Pattern: Monkeys by Cookie A.
Source: Knitty
Yarn: Socks that Rock in Muddy Autumn Rainbow
Blend: 100% Superwash Merino
Needles: US 2
Started: 09/25/2009
Finished: 10/01/2009

And another “M” project with Cash Vero, 55% Merino Extra Fine Wool, 33% Microfiber Acrylic, 12% Cashmere

Here’s “Mystere” from Twist Collective’s Winter 2009 issue

I started it last Monday, 11/30 and am already done with the back. I’m so excited with this project, I can’t wait to show it off!

“M’s” are very nice!

Since a good amount of time has passed since my last post, I do have so much to share, but will do so in different posts so as not to have one UBER long post.

First, look at this yummy yarn

This is Mirasol Nuna yarn, that I picked up for a special project at my LYS, Green Planet Yarn. This yarn is so soft and scrumptous, I just love it!

It’s 40% Merino Wool, 40% Silk, and 20% Bamboo, want to know what this lovely yarn grew up to be???

This is the Reykjavik hat from Through The Loops designer Kirsten Kapur, she is one of my fave designers in the Knitty world and I absolutely love this pattern. It’s quick to knit and will definitely get you into the mood for this season!

Pattern: Reykjavik Hat by Kirsten Kapur
Source: Through the Loops
Yarn: Mirasol Nuna
Blend: 40% Merino Wool, 40% Silk, 20% Bamboo
Needles: US 5
Started: 11/22/2009
Finished: 11/25/2009
Measurements:18’ at the brim, and from edge of hat to tip of hat it’s about 22’. With the Pom-Pom it’s almost 23’ long.
Mods:None
Notes: This is unblocked, I might block lightly to loosen it a bit, but otherwise unblocked it fits snug.
Raverly Project Link

Before I leave you, here’s a sneak peak at what’s to come in future posts:
Status on Bulky Shrug, My Monkey’s, Socktoberfest Mystery KAL 2009, Fall Vest 2009, http://www.ravelry.com/projects/RockyMoreno/karma-tank, Elm Row, Stop Drop & Weave Scarf, New Moon Knitted Bracelet and new projects like Mystere, Alice Mittens, Kirigami, and more…. ooh, and stash enhancements!

First, I’ll start with a project I started Saturday (yesterday), it is the “Bulky Shrug” from Knitting Pure and Simple. I’ve had this pattern for awhile, I was just waiting for the right “super bulky” yarn to come along. Working at my LYS, I ran into just the perfect yarn, “Spud and Chloe“. I never knew of this yarn until I was arranging the yarn on the shelves and realized how lovely it was. I love the easy labeling Spud & Chloe has, they clearly label their yarns “super bulky” with “outer” and “sweater”, easy peasy! I picked up 4 skeins in Gray enough for my Bulky Shrug. Look at this sqooshy-lovely yarn:

It’s “Outer” Super Bulky, Superwash 65% wool, 35% Organic Cotton, did I mention my LYS is “Green Planet Yarn”? The owner is truly great, and the store is stocked with great organic yarns.

For the few hours I spent working this new Bulky Shrug, this is what I ended up with, it’s turning out great!

I’ll be sporting this baby at work next weekend!

Onto my other endeavors, spoilee endeavors, I purchased 2 skeins of Canopy yarn (sorry no pics), in Acai colorway, a lush red made of 50% baby alpaca, 30% merino, 20% bamboo. I choose to make the “Bella’s Fingerless Gloves” pattern for my spoilee, Svendel, to wear when she goes to see New Moon later this month! I love this, easy knit and fast too!

Another item I made, which is a new love of mine’s, is knitting jewelry. In my 1st Love Bites swap at the beginning of this year, I was given a beautiful knitted bracelet and I fell in love with it. I scoured ravelry for a pattern but nothing. So I improvised my own pattern and voila!

