Crazy holidays

Well, I've been on vacation and it's been nice. I got most of my Xmas knitting done. My mothers gift is still in the works but almost done. I modified the "just enough ruffles" pattern by doing 12 short rows instead of 14. I'm thinking it might still be too wide for what I want so next time I might use a size 7 needle instead of 9. I'm also working on my first set of socks using a pattern and video tutorial by Stacy of verypinkknits. Is coming well. Whole I've been here in Iowa I visited a LYS and picked up some really neat yarn. It's called Kiddo by Crystal Palace Yarns. It's a microfiber nylon blend and is sooooo soft. Only problem is that it's a nightmare to knit with lol. I also picked up this awesome scarf kit. Funny...I still don't have a scarf for myself! For Xmas I managed to snag some awesome sock yarn by knitpicks from their Handpainted line and a gift certificate for knitpicks. They're my favorite online yarn store! The sock yarn is Imagination in wicked witch color way. Its gorgeous! All in all I'm having a great time!

Projects

Phew! I got a minute to breath. Not really. I'm still knitting furiously to get all my Xmas projects done. I've been doing nothing in what little spare time I have but knitting. So, so far I was able to complete two scarves I made for my mother to gift to her in-laws. One is made using chunky mochi in intense rainbow and following the free ravelry pattern "chunky ribs and ruffles". I cast on extra stitches to widen it an extra pattern repeat. I like it better this way I think. It's basically an eve's rib or mistake rib pattern with ruffles. It's one of my favorite patterns because it's do quick and easy. It makes a great gift. I used 4 balls of yarn and size 13 needles. I wet blocked it after to stretch it out and make it longer as it was pretty short. I was able to stretch it pretty far and now it's long enough to get a couple wraps in. The second scarf was knit using Llama luxury, a 100% baby llama yarn. The reason for this yarn is cute. My moms mother-in-law has a llama farm! They love llamas. You'd actually be surprised how much llama decor is actually available out there. I used 300 yards/3 skeins and did a simple knit 1 purl 1 slipping the first stitch of each row. I used size 8 needles across 36 sts which is a bit loose for sport weight but it worked out pretty good. I'm happy with both of them. On to the next project!

I win!

I recently won a blog giveaway from knittingknoobie. She sent me an amazing sock package! I'm so excited and I love it! She threw in some awesome extras. Handpainted sock yarns, super soft lace and other beautiful yarns. I can't wait to knit them up :) thanks!

60 quick baby knits

I forgot to mention that I received my copy of 60 quick baby knits that I ordered from Amazon the other day. It cost around $11 and I got free shipping because I'm an amazon prime subscriber. I got it after hearing how the KnitMore Girls loved it so much. They were right. There isn't one pattern in this book I disliked. I am really happy with it and even though I don't know the first thing about knitting sweaters, I think I can handle this book and I can't wait to try. If you need to knit for babies, this book is it! Too bad they didn't have a digital copy. I would have liked it on my kindle

I'm Thankful for knitting to keep my sanity

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving! I went to Long island, where I'm from, to be with family. Besides the ridiculous rough start we had and being stuck in traffic for 5 hours, it went well. Now the hubby is driving us back so we can go shopping in Delaware, the land of no tax. First state to ratify the constitution and all. I'm completely appalled by black Friday this year. I can't believe that the money hungry corporations are being so greedy, that they are taking away te spirit of thanksgiving by starting black Friday a day early. Hello! Black FRIDAY! Not thursday night. This is so irritating to me because it's coaxing people to eat and run, almost literally. I'm not religious at all, but I do appreciate that thanksgiving is a time to at least enjoy the company of family and friends. I've never been a big black Friday shopper because I don't like to rush and running store to store in a frenzy to save a dollar doesn't appeal to me. Plus I'm not ready to think about gifts yet. So I'm thankful for the Internet and knitting. Shop, knit shop. It's much easier to me. I feel like thanksgiving was lost because the younger half of my family was like..."cya! I'm off to toys r us for some video games!" thank you America. What else can you ruin?

Kindle fire!

