What a difference a day makes

It's been more than a few weeks since my last post, and it's always something I hate the most, passing time between posts.

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

And I'm off!

The De La Hoya vs. Pacquaio boxing get together party Saturday went great. We BBQ some marinated carne asada and chicken, I made a fresh macaroni salad. For orderbs we served Garlic & Cheese Toast with fresh Spinach Dip, BBQ Hot wings and Chips & Salsa. For desert, I whipped out my secret weapon.



I made some Cranberry-Pumpkin bread that I make every year around this time, it's delish!



It's a combination of fresh cranberries and pumpkin puree with seasonal spices. I know the recipe by hard and right smack in the middle of it, I realized I was missing my key ingredients, FUDGERS! Well, not wanting to waste more time, I decided to improvise and make my own combo of spices, and boy, what a great thing that was, my bread came out better than it's ever tasted. So good in fact, I'll stick with my new combo of spices and will no longer make the original recipe. My bread was a complete hit and before I could snap any fresh out of the oven baked pictures, it was almost all gone! Here are a few left over morsels...



I'll be making more later this week because I still have 1 bag of fresh cranberries left. I shared the original recipe click here if your interested 8-)

Our get together was fun and relaxing, but the event we all gathered to watch, De La Hoya vs. Pacquiao turned out to be horrible. I was hoping that De La Hoya would pull it off, but he did such a horrible job, in fact he didn't even fight? Pacquiao had such an easy job to do and win when all De La Hoya did was just stand there and get hit. I never saw De La Hoya do this before, it was so upsetting. He may just be done with boxing as a fighter, but as a presence and force in the sport, he'll be around forever.

Friday evening before the party, I finished off the last 3 Traveling Scarves I had, which I had one from each group.

Here is Purpleturtle's scarf from Group 25 SO, I added the top brown section using Lamb's Pride Wool, I strung 2 ends of the yarn together to get the right gauge for the section. I went with a Box Stitch.



A full shot of the scarf



Here is Mspalmtree's scarf from Group 37 Noro. My section at the top, using Noro Silk Garden in 245 & 279 knit with the Box Stitch.



A full view of the scarf



Finally here is Adore1's scarf from Group 42 Tweeds. I added a Mock Cable stitch using O'Wool 100% Organic Brown Tweed yarn.



And I'm off finally knitting my Christmas gifts, starting with my husband's beanie that I've been improvising the design on. It's nothing fancy and nothing cutting edge, a Cable beanie.



I'm slow at cables, it's annoying, and I can get slower if I let the cables annoy me. I need to get this done by Tuesday, if I can without wanting to kill the cable needle.

Last, I'll leave you with a snugly picture of my doggy sleeping by our Christmas tree, she looked to precious to not take a picture!

A Good Weekend...Part UNO 8)

I hope everyone enjoyed this past Labor Day weekend. It was a very nice one for me, and very productive I might say! I have so much to share and can't fit it in just 1 Lil'O post, so I'll be splitting this baby into 2, the 2nd to follow shortly...

My weekend started with a BANG! I got off at a little before 4 p.m. on Friday, all day all I could think of was... "Is it 4 yet? I wonder if I'll enjoy the game? I wonder if my kids will?"

What game you ask? Well, the last pre-season game for the San Francisco 49ers vs the San Diego Chargers. Woohoo! My husband and I bought 4 tickets a few weeks ago to take the kids and let them experience a real NFL game. We left San Jose about 5 p.m. and headed North towards San Francisco. We were all geared up, I had on my white 49ers tank top with lace trim, and I was wearing this lovely "Moss Ribbed Scarf" in Scout's custom dyed "49ers" colorway...




I'm thinking I might add another 10 inches to it, cause it fits more like a cowl than a scarf, but boy did it come in handy.

Now us (me'family and I) being San Jose natives, left the hot San Jose weather wearing our normal summer clothes to go to San Francisco. You would think that we would know what to wear to S.F., considering we go there all the time, but no sir'ee'bob. I was the only one who brought any kind of warm gear, my scarf a.k.a faux cowl *) and my beige sweater jacket, but nobody else brought anything warm to wear?

So we had nose bleed seats (which I love!) and up there at night in Candlestick, it can get windy & chilly, and it didn't fail to deliver this last Friday as we watched the game. My hubby & kids were all rattling their jaws, curling up, and trying to enjoy themselves. We ended up buying a S.F. blanket for a whopping $55.00 bucks! We've learned our lesson, and we'll gear up next time, but the blanket will come in handy this winter, so I guess it's a positive.

There was also this "49er Elvis", so cute! You gotta see this pic....



You see him striking the signature "Elvis" pose? Look at the back of his shirt.. I love it! "Viva Las Niners"!!!



I always thought "nose bleed" seats were the worst, but now that I know how the view looks, I'm going to pick these seats more often. Check out this view:



Another cool thing, which I swear was a wish granted to me, cause as I was attentively watching the game, still cold under my sweater, I wished silently "If only they had a stand vendor who could serve you hot chocolate right at your seat"... I totally swear I wished this, and then next thing you know... BAM....



