Happy Happy Happy Wednesday!  I am SOOOOOOOO excited to be writing this post.  Why am I so excited you ask?

I FINISHED VIAJANTE!!!!!!!  This is by far the largest project I have done to date and I could not be more thrilled about it!  Now I am ready to tackle just about any project......well, maybe not, but I feel like I am!

Before Blocking:

During Blocking:

Modeled by my bff, Darlene:

Yup....what a relief to have that done (I am sure you guys are tired of reading about it too!).

What else have I been up to?  Well, I finished the reverse pinwheel blanket for Alexxis.....I was going to block it last night but my grandson, Antonio, wanted way too much of Ga-Ma's time.....so here it is unblocked:

Now I just need to get with it on my gloves for me Inskein Yarns KAL:

I hope to finish these tomorrow.....because I have lots in the works......

1.  There is a sweater KAL going on with the MustStashPostcast (Great Podcast by the way....I have meet both of the girls that do this podcast and they are super sweet...they also hostess an SNB in San Antonio in the North Central area), and I told myself I had too much going on...but I was reading thru the sweater KAL forum the other day and a cute sweater caught my attention, when I looked at the ravelry page for the cute sweater, I found another sweater KAL going on called Trappings and Trinkets sweater along.....and once there the words "Sock Monkey" jumped out at me and I decided I have to make this cute sweater for Antonio!  I will partake in both of the KAL's which means I need to have it done by end of June....yikes!

This sweater is just what the dr ordered to match Antonio's new Backpack:

2.  Camp Loopy Starts this Saturday....I will be writing my own sock pattern for this, so keep your eyes out for a new pattern soon.

3.  My SNB is doing a KAL for June, July, Aug....we try to do quarterly KAL's just to keep things fun.  We will be doing the Deep Purple Cresent Shawl.  This also starts Saturday...I have two different colorways I want to do this shawl in....Malabrigo's Piedras colorway

Or Madeline Tosh's Stephen Loves Tosh colorway

I have enough in these two yarns to make 4 shawls total (2 of each color)...so if I am digging the pattern, these just might be Christmas Presents for a select few people.

3.  Tour De Sock.....what is this you ask?  I had no clue till yesterday......people were talking about it in the camp loopy thread so I went here to read all about it....it seems like a fun thing to do and also raise some money for a great cause!  This also starts Saturday....so I have a lot starting this Saturday.  I am taking Friday off to get some things organized in my yarn room and to do some cleaning (I will not be able to do any cleaning once I start all these projects....LOL).


Do you remember when I went to WHIBSIB (the greatest knitting retreat in the world)?  I saw a fellow knit sister that had this cute basket that said "Yarn Addict"  I go the name of the lady that did the basket and I contacted her to see if she could make me a custom one....she said yes and I ordered it...well, I got it today and I LOVE IT!!!!  I will be ordering another one....just need to decide if I want another small one or if I want to splurge on a bigger one.  Isn't it the cutest ever?  Link to get one is below....and if you get one....Please, Please, Please tell her I (Carrie Ramirez) referred you!!!!

Here is her website if you are interested in a custom basket...I think it is the cutest ever!!!!  You can go to "Yarn Alley" and then "Totes and Bag Samples".....

Well whew.....that was a lot, but I have not written in over a week...I promise to try to be better (I just really wanted to get that Viajante finished and it consumed my time)!

Do you get buy with a little help from your friends?  What about your yarn?  Here is my cute pic for this post (besides the basket of course)!

I also hope everyone had a great Memorial Day....A great bit "Thank You" to all that serve our great country!!!

Happy Happy Knitting and Happy Happy Wednesday!!!

Happy Happy Monday....boy am I tired!  Mondays are always yuck, but this one is dragging!

This past weekend I went to a knitting retreat called WHIBSIB....I know I have mentioned it (a time or two) and it is my favorite weekend of the year!  Lots of knitting and gabbing with the greatest group of knitters from all around the great state of Texas!

One of the ladies (Shama) has been working on a Dr. Who blanket for her youngest son for over a year and she finished it and brought it to show everyone....it is much more stunning in person.

When we have WHIBSIB we all meet up in a conference room.  This year we had to pay some $ for that conference room and we decided to recoup that money by having a raffle.  We did not know what the prize was till early Saturday morning when Sue came with the donations from The Knitting Nest in Austin....there were two beautiful skeins of a perfect Burnt Orange color.....I was in charge of selling the tickets, so as I sold the tickets I told everyone, "It does not matter who wins the raffle, that perfect orange yarn is going home with me!".  As I was selling the tickets, I would give each lady their portion of the ticket with the number and I would write their name on the ticket part that went into the 'bag' for the drawing......right before the drawing I said, "I wrote names on all the tickets", and another lady teased, "But did you write your name on all the tickets or the name of the person buying the ticket?" and I of course teased that I wrote my name on all the tickets......can you guess who won the raffle?

