NiseyKnits

"Seonmul" is the Korean word for "gift". The scarf in this week's post is a gift for my dad. I started this scarf in February 2011 but I quickly lost interest in it, mainly because it was all black and I wanted to knit with color. Fast forward to June 2011 when my parents came to visit us. I pulled out the scarf again and quickly started knitting, hoping to be done before they left so they could take it with them. That also did not happen. The scarf went back to the WIP abyss until last month, when I felt so bad that I had let this scarf slide for almost a year and a half. With gritted teeth, I wallowed through the last half of the scarf with the help of many Korean drama episodes (which is why I know the word for gift in the Korean language) and finally finished it! Whew! Oh, but the story is not over. I soaked the scarf and got ready to block...and left the scarf in a bucket for about 5 days. Not good!  I finally blocked it and let it lie around for two more...

My friend Irene of LivedStories took the pictures of this scarf in 2010 for my Etsy Shop , and she loved it. In fact, she loved it so much that she took almost 60 pictures of this one scarf. The pattern is the Drop Stitch Scarf by Christine Vogel. I think I've knit almost 10 of these scarves. They are quick and easy to carry around, so I default to them whenever I want a simple project for nights (like today) when I'm exhausted and don't want to think about my knitting. It just so happened that I had two skeins of the Crystal Palace Yarns Panda Silk DK Print leftover from the first one, so I decided to surprise her with one of these scarves as a birthday present. Her birthday also just happens to be our wedding anniversary! I'll be giving her the gift later this week. I thought I would celebrate her big day with a post, because she's been a great help in getting my business off the ground with all these wonderful pictures she's taken for me. Happy Bir...

You all know my friend Zeina. She's the lovely lady who has been modeling most of my knits for the past year or so. Sometime last year we went to a yarn shop together so she could choose the yarn she wanted for me to knit something for her. She chose Mirasol Tupa yarn in the Daffodil color (#801)  and we bought 2 skeins. She likes the color yellow, you see. I first made a crochet necklace for her using the Mirasol Tupa yarn, from this Crochet Necklace pattern by Creative Yarn. However the necklace took very little yarn, so I still had almost all the 2 skeins leftover. What to do? I let the skeins languish in my ever expanding yarn stash until last week, when I was home sick with an ear infection. I wanted to knit something I didn't NEED to have done by a certain time, so I decided to knit a present for Zeina.  I chose the Little Shells pattern by Holly Griffin-Weidner, as it required 250 yards and seemed like a quick knit. And it was!! I cast on for the ...

If someone were to ask me, right now, what my favorite pattern is, I would say it's the Scrunchable Scar f by Susan McConne, hands down. I mean, I've knit enough scarves with this pattern that I have it memorized. Ok I'll tell the truth -  the pattern is so easy that even a new knitter will have it memorized within 10 minutes. But the finished product is so beautiful that you wouldn't believe the pattern is just 3 stitches long. Yes, 3 stitches long. If you clicked through on the pattern name to get to the pattern, you'll find that the pattern was put up in 1996. That was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before Ravelry was even born. I don't know who listed the pattern on Ravelry, but it has 3558 projects linked to it. And I made 7 of them. :) The most recent one was a gift for our former roomie Geoffrey, who just moved further North to be his wife. Now we all know how cold it can get up North over there, so I offered to finally make him a scarf. (Just as an aside, i...

I finished some projects! Yay! I completed the Merlot Scrunchable Scarf from last week's post, the one for my sister's bf. He visited us briefly this past weekend and he's darling. He even enjoyed playing with my son!! He tried on the scarf and loved it, but I didn't give it to him as I hadn't blocked it yet. It's now blocked and photographed, but I took the photos late in the day so they are pretty bad quality. The model I had lined up for this photo shoot (my sister), decided that she needed to take a nap in the middle of the day, and when she woke up she didn't feel like getting all dolled up for a photo shoot. So I lost the daylight needed for good pictures, and had to pull out my trusty plastic bodyform. One of these days I'll get a beautiful fancy-looking bodyform... For the photos, I tried for some artistic, close-up shots to make up for the bad lighting and my rudimentary photo-taking skills. Here are a few pictures of the Merlot Scarf. I think...

In March this year I made a resolution to post at least once every week on this blog. I have to tell you that it was pretty tough to do at times. Sometimes I had to come up with something the morning off, before heading to work. Other times I used my lunch break to quickly write a post. A few times I had enough material to write 2 blog posts ahead of time and schedule them for the following weeks. I am quite glad that I did this, and that I was able to stick with this resolution. I'm going to do my best to keep it up for next year. I know I don't have a lot of followers, but I am so grateful to those of you who do follow and read this blog, and feel that I should be faithful to you all with my posting. Thank you for reading about my knitting exploits, for participating in my giveaways, for sending in comments, and for being so supportive of me as I work on improving my crafting skills. Here's to you all, the last post of this lovely year 2011. And what could be more fitti...

My friend Irene from LivedStories , who has been my photographer extraordinaire, had her son 12 days ago. She had a very difficult pregnancy, and so we are all relieved and grateful that the baby is here and healthy, and she is also doing well and recovering fast. The hat the baby was given at the hospital was too big for his head, so of course I had to whip up a little something for my little cutie. Since the baby is small, I looked for a preemie hat pattern on Ravelry and settled on Preemie Hats for Charity by Carissa Browning. The pattern calls for sportweight yarn. I had some leftover acrylic sportweight yarn, and KnitPicks Swish DK yarn in Nutmeg colorway, so I used these two to make the striped hat. Here in a few pictures, is the hat I made for this little gift from God. Since I just recently perfected my pompom-making skills, I topped off the hat with a small pompom. Yay for pompoms!  I will be back later in the week with some new scarves in my Etsy shop. Till th...

In the words of Usher "these are my confessions....". I started this blouse for my MIL last year, when she came over to help us with the little poopoola. June last year to be precise. I just finished it this past Sunday. It's been exactly a year since I started this project. There's nothing else to say about that. I have some projects that I started 2 years ago and I'm still not done, so this isn't too bad. Hehehe... The pattern is Sea Urchin by Ilga Leja. I used the exact yarn she used in her pattern, Lucy Neatby Celestial Merino Dream in the Mermaid colorway, hence the name Mermaid Sea Urchin. I must say I'm quite impressed with myself, because I hate sewing, and I'm not too good at it. I've been avoiding making tops and cardigans and all that because of having to seam the ends together. (I know there are tops that can be knit in the round. I'll be exploring those soon.) I suppose you can see this project marks a new stage in my knitting ...

I finally finished the Fallberry Mitts by Anne Hanson for Alyssa. I used Malabrigo Silky Merino in Amoroso colorway, with US #2 dpns (double point needles). Once I sat down to finish the mitts, they just flew off my needles. I'm really excited with the finished project. I think I would like to make one more pair in another color. My photographer is back now, and we got a lovely model to help with the pictures. :)