YAY my first normal sized garment!

Im soooo excited! I just finished my very first adult sized garment!!! Now I feel as though I can accomplish just about anything!!! So here it is! Hope you all enjoy! And now my husband can never say that I don't make things for him!! HAHA.

Next on the project list: Gryffindor sweater and head scarf for me, and then a Hufflepuff jumper dress and beret for my lil sis! I really want to show off my talent in our Christmas pictures! Soo excited to be trying new patterns and actually making things that I can wear! Hoping that winter gets here soon so that we can start wearing these warm wool garments!

YAY for Harry Potter and YAY for making something really neat!

Almost Done!

So I am almost done with my husband's Ravenclaw sweater vest!!! I am almost done working on the ribbing for the second armhole and just have the neck band left! I will post pictures of the entire Ravenclaw get up when I am finished (hopefully tonight!)

Busy bee!

This past week or two has been insane! With in-laws in town, little sister starting middle school, and work, I have managed to get hardly any knitting done! Or anything done for that matter!

Mom2 is on her way back to Tally tomorrow, sister starts school tomorrow, and back to a normal schedule next week! Whew! Its been a long and crazy summer!

I must admit that Im looking forward to my normal schedule again. The baby is actually starting to play on the floor now with his toys and is doing less running around! Hopefully this means that there will be less chasing around! His birthday is coming up and Im so excited that he is going to be 2! Each day he is learning more and more and is continually surprising all of us with the things he is saying and doing! He has started saying "I want ____" which is quite funny. And apparently I have him well trained, too! The other day I went to Michael's to pick up some paint brushes for my husband. And the baby cried out "I want soft!" (Soft is his word for yarn). HAHAHAH Nice!!! Starting him at a young age! Hey, maybe by 3 he will be knitting?!?!?! Then I can finally start that business....

Anyways, well, lots I have been working on. Trying to get at least one vest done before the month is over. Almost done with the Ravenclaw scarf. Have to knit a few more rows, bind off, and then weave in ends. Already finished one ball of wool for the the first sweater vest so hopefully the rest will go quickly. My sister just expressed to me last night that she would like a Harry Potter set as well for Halloween (haha yea right! Like I have time for that....lol). We will see. I am an over achiever....

Little girls little girls!

(Watched Annie with lil sis the other day! thought of this song with all this pink around!)

Just finished up some great items for baby girls! I made the pushing daisies hat for my photographer friend. Can't wait to see newborn shots with this one!!! It turned out really cute and only took one night to make! YAY!

The dress is for my mom's friend that is expecting a grand daughter. Originally I was going to give the sweater to her, but then started thinking that the dress would be much better here with this hot weather! I am going to give the sweater to my mom's niece, who is expecting her fourth and first baby girl!!! Im also making a baby blanket to match, but since she isn't due until November, I have some time to finish it after I get back onto Harry Potter.

Anyways, it has been great fun doing all these short projects, but now I really need to get back to Harry Potter because then it is time to work on Christmas gifts! Yikes! Where did this year go?????

Well, shark week is on.....you know what Im going to be doing!

Getting crafty!

Quite a bit to update tonight:

Went to Hobby Lobby again on Thursday with my little sister. Thanks to my grandma, I had a 40% off coupon which came in handy! Walked out with some yarn, a head, and some letters. HAHA. My sister loved the store and can't wait to go back for more stuff! Is that good or bad?

anyways, mom wanted me to make some art for my sister's bedroom wall. They just got done repainting everything pink and green with stars. So thats what we came up with. The letters go on her green wall and the they have little stars glued on them. I should have taken a picture of her wall today. It turned out super cute!! Only.....the letters won't stick because the walls were painted with a high gloss so yea...

Finished the acorn hat for my friend the photographer! It turned out really cute but was such a pain to make! yikes! Had to rip it out a few times to get it right. The circumference is a little large, but im hoping it will work for a newborn.

Working on a dress for another baby shower! Im really quite the overachiever here! Most to post with that when I get around to taking a picture.

Off to bed. Flowers to knit in the morning and then helping mom clean more of the house.

My hands hurt!

Today started out miserable and ended well, miserable! It was good in the middle though! Actually was able to sleep in this morning, which is amazing! Attempted to change my name at the DMV only to find out that the social security office got their information wrong. So didn't get my name changed after all but did enjoy a nice lunch and shopping trip with the baby's grandpa. (The baby and his family are out of town this week, giving me the week off, yay!).

Anyways, got home around 3:30 and decided that I should start working on the acorn baby hat that my friend wants me to make her for an upcoming photo shoot with a new born baby. I want to get the hat done so that I can mail it to her and then return to Harry Potter.

The pattern is written for in the round, but I found it very frustrating working on double pointed needles to start, so I decided to just do it on circulars. Well that didnt work. Round 2: attempted to try it on double pointed needles again. Fail. Round 3: tried to work it on straight needles. Fail. Round 4: finally figured out how to transfer the pattern from in the round to straight needles. Success! At 9pm that is....

So now my hands hurt and Ive lost interest in the hat, even though its really cute, im dreading the decreases that I have to transfer out of the pattern...ugh... Hopefully it turns out cute and Ali gets some great pics with it....maybe then it will be worth all the trouble and pain.....

Hoping this hat goes by fast....time for bed.

Grand Opening of Hobby Lobby!!!

