Knit, Purl

So, my friends are having a baby. Naturally I thought, I HAVE to make a baby sweater. I figured it would be a satisfying project because it was tiny, so it would work up fast, and it has to be cute because it is tiny. I used this adorable owl yoke pattern by Abby Belnap. I was not disappointed. This sweater took me 2 weeks, working on it only after work for a little bit at night watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch episodes.

It was expecially fun to work with the cable needle and make the tiny owls. I have a few things in que, but more cables are definitely on the list because they are fun to do. The only thing I struggled with here was the picking up of stitches for the button bands and actually rationing out where the button holes would go. That was a little hard for me. BUT it still turned out adorable, and part of me thinks it is because of the fact that it is for a 3 - 6 month old. That is ok, I am working on the Agatha cardigan right now, and I am pretty confident that there are button holes in my near future so that I have more practice.

In sewing news, I have been wanting to pull out my sewing machine, but have been so lazy about it. It is really nice to kick up my feet and pull out the knitting needles, but not so comfy to drag out the sewing machine, thread it, and sew up what I have half started/cut out/etc. Right now I have a really cute dress with cowboys on it that needs finished, I only have the lining to go, and a cute dress in fall colors, that is cut out and cluttering up my bedroom. I am thinking about sewing today, we will see where the day takes me.

Finished

I am a knitting fool right now. I feel like I have a lot of unfinished sewing stuff, and it is all in various states, but when I come home from work, all I want to do is pick up those needles!

This is the $5 in Paris sweater. Here is my ravelry link. It was my first sweater, it knit up pretty quickly and it is cute. My only problem is that I washed and dried it and the neckline GREW. It is way big now and I had to safety pin the sholders to my bra to make sure my shoulders were not hanging out. I hate that! I am going to now start on the Agatha by Andi Suterland. I saw Lladybird's and I love it. So I am starting that today!!

In other finished news, I did finish my first Jasmine pattern by Colette, and I love it! It was SO easy to put together and the effect is adorable. I also made the Ginger too, to wear with it, and my fabric choice was less than what I wanted, so its fate is not as favorable. I am thinking of putting one together in denim and I think that will be better for me and way cuter. I think I have Colette Fever, because I also bought the Clover pattern to make, if I can ever get over my fear of making pants.

But life is good, my husband and I have been a flurry of making. And I have been trying to stick to  my workout routine(not always making it because I am sorry, leaving for work at 7am and not getting home until 8pm is not fun) I can't believe I have been married for almost 8 months already! Time flies by.

Sorry about the work bathroom pics, this is the only place I can take pics of myself lately. I need a camera I think... :)

2012 was fun

I did some stuff, I made a bunch of stuff, I married a guy, I got older, I went places, you know all the usual stuff. :)

Here are some pictures to catch you up on what I have been doing since October:

Car holder made for my nephew

Terrible picture of an elephant backpack made for my OTHER nephew!

I made my halloween costume! 

I made a cupcake scarf for my niece!

I made a ton of Christmas mittens!

I made a fun hat for this crazy little lady! 

We had a very pretty Christmas tree, with no skirt, next year I will have to change that!! 

And we ended 2012/kicked off 2013 with a quick trip to Florida to see an adorable couple start their lives together and hang out with this crazy kid and his awesome sister. 

This year, I am going to keep on knitting, keep on stitching, keep on loving, and living to the fullest with the love of my life and our sweetie pie puppy. I have a bunch of goals! Here is to the best year yet! 

completed and working

Hey guys! I have been working a lot! I do have more fabric in my stash than I know what to do with right now, but that is good because I have a craft show coming up in November in Sacramento. And I have nothing made for it. But I am doing really well making things selfishly. I guess I have also been working on a ton of presents. It seems like everyone's birthday in mine and my husband's families are between September and February. But, I have completed a few things for me. You will have to forgive my classy work bathroom shots, It is the only place I can take a full length picture of myself. I have tried at my apartment, but we get so much sun that it doesn't really work. It is weird.

But! I finished New Look 6145. It was pretty easy, there were a few weird directions, and I only consider myself to be a beginner/intermediate sewer so it could be that I just didn't understand why they wanted me to do something, so a couple times I just did my own thing. I like how it came out.