I couldn't believe my eyes! I quickly bought a $4.00 cup of hot chocolate..I was just in ahh of it. If only I had wished for $$$, wonder if that would've come true??? Oh yah as soon as I got the hot choco, I took a big gulp and I burned my lips. Guess all that ooh & ahh just took the common sense right out of me 8) Friday's done PERIOD

Begin Saturday... I started off with cleaning, I'm a good knitter, I clean my house before I knit so as not to feel guilty. I can't stand to have guilty thoughts and I really hate the voices in my head sometimes, I'm just totally neurotic, I'm always thinking about something or everything. Thinking of dinner, what to knit next, knitting patterns to devise, colors to dye yarn with, meals to write down, job stuff (I really hate when job stuff creeps in), bills (ahh!), upcoming appt.'s, on and on I go in my head. Is everyone neurotic or is it just me? Are you? I have the hardest time going to sleep, I just can't get my mind blank.

After my cleaning I was just pooped. I decided to finally catch up with my Secret of the Stole III KAL, which I'm so behind because I kept debating over what beads to use, and decided to go and buy some to match my lovely lace yarn. After some lazying around, I just didn't feel like driving down to the bead store. I had some beads I bought from the Knitting Arts going out of business, and decided to go with those. There green, and the lace I have has shades of green in it. I was a little skeptical as I started my SofSIII Hint 1, but I'm really liking how it turned out. I think the beads turned out pretty darn good, in fact I think they give the yarn that special *something*. This is the completed SofSIII Hint 1 portion:



Yarn is Schaefer Yarn Company Andrea lace weight, it is so so soft and silky. I remember when I bought it from GPY, I was just in love with it the moment I saw it and felt the silkyness.

Besides my SofSIII I continued knitting on my Elm Row scarf, this is one of the newer patterns published by the marvelous Ann Hanson from Knitspot, this pattern is so pretty, but I have to say, you do need attention to detail for it. The stitches are your basic increases, decreases & such, but I'm finding I need to pay attention as I'm knitting because the pattern consists of a 10 row repeat, each row has a different combination of stitches. For me, I tend to make mistakes because I have this type of built in memorization I do. I played the Memory game alot when I was a kid, maybe that's where I get it from? You know the game Memory? It's where you have a bunch of cards, each has 1 pair of identical pictures, and you mix them all up, face down, and slowly try to match up the pairs by memorizing where you saw the previous picture cards position? I played this so much as a kid, and it has helped in my adult life, I memorize everything, from numbers, to phrases, etc. For knitting this is good because I can remember entire patterns I knit, and because I memorize stitch sequences, I'll start knitting ahead knowing the next sequence, but with the Elm Row the pattern changes so frequently that I find myself knitting a sequence that is not next in order, so I TINK TINK TINK away!
Anywho, I'm making good headway on my scarf, and I just can't wait to finish it and block it. My little yarn cake is diminishing rapidly. The yarn is the beautiful "Peach Pit" from Scout, one of her debut colorways back in late July 2008. I'm going to custom order more of this color, I love this colorway.





To end this post, I did also get another "TO DO" done, I knitted up a Square from the "Barn Raising Quilt" pattern in the "Knitalong: Celebrating the Tradition of Knitting Together" book. Stacey from "Sheep in the City" (great blog!) posted awhile back regarding volunteers to knit a square for Father. I love my Father, and from one kind thoughtful knitter to another, I was more than happy to volunteer my knitting time. I knitted up this square using the softest yarn, I don't have the label on me right now to give you the yarn specs, but I can tell you it is soft, velvety, rich and vibrant. I just love how this *star* pattern evolves as you knit the square. This went out in the mail to Stacey this morning 8)





Okie Dokie folks, I'll post Part DOS later, stay tuned 8)!

Knitting at Night with Lighted Knitting Needles

MOV01771Knitting at Night with Lighted Knitting Needles


Originally uploaded by RockyMoreno

Can anyone tell what I'm knitting? It was late Saturday, and I was restless, and eager to knit, but I didn't want to interrupt my husband's gorgeous sleep 8-)



So I broke out my handy lighted knitting needles! But I had to think of what to knit with them? Size 11 needles hmm...what project? I figured out what would be the perfect thing to knit, and off I went. I'm about 30% into the project, it's a nice one because it's the easiest pattern, one of my own, and it's already looking very pretty.



Can you tell what I'm knitting? Can you guess what I'm knitting? If you guess correctly, I'll give the person who figures it out a gift certificate from The Loopy Ewe.



Watch the short video to see these needles in action. I'll give a few hints too:



~~~ This project is to honor a group

~~~ This project was something I've blogged about

~~~ This project can be seen in other places



That's all the hints I'm giving, I even think I'm giving to many hints, but we'll see.



If nobody guesses, I'll reveal what it is soon.



~Rocky

My 1st Kitchen Knits Swap

Kitchen Knits Swap


Originally uploaded by RockyMoreno

Today I sent off my package to Isela, the lovely lady behind Purling Sprite.



I participated in the Kitchen Knits Swap, hosted by my good friend, Marisol. When I read on her blog that she was going to start a swap themed around Cooking & Knitting, I knew I was in!



I love to cook, especially real gourmet cooking & I love to knit, thus a pair made in heaven for me.



I packaged up some goodies & knit this pretty dish cloths from the book Knitters Stash. I really love this Feather & Fan pattern, and I love this linen. I used Louet Hand-spun Linen in Crabapple, and I threw in 1 skein of Pink Panther linen for Isela to make more dish cloths, in 2 different patterns. I'll have to know me some of these for myself soon.