Dec 2011

The hat is made free-hand by single crochet hem and knitted cone picked from the hem. Sometimes it is nice to make something totally free-hand without thinking about sts # or gauge ;).  I hope you all have great holidays and have a lot of time enjoying knitting/crocheting! ym

June

Atlanta is always hot in summer.


This year, it has been really hot and dry.


And it is still June.


My garden and kids need to be watered everyday.


And they all grow fast.



I hope you all well,

New pattern: Haru's hooded vest

I'm happy that finally I made something not just for girls!

This is Haru's hooded vest.

It is really a simple pattern with no side seams. The pattern sts seems complicated but really is just 4 rows repeat (includes 2 ws rows with just purls) and easy to memorize. I add inside pockets in the front.

Size: Child 2[4, 6, 8]

with finished chest size 24[26, 28, 30]" (61[66, 71, 76] cm)

Suggested Yarn: Cascade Eco+ [100% wool, 478 yds/437 m per 250 g ball]

Yardage:(MC);33[350, 370, 390], (CC); 140 [140, 160, 160] yds

Gauge: 14 sts = 4" (10 cm)

Pattern PDF is available for sale at Ravelry.com. 

I'm home

Thank you everyone who supported Japan my pattern. All April sales from Kira's hooded vest were sent to Japanese Red Cross Society on 5/1/11^^)/.

I got to know a lady through Ravelry who makes handmade accessories. I purchased a cute brass pendant from her shop. She also donates some parts of her sales for Japan tsunami relief (actually she's already went to Japan to donate some directly).

She etched a bird on the brass and below the bird's beak, it says in Japanese;

"I'm home"

on the opposite side;

"Welcome home"

They are such simple every day phrases, but make my heart aches thinking about mamy people who cannot even say those now.

There are tiny brass keys also hanging together with the bird and my husband added some of my favorite gem beads for me. I love them all together. Those little charms make pretty tinkling sounds.

Thank you for your beautiful work, Usagiuma-san.

YarnOnTheHouse!

My Kira's Hooded Vest is featured here!

You may already know the wonderful site "YarnOnTheHouse".

Veronika hosts frequent generous giveaways at her blog, organizing KALs. She shares her beautiful FOs and takes such gorgeous photos. It is totally worth to go through her blog archive to just see them all (if you haven't done that already)!

We got to know each other shortly after I released my Kira's Hooded Vest pattern on Feb. She gave me a sweet message and offered me an opportunity to be shown in her blog. I was thrilled!

Then the earthquake hit Japan. Kira is my baby nephew and I couldn't see this pattern anymore without thinking about Kira and all my family and friends in Japan. This pattern became for the donation and now I appreciate even more for Veronica's strong message on her blog.

Thank you so much, Veronika.
It is so sweet of you, your post made me blush (you are the first person who ever said that my patterns are trendy and stylish!!;), and I'm grateful that you share this story.

Please, everyone, keep praying for people in Japan. They have a long way for recovery (they still having big/small aftershocks everyday) and our continuous supports are needed.
My Kira's pattern is here, but also you can directly contribute to Japanese Red Cross Society (English site, Paypal accepted)

Update 10-5-11: Japanese Red Cross Society stopped accepting Paypal donation on 9-30-11.
I'm trying to look other organization which accept Paypal easy for us in outside Japan.

Love xx
yumiko

spring

We moved our current house last summer so we didn't know what would come out from our yard in the spring. We are happily overwhelmed with all the flowers keep popping up in our garden!

We really appreciate the former owner for this beautiful jobs and we appreciate also she gave us a great guardian of the garden (It's you, Butter!).

Thank you all! The first batch donation to Japan

Update 10-5-11: Japanese Red Cross Society stopped accepting Paypal donation on 9-30-11.
I'm trying to look other organization which accept Paypal easy for us in outside Japan.


Thank you so much for your kinds words and supports.

I just sent the first batch of the sales from Kira's hooded vest to Japanese Red Cross Society (日本赤十字社）.

Kira is doing fine at my parents' house. There are still shortages of gasoline, bottle water, etc. but other supplies in stores are coming back so they can get essential foods and diapers. There are people in much harder situation than my family is in, so even though I told on the last post that I would use some for Kira,  I decided to send all this first batch of donation to those who suffer more and need urgent help. I personally sent a lot of baby cloths and bottles and some toys for him because he didn't bring much of those from his house and he is getting bigger so fast! His parents are also applying for a passport for him now so when radioactive contamination is getting more concern (The local government has been detecting low levels of radioactive in the air/water, which they says it's ok, it should not affect people's health immediately.....WTH does "immediately" mean?!) they can fly here all together.

Anyway, again, thank you all who purchased Kira's hooded vest pattern this past weeks. I will continue contributing to Japanese Red Cross with this pattern sales. If you aren't interested in my pattern, but want to help people in Japan, this is the link to their site (http://www.jrc.or.jp/english/index.html). They can take Paypal.

My sister sent me Kira's picture a few days ago. He is wearing the vest ^^)/

And look at his shiny happy forehead (where did he get that from?)!

Please pray for people in Japan

Thank you so much for all kind words. My family is safe.
My nephew Kira is now 8 months old and he and his mom (my sister) were evacuated from his house where lost water supply and now joined grandparents in another city.

I made a pattern last months dedicated to him and I'm going to use all its sales for sending him diapers/milk and for third party donation.

Kira's hooded vest

I'm still freaked out about whole things going on in Japan and please excuse me if my English is horrible to read.

Please pray for people in Japan.

sprouting up

Midori (3) asks me everyday (actually almost everyhour!),
"Am I bigger?"