I love these bracelet’s, I have so many ideas for other designs, but this one was easy and fast. Inexpensive and versatile to make, the choices are limitless. This is the bracelet I sent to my spoilee but I have another I made, however I felt that the beads were too large, so I made this one, and I was very happy with the turn out. I’ll post a list of supplies needed to make these as well as the pattern to make later this week.

For now that’s all I’m parting with, there is more but that will come in more posts to come. It’s November, and yes, gift knitting shall start, as well as all other holiday fun! Happy Sunday!

Look at all those goodies, and do you see that Frankenstein stitch marker made by Wee Ones? Totally cute. The yarn colors are cool and perfect for Franken Socks. It’s 1 skein of Mis Babs Superwash Merino 100% wool, hand-painted yarn in colorway “Yummy” with accompanying color for the heel, 133 yds.

Here’s a few more pics of the goodies:

Another package, though it was a surprise, was my “Love Bites 2″ Swap package received from my secret swapper, Mollie Bug on Ravelry.

Mollie Bug on Ravelry by RockyMoreno, on Flickr”>

She included the cutest “Edward” Amigurumi pattern! I gotta make this guy, then I’ll have Edward all to myself *-) She also included local yarn from her area, Virginia, from Indy-dyer David Simpson. It is just gorgeous! 490 yards of 100% Kona Superwash Merino in Fingering weight, colorway “Burress”.

And look at this Bella hat, so pretty! And I love the black tweed color, fits perfect and definitely a knit to wear. I faved this on Ravelry not long ago, and she found my fave to make. I’m still gona make one, but I just love hers.

And, the cutest Twilight stitch markers! Check these out!

Phew, so much good stuff!!! A big thank you to Mollie Bug!

Ok a new venture I’m taking on lately, knitting jewelry. I’m trying recreate a gorgeous bracelet I received from Gherkin on Ravelry. So far, so good, check out my progress:

It doesn’t look like much yet, but when I’m done I’ll form the beads to look sit nice and then add the clasp to close it. See the original, to the right?

I have so much more to share in the coming days, I’m now in high-gear for swaps, KALs, Fall knitting and yes, GIFT knitting

Hope everything is going spooky well!

~Rocky

So here we go!

First off, is “My Tux” from Custom Knits, knit using Sundara Sock Yarn, Spiced. I love this color, it is so beautiful!

Here it is, almost done, needs finishing…

But wait, I have a big boo-boo I made, when I prepping for the pattern, knitting my swatch, and also measuring what size, I must of been tired cause I had cast on for a size too small 8( So, it fits, but doesn’t go around my boobies. My boobies have always been an issue for clothes, everything else is small, but the boobs aren’t. A good thing on one hand, but an annoyance when shopping for clothes or in this case knitting clothes. So I’m at a dilemma, do I frog? Seriously?!? I’m pratically done! I don’t know, I think I might take the frog plunge, but I’m hesitant. Will see, I wish I could wear it now 8( But it is lovely!

Ok onto my 2nd, this is my Elm Row knit with Scout’s Peach Pit, I love this color! I just fell in love with it at last year’s Scout’s Dye class.

I’ll take a photo shoot this weekend to honor it properly! I also have some new changes coming to my blog, I’m going to revamp the site soon, so stay tuned, and I have some new patterns I’ve written that I’d love to share!

Catch you all on hump day

~Rocky

1st, what’s wrong with this picture?

I had finished the Swallowtail months ago, but had yet to block it, but thanks to Cheryl, I now was able to block it. Being that it had been a long time, I forgot how my Swallowtail was supposed to look, and blocked the right/left edges wrong. But I referred to the pattern and voila!

I’ll start with the Bad so you can leave the post with the Good

I’ve been offline for awhile because my first issue was that my camera stopped working. I kept messing with it trying to bring it back to life, but no luck. I still have some kind of hope that it will start working *fingers crossed*. I delayed posting because it’s sad to post a crappy picture when you put your heart into your knitting.

