working for now.  I do have one pattern done, waiting to release, but I need to take another photoshoot, so that's been holding it up, I'm determined to get this one out this week, so stay tuned. 

I'll share my swatch for the Spring/Summer top I'm working on.  This will be primarily the border for blouse.

The pattern is simple, no fancy tricks, easily memorable, and fast.   I'll share my progress as I go, and some other FOs this week as well.

It was so funny because I actually lost the original file I had for this pattern and wound up going to Ravelry and downloading the pattern.  I printed it out and reviewed it, realizing that I wasn't at all satisfied.  I wasn't satisified with the pattern publishing or the crown decreases.

So I followed my pattern instructions step-by-step, pulled out my red pencil, and cast on.  I re-knitted my FO and also changed the crown decreases so the pattern flows nicely into the crown shaping.

I updated the pattern via the Ravelry store and also added it as a new pattern to Crafsty too.  This pattern is free and it is a rather fast knit, even more so if you can knit cables w/out a cable needle.  I thank myself each time I do a cable project that I learned that trick many years ago. 

Aside from the crown decreases I also changed the pattern publishing to make it more formal, space saving, and columned.  I also added a new logo.

Goin through some of my FOs I found the lovely February Baby Sweater that I had knit so long ago for Lil' Nenille, and sadly never finished it, then came Isabella, and I took too long to give this to her, so I ended up with a lovely knit sweater but nobody for it to fit.  Then came Emma, and yes!  It fitted her just right with room to grow.

She was so sweet to model for me. 

Now onto finishing up edits on another pattern, and then to swatch for a new one, very excited about this one.  Can't wait to start sharing some of these new patterns.

Enjoy your Monday!

Visit my Ravelry pattern store "Rockinknit"

Visit my Craftsy pattern store "Rockinknit".

This is a super fast knit, great to use stash yarn or scraps left over from project.  I always finish project and usually have left overs of beautiful yarn. 

I used Malabrigo Rios for this Loopis necklace. 

~Rocky

And first time ever, I left Stitches with NO YARN or FIBER in hand.  I'm still thinking twice about that, but I found a different way to enable myself this time round.

Yes, got my first Offhand Designs Bag, he's a beauty.

This is the Scottie Adelaide, and it's luscious.  It is big, not crazy big, but its mine!

Another gorgeous one I left with is from Atenti, just all around a sexy bag!

This the Doctor Madrid, just plain gorgeous.  I also tried to find an Overnighter in Cowgirl Black but they were sold out, although I made a wee bit of a friend there and I'll be getting my hands on one very soon.  For the interim, I satisfied my love for the Cowgirl Black with this one.

This is Cosmo in Cowgirl Black, look at the soft furryness, and that awesome Cowgirl Black.  Can't wait 'til I get my Overnighter.

That's it for the bags, also got me a few key books.

From top clockwork, Knitted Jackets by Cheryl Oberle, signed by Cheryl herself.  She is so nice, enjoyed chatting with her about bees.  One pattern in particular in this book is Cusco, need to find me the perfect yarn for this one.  Next is Coastal Knits, so many patterns in this one, a fave of mines is the Gnarled Oak cardi.  Next up are 2 Ysolda pattern books that I picked up at Ysolda's booth where she was graciously signing her books and had the cutest photo booth.  Here's the picture I took with Ysolda.  She had on her gorgeous red dress.

I had a great time this year, definitely more eventful than last years, and I'm not upset about walking away with no yarn, I have more than enough yarn to keep me knitting for a long time, but actually my taste in yarn has been rapidly changing, and I've been focusing more on some important personal patterns that I've been editing, so I'm not too too worried about not picking up some yarn there.

I'll leave you with a long awaited FO, this was originally the Stop, Drop, & Weave scarf (weave for weaving in some novelty fiber), but I choose to not weave the fiber, it wasn't really to my liking.  This scarf had been done for years, just needed ends woven and blocking.  Finally got around to it. 

This week has been crazy busy at work and at home.  Enjoy!

~Rocky