I finished my first sweater and as a reward I treated myself with a trip to Hobby Lobby!!!

Saturday I went over to Knit and got some guidance picking up stitches. Something about sitting at that table gives you sooo much confidence! The ladies were so happy for me and they said the sweater looked adorable. Can't wait for mom and my little sister to see it!

Sunday, we went over to Grandma's. I didn't have any buttons at home that would work with the sweater, but Grandma came to the rescue! After a little digging through her collection, I managed to find 5 white buttons that were all the same! I sewed them on right there in her living room! hehe.

Today was my first real day off this summer. So I took a day for me! YAY! The grand opening of Hobby Lobby just happened to be today (coincidence? I think not!). Could have easily dropped a few hundred in that store! They just have sooo many yarn colors and weights! I really had to work hard to keep the number of purchases down! I did good though and only spent 32$! However, I think I might go back with my little sister later this week and let her pick through some stuff! She always has a good eye for cute stuff!

Well, back to working on a baby blanket to match the sweater! Less than 2 weeks to finish it! And then I desperately need to get back to Harry Potter before I get distracted again!

My very first sweater!!!

On Monday night, I went out to eat with my parents and little sister. My mom told me that a dear friend of ours is expecting her first grandchild. My mom is invited to the baby shower, which is in 2 weeks. So of course, my mom asked me to make something. Unfortunately, that's not much time!!! Yikes!!! And with Harry Potter on the mind, I didn't really want to take on any new projects until all of that is finished!

Being the good daughter that I am, and the fact that I love babies, I decided I would start small, maybe with a hat or booties, and then work up to a blanket. That way, if I ran out of time at least mom could give her something. As an overachiever, that just wasn't good enough for me I guess. I originally found a really easy pattern for a garter stitch cardigan. No buttons, no shaping, easy easy. I started working on it and just found it to be boring. So I decided to go with a much more complicated pattern. Its a beautiful button up cardigan, worked from the top down, with feather and fan trimming on the sleeves and fronts. I just start knitting it yesterday and already I have one sleeve completed. Im hoping to finish the other sleeve tonight and then the rest of the body this weekend. I am going to need to seek help however with the button bands and collars. I haven't quite mastered picking up stitches so hopefully Marnie can help me with that next week.

Im so proud of myself for finally making a sweater! Its soooo much easier than I thought! I cannot wait until I get to make a baby sweater for my own child some day! Definitely saving this pattern for future use!

So for now, Harry Potter is on the waiting list (along with 4 other projects that I have started recently). As soon as I finish the sweater, Im going to work on making a feather and fan blanket to match. The pattern repeats are really easy and I think if I use bigger needles it will go by pretty fast. Anyhow, back to knitting!!!

We are such dorks!

Today was another lazy Saturday. My husband and I have been needing a lot more of those here lately it seems! Anyways, after dinner tonight with my dad and his gf, my husband and I headed over to the mall to just walk around. His birthday is next weekend and we had been talking about getting him a new game to play on one of our systems.

Not only did we get a new game, but he also got me a new Vera Bradley bag! hehe

Anyways, so now, here we are, enjoying our lazy Saturday: my husband is playing the new Harry Potter Lego game, while I'm making our Hogwarts wear! HAHA, we are such dorks!!!

Finished his Ravenclaw house colors hat. Working on his scarf, which is giving me issues, weaving in all those ends! Alright, back to more knitting and game playing!

Christmas in July!!!

I never thought I would be one of those women that started thinking about Christmas in July. Well, I guess I am! In fact, I started thinking about it in June! When we were visiting my photographer friend, I came up with this amazing idea!!! My friend will be back down visiting family in October. I had already asked her to make time in her plans to do our Christmas photos considering she won't be here in November and she did such an amazing job on our engagement pictures! So she agreed and then I started thinking about location and what to wear. While I was in DC I managed to find a knitting store near the Capitol (super cool btw!). In the shop, called STITCH DC, I found this great sock weight yarn that would look amazing as a ribbed sleeveless top. I purchased red, again thinking ahead about Christmas. Anyways, so while we are walking about the Natural History Museum with my friend and her family, I had another brilliant idea!!! My husband and I's love for Harry Potter apparently does not stop at books, movies and merchandise; it will now also include family photos!!! HAHA. Okay, so here is my idea: When they built Harry Potter World at Universal, they made Hogsmeade (the wizarding village just below Hogwarts Castle), with snow capped buildings. So Christmas pictures in October wouldn't be much a stretch since it always looks like winter there. But then I got to thinking even more.....how cool would it be if I made my husband and I knitted sweaters, hats, scarves and robes to go with???? So yes, dear family and friends, my husband and I will be saying very soon: Happy Holidays from Hogsmeade!!!

Of course this throws me into a state of panic. That's not much time and considering I haven't made a garment of any kind yet, Im a bit freaked out! But not to worry, Knit! is a great resource and so is the net. Just finding the time is the problem. All of the yarn has been purchased and to my great surprise, JoAnns had everything I needed! So back to working on house scarves and hats.

On another note, I finally finished the afghan I was making for my mother in law. I used the Tunisian crochet hook that I purchased at the Stitches convention in Atlanta back in April. Having never used this technique before, the afghan came out a bit smaller than I had hoped, but it still looks really neat! I can't wait to make another blanket this way, it was really quick and mindless, which makes it perfect for watching tv and trying to knit. I hope she likes it!