My second issue, which actually turned out to be a bigger issue than my camera ,my damn wireless router died on me. It is over 4 years old, about the lifespan of your average router. I had to order a new one, and I had requested overnight shipping over the phone about 6 p.m. about a week ago. I opted to pay the extra fee for shipping. Well, Friday came along and guess what, no router still. I contacted the company and come to find that because I ordered after 6 p.m., overnight shipping isn’t allowed and I get the standard shipping. I didn’t get charged the extra fee, but it meant I would be without internet that much longer.

After I realized I would be without internet longer that I anticipated, I actually tried to use the backup dialup # I have! UGH! So I get the backup dial up phone numbers and connect my modem and setup my connection, I had the nostalgic sense of my early years in IT *sigh*. I was prompted for my username and password, and I input my info, and BAM! Rejected!.. Seems I forgot my passsword for my main account, so no luck. After messing around with different passwords, I just called it quits, and figured I’d have to stick it out. Today I finally received my router, YAY!, and now I’m back, online and happy to be posting.

Onto my 3rd bad issue, so yesterday my husband and I got up early and went to get some coffee, and them came back to make breakfast. I made my usual, over easy eggs for my hubby, scrambled eggs for me and the kids, turkey bacon, and homemade potatoes with fresh tortillas and juice. We about ready to go eat breakfast when I went to check on something in my bedroom, I walked by my bathroom, and glanced at the floor, to my horror, there was water and cruddy overflow of gunk everywhere! It was coming out of the shower drain, and the toilet was empty! I went to the 2 other bathrooms, and sure enough the same damn thing. Well, after the initial shock, we called an emergency plumber who gave us a 45 minute window to be on-site, so we ate breakfast and waited.

Plumber got here and he asked us where’s our main line, and we looked everywhere, nothing. We got the landlord on the line, he doesn’t know, so he calls the former tenant, who coincidentally lives down the street. She was kind enough to walk over and show us where the main line was. I can’t thank her enough, because we would’ve never found it. It was literally hidden by overgrown grass on the front lawn, smack in the middle! The Plumber was like “That really should be in plain view, if we didn’t find it, the work would be way more complicated”. Phew! About 30 minutes later, everything was fixed. We finally got to use the bathroom! I had to run to Safeway to use the bathroom during all this, which was a pain. My work wasn’t over though, I had to sterilize and clean all 3 bathrooms now. I spent the next 2 hours with bleach, comet, scrubbers, and plastic gloves cleaning the showers and toilets, mopping, you name it. So that’s my 3rd!

Enough bad, now onto the good…

I have been getting some knitting done, and I’ve got these 3 wonderful FO’s here:

From left to right, clockwise

1) Swallowtail Shawl in Madeline Tosh Merino “Arabian Nights”

2) Elm Row Scarf in Scout’s Swag “Peach Pit”

3) Karma Tank in Sundara Yarn ” Brown Sugar Over Buttermilk”

All three are complete, and need blocking, but a blocking kit is one highly needed tool this knitter doesn’t have 8-( I’ll be investing on one in the next few weeks, until then, these 3 precious garments bring me happy FO eye candy and I can’t wait to show off the how they’ll transform. I’ve already tried on the Karma tank so many times, and it fits perfect. I can’t wait!

For the pictures I’m using my backup video camera, which doesn’t take the best picture but will just have to do until I can get a new camera.

Even though I have these 3 FO’s waiting in the wings, I went and started a new project, with more Sundara Yarn. I’m happy to be back online and hope I’m past the “3’s”, at least the bad ones!

Happy August everyone!

