knitting up a storm!

I have been knitting up a storm since a little bit before Christmas, 

although I had not been posting about it(which I probably should, but too lazy).

one of my this year's new years reslutions was to knit my first big project, a sweater.

so, I had started my first sweater project in mid Feb and finished it a couple weeks ago while I was down in Ashland visiting friends.

which means, it took me a whole month to finish a big project.  

that isn't that bad for my first sweater project I think!

I used a free pattern I found on Ravelry, and used this superwash yarn in teal.

knitted a swatch first, I started knitting the actual pattern.

after knitting almost the whole back piece, realized it was too big, 

and unraveled it and went down one size in the needle.

 put all the pieces together using youtube clips as a reference on how to sew them together.

and taddaaa!  here it is!!  my very first sweater!!!

 my friend, Tiffany whom we were visiting when i was finishing up the sweater, kindly offered me to choose buttons from her huge button collection.

and I picked these pretty grayish shell buttons.  

it turned out being still TOO BIG for me... :(

so I decided to give it to my mother who used to knit for me when I was little.

My mother is a health nurse, living in Japan, 

and she recently told me that she would be sent to the earthquake/tsunami affected area to provide medical/health care and emotional support.

so, I am hoping she would bring this and it will protect her from whatever happening where she is sent to...

also here is another project I finished today for my little girl.

 pattern is also a free one from lion brand yarn.  

and I used the same yarn as the sweater above since I thought it was a pretty color for her.

finished up with the fabric covered buttons I made previously.

I knitted a T3 size so that she could wear it next winter.

however it turned out so HUGE on her and looks like it is for 5yr old...

ugh.  I guess there is so much to learn about gauging and sizing!!

I have another "small" project I wand finish before the warm weather hits here.

it may not be too long for the spring to come say hello, so I will see :)


p.s.  oh!  if you have a ravelry account, please let me know!
my username is Lunatepetal.  add me as a friend, I'd love to check your projects out :)