oooh i forgot to tell you!

in lebanon (see my post below) there was yarn!!! lots and lots of yarn!!! well at least compared to the uae...

here are a few of my favorites : D

this one looks black from far away but up close it's all rainbowy and i love it!


i missed being able to feel yarns and look at their true colors so much that i couldn't pass up this minty goodness


or the lilac... it's a bit thinner, i thought it might be nice for some lace work... maybe... keepin my options open


and LION BRAND woot woot!!!! i was so excited to see something i recognized that i almost fell over! and i have been wanting some more natural colors lately so here we go!


there were quite a few more that i got as well but i didn't want this most to scroll down forever with pics... most of the yarn brands i had never heard of and can't find on ravelry either but i'm sure i will still manage to make some beautiful things with them : )

also on my vacation i finished the rest of the projects on my needles. I KNOW! my needles are naked right now!! but don't worry don't worry they are only bare because i have so many projects i want to start that i don't know which one to start first!

any how here are my FO's!!

i made some baby booties to go with the vintage cardigan


i made them so the bottoms of the feet will be purple. they are also from simple knits for cherished babies


here's the wavy scarf made with rowan tapestry and using this pattern


up close!


i'm really happy with the way everything came out. all (except the booties) were new projects for me with some new techniques that kept my interest going. and here's what i learned.... picking up stitches is HARD but i can do it! and short rows are easy but look hard too everyone else ; )

my in laws also really liked my knitting! i think my MIL was really excited to see that i was at least a little domestic ; ) i don't cook too much, i don't clean too much, but at least i knit baby sweaters!

vacation

sorry for my absence last weekend but i was on vacation. yup i enjoyed one entire week off of work and one entire week away from the ridiculous heat in Abu Dhabi. we went to the amazing city of Beirut. it was my first, of what i hope to be many many trips over my lifetime. let me show you a few of the pics i took while i was there

here is the famous square in down town Beirut during the day


at night


look at that crowd! we could hardly walk anywhere. the whole street is lined on both sides with restaurants that spill out on to the streets and off ov them were completely full!


theCorniche


me at Roche Rock... amazingly beautiful and you can even take a boat around the rock. i think that's in the plans for our next trip


REAL indigenous flowers growing outside. it's been way too long since i have seen that


Beirut from the Telefreak, which is a bucket ride to the top of a mountain that gives you a great view of Lebanon


over all it was amazing and beautiful. i realized just how much i miss living in a city where you can walk (oh how i miss walking out side) to most places, where people in the neighborhoods know each other, the city doesn't revolve around money and you feel the history of the country every where you go. the other great thing is that i got to meet a lot of my husband's family while we were there. it was great to see everyone and finally have faces to go with all those stories i'm told all the time. i have realized just how lucky i am to be married to a man with such a warm and accepting family. it was a fantastic vacation!

all done!

well almost.

here's the Vintage Baby Cardigan (from Simple Knits for Cherished Babies by Erica Knight) almost all done. all i need to do now is weave in the ends.


and here's an up close of the sleeve


umm well the only modification i made was to add the striping on the sleeve and i don't really consider that a modification. in fact i tried to stay as close to the pattern as possible because i had never attempted something so complex before and i was a bit intimidate. overall i'm happy with it. i did find attaching the sleeves to be hard only because the sleeves seemed to be smaller that the holes they were intended for.... but i decided to just give it a shot and see what happened and it worked out i think! also i did use (i'm proud to say) all locally found materials.

below is an update on the wavy scarf, mostly because i had my camera out already ; )





i really like the way it's coming out and i'm hoping to have it done within the next few days.... i'll keep you posted

i knew this would happen!

my mom received the "lost" yarn shipment over the weekend... so there was no yarn-stealer conspiracy. it was just plain us/uae postal services not being able to send things across… but at least it got returned (five months later)! this time around my mom will send it to my aramex box… will keep you updated : )

august!! already??

wow! the time really flies when you aren't paying attention. my niece will be one this month and i can hardly believe it! i had grand ideas of knitting her something but now with the big day approaching so quickly i don't think i'll make it. i think i have to make it a post birthday knit instead. the hardest part though is finding a cute pattern for a 1+ year old. the patterns i'm finding seem to be for 0-1 or for young kids and she's just not in either of those places anymore. sigh. i think i found a pattern on ravelry. it's a seed stitch, double breasted, hooded sweater and the largest size is 12-18 mon. and i have the yarn for it already (now that i finally have a proper stash). the obstacle will be getting it done before she grows out of it.
i also have had my eye on the pinwheel sweater but i definitely don't have the stash for that. in fact there is a whole saga that goes along with this sweater.

it all starts before i had Shop & Ship and before my friend went home and brought me back an exorbitant amount of yarn. i sent this pattern to my mom and begged her to send me all the supplies to make it. she went to our LYS (the Knitting Bee) in Portland, OR and they gave her everything ever needed to make this super cute sweater. my mom packaged it up (with a few other things i have been missing from home) and shipped it out. she didn't want to pay more for shipping than was actually in the box (and really who can blame her) so she sent it regular mail. it never came. we waited and wait and i called EmPost the United Arab Emirates Post Office here and they had no record of receiving a box. i have been hoping and hoping it would be returned to the sender and my mom could now ship it to my Aramex Shop & Ship box but still no dice. it's been five months. i think (opinion only) that some lady who loves to knit, at our local EmPost office, figured out what was inside (because they go through practically every package here) and kept it for her self because she (like me) knows how hard it is to get good yarn here. i think this because the US Postal service and the UAE Postal service are just way to efficient to think it could have been the system's fault (insert sarcasm here).

anyhoo i digressed a bit there but i feel much better now that i have vented.

the baby cardi and the wavy scarf are coming along nicely... hoping to be done with the cardi shortly. but let me tell you that this whole picking up stitches thing (the cardi calls for it around the neck line) is WAY more complicated than i thought. it took me 2 books, a you tube video and 3 web sites before i finally decided to just go for it. it wasn't so much the technique of picking up the stitches but rather trying to space them evenly along a curved edge. but i must say out side of one little spot where there is a bit of a hole i think the edging came out quite nicely.... way better than i expected! that's for sure. now it's on to the sleeves...