I am also working on the $5 in Paris sweater. Here is the Ravelry Link. I am making mine is all grey. And then if it works out, I want to make one in cream too. So far I think it is pretty cute, even after I have had to frog it a bunch. It is my first sweater, so you can imagine how frustrating it is. I have a whole list of things I want to knit after this. I just want to thank You Tube for being an awesome knitting teacher. Haha. 

My next thing I am going to attempt is that lovely Christine Haynes dress and her secretary blouse too. I am going to make the dress out of courderoy because to me I think it would benefit from the structure of courderoy. Maybe a soft brown and dark brown trimmed. I can't wait to see how it turns out! 

Work work work

I have been on a roll! I got some fabric this weekend at regular old JoAnns and on Sunday, Ryan and I declared it a work day and we got down to business. Right now I am working on New Look 6145

I am making it in all black, and I can't wait wear it! 

I have a couple of things in the pipeline, one being this gorgeous dress(the one on the left) from Christine Haynes:

I have a really pretty fabric to use, but right now I am debating using something else because the fabric is really busy. I can't decide. I was thinking of using a black trim with this:

The more I look at it, the more I like it, so it will probably be that pretty little number soon enough!

Sew what?

So. I think I got my sew-jo back! I am so pleased. It seems like every change of the season I am more inspired to make a ton of new things. The first thing I tried was a peter pan collar shirt that I found a tutorial for on Pinterest. I sewed up a quick knit shirt, from a pattern in Wendy Mullin's Sew U Homestretch book. I love my serger, I am still figuring it out, but it is great for a 15 minute knit shirt. Then I followed the collar tutorial and voila! A super cute, super quick satisfying top. :)

Now, I have a list of things that I want to sew on Pinterest, a full Ravelry knitting list, one sweater started and a pattern cut out.

It is go time!

And Now

We just got back from a beautiful reception/party that was thrown for us by my husband's lovely mother. It was so fun and she worked so hard. The only thing was that it was in Toledo, and the weather was just as cold as it is here normally in San Francisco. I was really looking forward to some HEAT! But, there was no heat. It was a fiesta theme, so I dressed like Frida and made Ryan dress like Diego Rivera. He changed later in the night to jeans but I held on! Even if I was freezing in that sweater and wishing that I had my winter coat. In Ohio in August.

But there WAS awesome friends, adorable kids, lots of family and lots of love. There is nothing I could have asked for more.

And I made my little dress! And embroidered it. And it took forever but was cute and fun. Now we are back and just an old married couple. Which is so much fun!

and then

We saw a black cat on a black sand beach. And then we drove all the way to Hilo to see the active volcano! It was pretty neat. It was freezing cold, but we stuck around to see it glow!

It was an amazing experience we will not soon forget. I already miss Hawaii!

The Next day...

Was Friday the 13th! Ryan and I went snorkeling. It was so much fun! We were in a boat that was chasing Hawaiian spinner dolphins and they would get to a place, throw us out of the boat and we would watch then swim by! It was pretty crazy and amazing. Ryan had that silly camera up there, but we forgot to charge it so we couldn't get any pictures or videos of the amazing time we had.

When we got back from snorkeling, we walked around the little city by our hotel. Since it was friday the thirteenth, some of the tattoo shops were doing tattoos for $13. So we got some!

Mine came out pretty cute, but hurt like hell.

Ryan didn't fare so well. The girl who tattooed him, didn't seem like she had ever tattooed before. It was pretty funny. So the tattoo looks like a stencil and a lot of the color fell out. But it is cute right here!

So What we did.

So, we drove our car to Vegas, stayed for four days and on the fifth day we drove home. I was so thankful to have so much time off of work. I essentially had 2 weeks off which is crazy. When we got home we stayed in San Francisco for one day being married at home and petting our dog and walking our dog and just hanging out and then the next day we were off to beautiful Hawaii! 

Well first we were trapped in the airport for a whole day because our flight to Kona on the big island of Hawaii was cancelled. But I wasn't sweating it, I WAS ON VACATION!!!

When we finally did get there and get settled, we were so tired. So we had some dinner in paradise and went to bed. Can you see that my crazy self was COLD in an open air restaurant? I am such a freezebaby.

In the morning we woke up to a lovely sight. 

