New Year with new FOs!

It's been a month since my last post. I hope you all had wonderful holidays with your family and friends, delicious food, many gifts and happy smiles! I think it's still in time to wish you all a Happy New Year! I'm looking forward to this new start as last year was a very bad year for me. Ah, but so far so good! To commemorate my new start, I thought a new face for my blog would be fun. I spent this afternoon sketching a drawing for my banner. I originally hand drew the picture and even coloured it. I showed the picture to my elder son when he was back from school. He told me that he could reproduce it with his MAC. And there I'm sitting and knitting in my dream garden in a sunny day! By the way, there were more yarns in the bag in my original picture. Anyway, I decided that I should not bug him for more changes. He commented that he didn't have a good tool to do the drawings. I'm quite pleased with the drawing.

I'm much back into my knitting these days after the little "affair" with crochet.
Here, I'm starting the new year with 3 new FOs. No, I'm not such a fast knitter! Would be nice though ... Actually, I finished them all before the year end but had no opportunity to post them.

First in line is Berry Cardi. I finished it at least two months ago. I was waiting for a good photo and I even made a visit to the orchid nursery. Unfortunately, by the time I got there it was pretty dark. I only got this blurry picture to share.

I am very pleased with this project. Very simple and practical. It's one of the few knits that I've been wearing so often. Everything feels good, the width, the length, the color and yarn that is very soft. It was just a pleasure to have knitted this cardi.

pattern: Berry Cardi - World Knitting spring summer 2006

yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashemerino ( 8 balls). The water turns red during the washes. I hope it will soon subside. Though I didn't notice any color change in my cardi.

needle : Lantern moon size US 5 3.75 mm

Oh worthy to mention. How I love these Rosewood Lantern moon needles! They are so good to knit with and the sts run so smoothly... I feel like to have a a complete set. I only have a pair and they are straight needles. There is a little problem, these needles are kind expensive. Perhaps I should buy less yarn and build a set.

Second in line is Fendi FO, as the name implies, this is a design inspired from last year's ( I think) Fendi Spring collection. I added the two flowers buttons, which were crocheted. The original one had two big buttons instead and a large belt around. As you can observe, it turned a little too snugly on me. I feel this yarn will soon loosen up and then hopefully the fit will be fine.

Pattern: Fendi inspired. Directions from a LYS teacher.

yarn: Lana Grossa Gala 40% silk 24% viscose 17% linen

needles: circular needles Japanese 7

And finally, the last FO is my Snow Flowers scarf. This project combines knitting and crocheting. Very fun to make since you get to work on different little pieces. I used a very thin nylon thread to sew the flowers and beads ( pearls and crystals) in place. I think it's the thread used for some quilting and is basically invisible. So good for me because I'm not such a good seaming lady. And with this thread you can barely notice the zig zag messy stitches I made on the back. ;)
I modified a little on this scarf. After I was done with a few crochet flowers, I tried to place them in the scarf and there was just no place I could add more. Another reason was that I didn't have enough yarn for extra flowers.

Pattern: Snow Flowers Scarf from Knitting book (ISBN 978-4-391-62490-8)

Yarn: Mohair Premier 2 balls 25g 90m

needles: Japanese size 7 ( knit) and size 4 (crochet)