I made this as an emergency knit for my family friend’s daughter’s 1 yr. bday. Size I knitted was the 18month, and the body of the dress was knit with Sundara Aran Silky in Cotton Candy. This yarn is totally luscious to knit with, literally. The darker, contrasting yarn is from a Woolgirl Seven Deadly Sins kit I received for “Lux yarn” colors 3 & 4. The Lux yarn is fingering, so I double stranded the yarn to match the gauge of the Aran Silky. Worked out perfectly. I have a good amount of notes from the pattern, which is in “Easy Baby Knits” book. The pattern is done in 2 pieces, front and back. It is a simple pattern, a wee bit worded funky but after a few re-reads, I got the jist. I have one big pickle with the pattern, both pieces start off with “x” number of stitches, and slowly decrease up the dress body. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, right? All decreases are done at the end of the row, last 2 stitches, what happens is when seaming, it’s very difficult to neatly seam up straight when you have one side that is straight, no decreases, seaming with a side that isn’t straight and has decreases. The seaming was the most frustrating part for me. One side is perfectly seamed, literally invisible, the other side isn’t so invisible. I seamed, unseamed, and seamed, and unseamed count it 3x! After the 3rd, I finally said last try, the stress was starting to wear on the material, luckily the last try came out the best. I actually had to sacrifice some of the edge of the body because I decided to seam the straight (non-decrease side) with a column about 2 columns in from the edgy of the uneven side.

After working on this, I think the pattern would’ve been better in the round, as one piece. The pattern is so simple, knitting in the round would fix the issues with the decreases. Oh well, in the end it turned out fine.

Oooh, and I need to share my Karma tank!!! But that definitely has to wait until the camera ordeal is figured out…..

Happy Tuesday Everyone!
~Rocky

–Stashbusting! Going thru my Sundara Yarn “Brown Sugar Over Buttermilk”
–Summer Knit! Gotta show off my knitting skills this summer

So far the pattern has been real easy, and am I’m able to knit this while completely engrossed in the NBA Finals with the Lakers vs. Magic. Go Lakers!!! Their up 2 on the series!

Pics in this post are from last week, which was in the real beginning stages.

See my “Edward Apple” stitch marker? I love that stitch marker, a gift from one my fave spoilers

Oh, and look what happened with my Sundara yarn cake for Karma…

Do you see how it’s “coning” out? That’s from my daughter’s cat, the little rascal Gracie, who found my Karma tank on my bed and decided to attack the yarn cake. My daughter caught her in time to stop further damage. I was a bit upset because I had to detangle alot of yarn and save it so that it wouldn’t have to be cut.

I’m starting on the 10th round repeat now of the German Herringbone Rib portion of the pattern; I’ve officially put the needles down for tonight, need my rest for another round of work for the next week. Too bad work is never a true FO! There’s always another round around the corner.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

~Rocky

The first thing I didn’t like when I initially started working the design was the yarn choice. It was originally Black Malabrigo, worsted weight, while I love Malabrigo, it just didn’t have the feel I was going for or the texture I wanted to really capture the pattern. Here’s the first one, the pattern was in the beginning stages, nothing original, nothing fancy, but it just didn’t work.

I frogged it and the project hibernated, until about a week ago. My husband had been asking me when I was going to knit his beanie, and I finally got back in the groove with the design. I was a bit discouraged from the first go around, but enough time had past that I could really get into it. I had this vision of cables, but cables that had a look like columns. Columns like that of Greek architecture:

The original pattern was just straight cables, your basic knits & purls. I switched up the stitch count and then let my husband pick a yarn from a few skeins I decided would be good for the pattern. He choose the Cascade Yarns Venezia Worsted yarn in Gray, which is Merino Silk, a blend of 70% Merino Wool and 30% Silk. It is very soft and warm, yet airy at the same time.

Here’s the final piece completed; I’ll be putting together the pattern and publishing it for free on Ravelry if anyone is interested in it. There are so many beanies out there that have cables, but this is a pattern I felt gave me the exact look I was going for.

I went for a “rope” looking brim, and it came out pretty neat. It’s one of the details I was quite happy with as the beanie took shape.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, and I’m going to knit another one, this time for my son, who fell in love with it, but prefers black.

I’ll post probably Tuesday with the new pattern and have another new project on the needles that I’m loving!

It’s the “Karma” tank from the Custom Knits book (fabolous book!)….

Oooh, and one last awesome tidbit, Twilight swept the MTV Awards! And the New Moon trailer is great, and a huge tease! I’ve added the trailer to my site, in the “Interesting” section!