I had my kindle fire preordered since sept 22. That's a long time to wait! Thankfully amazon took mercy on me and shipped it a day early. So I got mine on nov 16th. It's really something! I've been a kindle fan since the very first kindle where everyone who I tried to tell how amazing the kindle was scoffed at me for not reading a "real" book. Well 3 kindles and an iPad later...who's laughing now?! Anyway the kindle fire is a great device, especially for the price. That's what I have to keep reminding myself of. Being that I have had an iPad, which I sold because I felt it was an overpriced big iPhone, I'm a little judgmental in the fact that I keep comparing it to the iPad, which is wrong. The kindle fire is not a tablet really. It's a reading device able to deliver colored content such as the ability to read magazines, has web access which you an use to read blogs etc, and has access to some apps from the android store. The apps that are kindle ready are mainly small ones meant to give the device some access to popular games such as angry birds, and some utilities such as note pads, flashlight apps, and other apps that really aren't what you am call "heavy". I didn't miss my iPad until I had the kindle fire. The only reason for this was the apps I am missing and the ability for the iPad to sync info with my phone. But for 650$ good riddance to the brick. Especially without the ability for flash player. I do miss how developers default to the iTunes app store so the amount of well thought out useful apps at my disposal and access to podcasts was plentiful. For example, vogue knitting magazine has it's magazine available through an app on the iPad but not on the fire. I'm hoping this is temporary. There are also a multitude of knitting apps on the iPhone/ iPad and this is where I have to remind myself that the fire is not a tablet/iPad. And it didn't cost me my left arm. It was highly affordable and gives me a closer connection to amazon, who I love. and now I can read colored magazines. I just hope more become available. Zinio, the magazine app does have access to interweaves magazines so that is getting me by so far. I love my kindle fire and I hope people realize that it is a great platform to add their content to. As far as tech specs go, it's a little heavy. I wish it was the size of the iPad so the magazine pages would be bigger and my clumsy fingers would be able to type on, but it's smaller size makes it easier to carry around and easier to hold in one hand. You can't read it in the sun which I already knew so I won't be getting rid of my kindle 3. The battery lasts a pretty darn long time. 7 hrs with the wifi on so I do have to charge it every night if I use it all day but that's fine. Right now the battery is doing much better than my stupid iPhone 4S so there you go. It's the first kindle fire so it's quite good for that. I'm sure the next ones will be amazing because amazon listens to its customers and grants their wishes so I expect the kindle fire 2 to be incredible. And since this one only cost me $200, I won't cry when I want to buy the new one. This one will make a nice hand-me-down or a quick cheap sale on Craigslist. For now, *come on baby light my fire* couldn't help myself

Went to the yarn store...again

I'm pretty sure I'm a yarn addict but I'm not willing to admit it yet. I was reading the yarn harlot's book "knitting rules" and she made me feel better about my problem by telling me I don't have a problem! Yay! More yarn! So I picked up some addi turbo crochet hooks I've been waiting on to arrive. I don't crochet much but when I do, I like these needles the best. I got a Pom Pom maker because my first attempt on the Pom on Brenna's hat was a disaster but I didnt have enough yarn to fix it. I also bought a ball of pink cascade 220 because I picked up verypinkknits pattern to knit worsted weight socks on dpn's with her video tutorial and I am going to knit socks! I mean it! For 8$ for the pattern I better. Then I also picked up some cascade 220 in heathered grey to knit some "man" scarves. I also picked up a beautiful skein of cascade soft spun in a heathered teal. Just because I liked it. I found some baby alpaca Handpainted balls that were blur and purple I had to have as well. See, I don't have a problem...

Craft show

Somewhere between all my ravelry swaps (its an addiction) I had to find time to prepare for the craft show we're having on Saturday. It's fairly big with about 3000 people that come through. I had lots of plans to carry a bunch of different items-then I ran out of time. In the end here's what I have. A few soap saver scrubbies, a couple of hand painted skeins of yarn, some stitch markers, and a couple knitting abacus bracelets. Oh and soap. Lots of soap. Over 300 bars of soap that I have been slaving heavily over the past couple of weeks to make and package. I never want to make soap again! But I will. I haven't done a craft show yet so my initial order of soap supplies left me with only about 50 bars. Then I ordered more supplies which took me down to the wire to complete them. I just finished last night. I'm going to try to crochet more scrubbies but I won't have anywhere near what I had hoped to have. I also have about 300$ of yarn that was supposed to be made into pretties to sell. Now it will sit until after I finish my Christmas knitting which, need I say, I'm running out of time for that to? So what do I want for Christmas? Time...or a babysitter so I can knit in my happy place lol hopefully I will sell every bar of soap and it will all be worth it. One can dream, right?