This past 6 months or so, she has realized there are so many things her brother can do but she can't because she is "small". Riding a school bus, building a fire, taking Butterscotch to walk, eating with chopsticks, etc...To my surprise, even though those things are brought up constantly, she never complains or gets frustrated. She would just say "Oh, I can't do that because I'm small?" and seems convinced.

But, it doesn't mean that she doesn't care about it. I realized that she had been measuring her own limits every day and now she knows that she is getting bigger every day! "Let me open the refrigerator for you. I'm bigger, mom." "Please don't help me, mom, I think I can reach the sink." "Can I carry the (grocery) bag for you?" "(turning on a light) Mommy! I reached it, I'm big!" Even after dinner she looks at her big belly sticking out happily "Mommy, I'm getting biiiiiiiiiiiig." She knows she is getting there. She is really confident and I'm proud of her.

 Oh my, my baby girl is sprouting up!

and some sprouts from our yard.

Spring finally!

My girl and cat, and my first granny squares you see a bit in the back.

                                                                                                                                                                                  

I finished my first granny squares using various leftover yarns I accumulated for those years. It took more than two years of my slow crochetting during my commutes to make decent amount of motifs, and still, they were not enough for the size I wanted be originally… 

Anyway I thought the time had come and I put them together.

Oh, poor thing.. I don't have enough nerve to show close-up of my sorry afghan. My sewing is a mess!! I hope I do better job next time and I won't use white yarn for sewing again! At least it makes my lap warm and my girl seems to love it, too.

Anyway I love the way this picture itself turned out. My daughter keeps her toy cat close everywhere in our house.

Happy Valentine!

Kira's hooded vest

Update 10-5-11: Japanese Red Cross Society stopped accepting Paypal donation on 9-30-11. I'm trying to look other organization which accept Paypal easy for us in outside Japan.


update 4-5-11: Thank you! The first donation was sent (more details are posted here).

update 3-15-11: All sales will be spent to support Kira and people in Japan (post about this is here).



Hi there!


I just released a new knitting pattern for baby.

"Kira's hooded vest"

"Kira" is my first nephew and means shiny.

I used the pattern stitch (it is called star tweed!) for a kids coat before in Petite Purls , and fell in love with those cute stars. Since then, I wanted to use this stitch again in different way.

This pattern is fairly simple; The body is worked in one piece mostly in plain Stockinette stitch and knits up quickly. The star tweed stitch will be worked in the end as a part of front/hood edging. Buttons are attached for front closure. Also optional waist tie can be added as an accent.

Size: baby 0-6[6-12, 12-18, 18-24] months, finished chest size 19[20, 21, 22] inches (48[50.5, 53.5, 56] cm)

Needles/Notions: Size US7 (4.50 mm) and US8 (5.00 mm) 24” (60 cm) or longer circular needles; one set of US8 double point needles (DPNs); two markers; a stitch holder or a waste yarn; tapestry needle; buttons.

Gauge:
18 sts and 24 rows = 4" (10 cm) in St st


 The pattern PDF is available for sale at Ravelry.com

 

Choosing color combination is really fun!

Can you think of any unique color combo??

2-5-11

  I made a pair of modified Staccato Socks from "Knitting Socks With Handpainted Yarn" for my husband. It was our anniversary (12th!) yesterday. I was determined to get over the second sock syndrome, so I was very proud of myself, even though the socks was meant to be for his Christmas originally ;) Anyway, if it was not for my beloved, I couldn't finish this forever (I mean, the pattern is great, It is me thing, mind you)!

And for the reward, I got a beautiful book from which I want to make every single thing. I'm so excited!

You all have a great weekend!

waiting for a school bus

My son loves riding on a school bus. He is very serious about not missing it, so we come out our house way before the bus actually comes. It is pretty cold right now, we try to entertain each other during waiting, to keep us distracting from the cold. The bus comes usually around 7:20 in the morning, and in this time of the year, the sky just starts showing some sign of the morning coming.

I took my camera the other day and tried to capture the Venus we see every morning. I've never tried to take pictures of stars. so I was not sure if I could capture it.

I didn't take tripod with me so I needed to make exposure as short as possible. So the picture is pretty dark even though the sky was getting bright, but I managed to get a little dot of Venus in the view. Do you see it?? (Sorry I don't even have a zoom on my camera..... ;) It is always  impressing how bright Venus is.



There was also the Moon;

It was fun, except I was a little shy to say good morning to the bus driver with big camera hanging from my neck..My son might be also a little embarrassed for me, but he waved at me as always from the bus window so cute. That is the best morment first in the morning.

And Butter in the morning light;



What I'm working on... and today's Butter

Little hints on what I'm working on now.
This will be named for my first nephew "Kira".
"Kira" also means "shiny" and I have shining Star Tweed stitches here... 

 

And today's Butterscotch looking up my son.

Have a wonderful day!

camera test

In Atlanta we were stuck in snow whole week. No work for me, no schools for kids.
It could have been so boring if I didn't receive the camera right before the snow began.

I got my first DSLR!

It's an used Canon 30D (used, otherwise I couldn't afford it!). It came without a manual and also I need to get used to use the view finder because it has no live preview which I had been so spoiled with.

So, my girl and I, whenever we had nothing else left to do indoor, did test shootings together to play with the camera. In this case it was a good thing that it took a while to figure out how this camera works because we had so much time!

And


We love this camera so much already!

I also took some pictures of my favorite projects again. This is one of my most favorite project, Sunflowers Satchel (currently the pattern is available for Ravelry users only), a crochet bag designed by my knitting BFF, Asami Kawa. I hope I can write about her sometimes, she is such an amazing designer, and also my knitting boot camp buddy!



And a sweater I finished this winter. The pattern is from a book "a fine fleece" by Lisa Lloyd.
























I wish I could re-take for all my works with this camera, This is so much fun!


And our Butterscotch looking at snow.