Then we had breakfast at an even lovlier sight. Let me tell you, they have this stuff in Hawaii, coconut syrup, omg. I don't even LIKE pancakes and it had me eating pancakes. Oh! and the Guava juice. Forget about it. Also, pretty much everything is open air restaurants. Which is amazing. I loved hearing the flock of parrots that hung out in those trees! It was cool because we have a wild flock of parrots in San Francisco, so it was a little bit of home hearing them here too! 

The first day we pretty much relaxed. We layed out by that little bay in the picture above and then sat by the pool 

and drank drinks. It was pretty amazing. Everything slows down in Hawaii which rules. You don't feel bad taking naps after you have sat by the pool all day. That is great. Then we had dinner and it was up to bed to hang out and watch tv(which we never ever do because we don't have one!) An amazing and awesome first day on the big island!

And

The best part of our wedding was how much time we got to spend with our friends and family. Well, actually, the people that came were pretty much all just family. Except for the wedding crashers, but that is a story for another time. I loved that most everyone there has been around since the beginning. It made everything that much more special. And they are all pretty good with their Elvis pose, don't you think?

After the wedding, we had a chance to chill out with our friends and just hang out for a little bit. It was great. We had fun toasting to our marriage.

And picking up our friends.

And at our reception dinner, my dad even wore a tuxedo teeshirt. Because he is hilarious.

Oh, hey, I got married!

Saturday 7/7 I married my best friend in Las Vegas, NV. We had an awesome time filled with our families and closest friends. I felt like a queen and seriously had the time of my life! We got married at The Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel. These people are pros. It was so smooth and easy and fun! Everyone was nice, the chapel was adorable and I felt so relaxed.

We did an elvis wedding. we thought it would be funny, and not too serious, like us. And it did not disappoint. Our Elvis was cheesy, sweet and perfect. I have never had a better time. And by the next day we had a video of our ceremony, and we had purchased a package with our photos and had them on a disk and they even printed some of them out! I spent a lot of time researching pretty much everything about this trip. Ryan and I had never been to Vegas for real, I had spent one night there 4 years ago and he was there when he was a teenager. Every place that I chose was perfect for us and treated us like royalty.

Ryan wore a sharkskin suit we picked up at a vintage shop on Haight street in San Francisco. It was so cute on him. By the way, I love this face he is making. My husband rules.

My dress was made by the always lovely Kpoene from Mignonette Bridal. She is also a dear friend and when she offered to make my dream dress come true, I jumped at the chance. I wanted 50's and simple. She gave me that and more. My veil/headpiece actually came from my mother's veil when she married my dad! I wish I had a better picture of my hair, it was done by Shag Me Salon in Las Vegas. The girl who did my hair was AWESOME! She made it look beautiful in like 10 minutes, I swear. It was rolls! So neat. I ended up making my petticoat, and it was not perfect but it did the job. And I loved it.


We stayed at the Golden Nugget, which was AMAZING. I can't say enough good things about that hotel. The staff was great, the pool was really fun with a shark tank in it, and the rooms were so cute and comfy. I LOVED staying on Fremont street. I must say, I went to the strip for a night and I much preferred old Vegas. It was so neat!

All in all a great, easy, and fun experience. And I got a husband out of the deal!

Shower time!

I just got back from an awesome whirlwind trip to Ohio for my bridal shower. What a crazy tradition! Ryan and I are now stocked with awesome stuff! Enough to last 2 lifetimes I think. People give you so much love when you are ready to commit yourself to someone forever. My awesome mom and mother in law hosted my shower and since Ryan and I are getting married in Las Vegas by Elvis, it was a Casino theme. It was so cute!

Our cake was a cassata cake from Corbo's which is the same cake made by the same bakery that my mom had for her wedding. It was so cute!

My mother in law made these awesome centerpieces too! She is out of control and super crafty.

And I even got this super cute crown! I have been wearing it at home too.

Now we are t minus two weeks until marriage time! It is pretty exciting. I am ready to be married!

What's up beaches?

So, even though we are crazy busy with wedding stuff, we are still trying to keep ourselves relaxed and having fun. Recently we too k a little trip to Baker Beach here in SF. It was amazing and warm and not windy like Ocean Beach. And it has a really neat view! I think the background of this photo looks like a painting. Where has this been all my SF life?

This is just to prove that I am not the only one who liked this beach!