New App

So I did get the new iPhone 4s. I couldn't resist. I buy them all. That's besides the point though. Amidst upgrading to ios5 I realized a horrible thing happened. My vogue knitting app that I live and die by, crashed repeatedly and refuses to work. I use that app for everything! It has a full inventory of all my needles as well as project notes on everything I knit. This caused me to search for a new solution. Luckily, necessity led me to find this amazing new app called jknit. This app goes above and beyond what vogue did and does it better. It has a learning curve so don't expect to jump right into the app and start using it. First you must go to the website jknit-portal.net and make a free account. Then watch the tutorial videos and join the ravelry group. The support in the rav group is amazing. Anyway, you input your pattern piece by piece, row by row, and when you use the row counters to progress, the app tells you what you should be doing that row. This way if you have to rip back, you know what you should be doing, everything is planned ahead of time making up for what would be a headache later. I will gladly spend the time setting up the pattern for the ease of what I'm gaining in return. You could use the app on your iPhone to put in the pattern but I think it's quicker to do it on the computer and then import it to your phone. No more carrying around paper. The pattern is with you, letting you know where you left off. I'm so glad I found it

Look what I found!

I haven't been able to post much with my beautiful rambunctious baby needing all of my time but I wanted a way to read blogs on my phone. Finally I thought to look up an app and here it is! So I'm posting from my blogger app. Hopefully it works well. I'm really excited I found if. I haven't had much time to knit but I have been doing tons of swaps that center more around buying yarn and making small items. I'm doing 11 swaps in October alone! I should be working on my stuff for the craft fair November 5th. I'm going to be seriously behind. I did just finish knitting a rainbow scarf for a friend using chunky mochi in intense rainbow and a free pattern off ravelry. It came out great. She loved it and it was a quick knit.

Handpainting Yarn

Well, I've been trying my hand at handpainting yarn. I'm learning and getting better every time. Since I love multicolored yarns, this is a ton of fun. After scouring the internet for tutorial, I finally found a good one on MJayknits blog. These are all up for sale on my etsy https://www.thevintagerose1.etsy.com

where has all my time gone?

So i haven't gotten nearly enough done being my child never sleeps! But here it is regardless. The first is an altered frame I made for a swap on alilscrapofheaven. I used iamroses flowers and my beloved Close to My Heart stamps.

 This bracelet is actually an abacus to count rows when you're knitting or crocheting.

 These stitch markers I made for my etsy shop. They are twilight inspired! You throw them on your knitting needles to help you count any number of stitches.

This is something I said I'd never do...crochet! I wanted to learn to make amigurumi dolls and i decided to try to crochet a soap saver. Turns out its so much quicker than knitting them and I actually like the way this looks better. Who knew?

Knits for Etsy

Since I've been out of crafting commission, I've had a little time to work on my knitting. I designed and have been knitting up soap scrubbies for the soap bars I make and sell on Etsy. The scrubbies are fun to knit because they're so easy and only take a couple of hours. I made some for some friends of mine and now I'm in the process of knitting a bunch up in different colors to sell on etsy and at the craft show we have here in Delaware in November. Right now since Brenna is colicky, it's hard for me to lock myself away upstairs in my craft room. She'll only sleep in her swing with the music on and that is downstairs so I find it more comfortable for me to just sit on the couch and get in a little knitting for the short time she naps. She only sleeps about an hour at a time or an hour and a half if I'm lucky so I can't work on anything too involved. Knitting on the couch for right now works for me :)

New Baby Brenna

 I've been gone for a while and that's because I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of my baby and she's finally here! Brenna was born on her due date, May 21st at 7:37 am. She's absolutely adorable. She's also very awake and fussy so I don't know when I'm going to be able to resume crafting. Soon I hope!

4x4 Mini Album Page Swap "Destinations" ASO

Lace And Pearls 4x4 Mini Page swap

Lace and Pearls Mini Page Swap

3x3 Scrapbook Mini Album CTMH

3x3 Mini Album

Blog Move

Well, changed my blog and youtube because I wasn't completely satisfied with the name I had chosen. So here it is! And here is a repost of some of my work.