Yup!  I won......and I did not put my name on all the tickets....I had my ticket number as proof (see the blue tickets in the background).....but it was so funny when my name was drawn.  Here is a better picture of the winnings....The turquoise bag was purchased by our leader (the head of the group) and is absolutely gorgeous and a perfect size for me, the burnt orange yarn is Abuelita Yarns, fingering, 3ply, 100% merino.  There is 420 yards per skein....I have already started looking for the perfect pattern this yarn wants to be! there is a Simply Baby book by Debbie Bliss, a hand sewn knitting bag...this was hand sewn by one of the ladies in our group....with a full set of size 14" straight knitting needles, and some fun yarn with fur and ribbon (also in an orange)......it is an awesome prize and I am so happy I won it!

Now, in the picture above where I won....do you see the knitting on my lap?  You guessed it, that is my Viajante that I feel like I have been knitting on forever!  Last Tuesday I was at 192 grams.....I am now at (drum roll please).....137 grams!  Yahoo!  I am back on target to finish by May 31st!

But (there is always a but).....I just got a text from Amanda (my DIL) during lunch that she will be induced tomorrow at 4:30 am and Alexxis Maranda Ramirez will be born tomorrow.  I am making 2 blankets for Alexxis and I would like to take the pom pom one to the hospital with me....preferably, finished!  So tonight will be pom pom blanket knitting time!

Speaking of pom pom blankets and babies.....Celeste's sister was born last Thursday and the pom pom blanket was done just in the nick of time.  Here is Celeste with her new sister, Cataleya, and a picture of the finished pom pom blanket.

I almost forgot.....I start a new KAL this coming Saturday.  This is a fingerless mitts KAL I am doing for a new local yarn store by my house.  It is called Inskein Yarns.  I told the owner and manager there that I would be a moderator on their ravelry group and hold KAL's from time to time....I am really looking forward to it.  We will be making Susie Rogers' Fingerless Gloves and the ladies got to pick their yarn from Kollage Milky Whey or Debbie Bliss Bella.  We will need size 5 DPN needles, so I ordered some new ones that are really cute...They are in support of Stitch Red which is "Sticking it to Heart Disease"!...they are red, and they are Kollage Square needles......

Here is my cute picture of the week....being that I was just blessed with another grand daughter last week (Cataleya) and I will be blessed with another one tomorrow (Alexxis), I this this picture is fitting:

Happy Happy Knitting and Happy Happy Monday!

Happy Tuesday everyone!  How was everyone's weekend?  Seems like I have two weekends I need to catch up on.

On the weekend of the 20th, I went to a wedding in Kingsland.....it was a gorgeous wedding.  My sister has a lake house not far from there in Granite Shoals, so I stayed with my sister and her family at her lake house.

Here is a picture of the beautiful bride and groom and a picture of the bride with her brother.

Then, for this past weekend....I had another great weekend, but my knitting has suffered for it.

On Saturday, my sister invited the whole family out to her lake house and it was a blast....but Antonio really wore me out.  On top of it, Marble Falls (on the way to lake house) was hosting a triathlon for athletes....and it caused TONS of traffic.  Being stuck in a car going .3 miles per hour with a cranky toddler is NO FUN!

However, once we got to the lake house, he had lots of fun getting wet and playing with my cousin's son who is about 2 1/2 months younger than Antonio.  We thought it was so cute that Antonio was dressed in Longhorn clothes and Nathan in ATM clothes (My cousin went to ATM but we all still love her....LOL!)

In the knitting arena....I have worked on a couple of things.  Mainly the Viajante and the Reverse Pinwheel Blanket.....and because I am not crazy enough already....I casted on more item.  Now wait before you laugh and make fun of me....I have a really good excuse!  My grand daughter Celeste will be a big sister this week.  Thursday the 2nd (unless her mom goes into labor earlier).  I needed to make a blanket for her baby sister.  So this past Sunday, I cast on this pom pom blanket:

Now, because of casting on this blanket.....my 'schedule' was a little interrupted.  Remember that calendar I made with how many grams of yarn I need to knit per day and where I should be at the end of each day?  Well, I am behind.  By the end of today, my skein of yarn should be at 173 grams....and this morning my skein was at 192.....so I am 19 grams behind.....boo!!!

But it is looking good.  I still have it on a 32" circular so you cannot quite see how much the increase side is growing...but I am not ready for a longer needle (yet).

The reverse pinwheel is coming along (I need to get moving on that too...baby due May 7th):

So, I know I am terribly behind on my goals...and I swear there is never enough time to knit....but have no fear.....I am going to an annual knitting weekend with the Lone Star State Knitters.....one full weekend of knitting and friends....I cannot wait....so have no fear...I should get lots of knitting (and chatting) done this weekend!  I will report next week.

Lastly, I leave you with my cute photo of the week.....I know I am biased because he is my grandson, but sometimes he is just so darn cute, I cannot help but share his pictures with you!!  

That boy lights up my life!  Happy Happy Tuesday and Happy Happy knitting everyone.....have a great week this week!