WIP Weekend

Trying to catch up with a month without knitting… is not a good idea.

The fatigue of having to sit on the plane for 15+ hours has not yet gone and having to sit and knit did not help. My neck and shoulders hurt and tense, and now I have to put on heat patch on it so it is not too sore.

But I do miss knitting.

Especially knitting while watching documentaries with Davin Starkey. Yeah…

Err… By the way, does anyone here know why BBC4 has been showing a lot of programs about church reformation lately? Not that I don’t like it — I love it. But I just want to know if we are commemorating something, or celebrating something related to it.

Aaanyway… I have to WIPs when I left for Indonesia. The green cardigan for my DH, and the two yarns jumper for me.

The jumper seems to grow very fast, but I think that’s also because I am comparing it to making a piece of cardigan the size of my husband. Both are doing very well, and I think very soon I will be having an FO.

Now, I think it is time to find out what I can make for my cousin. A hooded jumper. The search goes on… and on…

x ❤ x

A Month Already?

I am so sorry guys…

 

Weee…. I am flying…

I just came back from Indonesia a week ago after a long and wonderful holiday. Despite the flight itself, which I can only summarise as a little bit hellish, to say the least… I have to say that it was quite a successful holiday. Not only that I got to celebrate my baby brother’s engagement party, but also that I could enjoy a lot of food that I could not have when I am here. I am pretty sure now that I am back, my weight scale would not be happy to see me on it.

Not only that I got to celebrate my baby brother’s engagement party, but also that I could enjoy a lot of food that I could not have when I am here. I am pretty sure now that I am back, my weight scale would not be happy to see me on it.

LOL. Worth it.

 

Our typical dinner of five… D;

Anyway… I did not bring my WIP with me *gasp* *shockhorror*.

I know.

But here’s a thing… I have a stockpile of stash back there in Indonesia as well as here in the UK. I was thinking of using those stash to make something too, instead of letting them rot there. BUT, unfortunately (or fortunately? I am not sure about this one), the holiday was so awesome, I didn’t have time to go through my stash over there and do something about it.

I have a little niece, remember? She is now a year old, and she could now tease people. My DH said that teasing people must be in my gene because he could see everybody in my family is very good at it.

Ah… Back to WIP… This is what we’ve got so far…

a very big sleeve…

x ❤ x

 

WIP Wednesday

Wow… It’s been so long since the last time I actually say that… WIP Wednesday. I must be really bad at doing this discipline thing. Ha!

Okay… the sleeves of the hubby’s green cardigan looks better than I thought it would be. The stripes which were originally made to save the green yarn, turned out to be quite good. The blue stripes tone down the brightness of the green, and I kind of regret that I did not think of making these stripes much earlier.

It did cross my mind to redo the front pieces so that I can make the stripes, but husband said he would rather have pockets instead. Maybe I could add blue pockets later? Hm… something to think about.

My jumper looks great, and I love knitting it a lot. In no time, I have finished the back part. Not that often I could surprise myself.

I think it knits much faster than my husband’s jumper, mainly because my size is way smaller than my husband’s. I wonder if I would have a FO anytime soon…

When these are done, I would have to start to make a hoodie pullover for my teenage nephew. Do you have any good pattern for a pullover jumper? I have several jumper and hoodie patterns, but they don’t look… right. Especially the hoodie bit.

I mean, hoodies are supposed to drape around your face instead of snugging your head like a balaclava aren’t they?

x ❤ x

The Best Way To Start A Monday…

Okay… I think the title is a bit too dramatic. I am not working right now, so there’s not much difference between Sunday and Monday. Except that on Monday, my husband would have to go to work and I could not bug him with bad puns the whole day.

That’s the only thing that makes Monday not as nice as Sunday for me.

BUT… let’s pretend I didn’t say that, and then we can redefine Monday.

it has more fruit than yogurt… but really… who cares?

Okay… The first thing I usually do in Monday morning is to weigh myself. I am not necessarily on diet, but I found it good to know that I am good. After all, weight fluctuation can actually tell something about yourself. For me, for example… if I eat too much sodium I will feel bloated and it will show on the weight scale. Or, when it is close to that time of the month, I would be slightly heavier. So yeah… it is a good way to start any week… Get in check.

A glass of water, followed by hot tea while watching morning news. A tasty breakfast consists of yogurt and fruit…

But… nothing beats the knock on the door by the wonderful Mr. Postman. Who, despite the nasty weather, would come and deliver something wonderful. And big… Who says that size does not matter, has never seen the joy that comes in big packages.

Especially when the package contains a lot of yarns.

I ordered these beauties from Kempwoolshop. They have the clearance section which I love so much, and they deliver for free when you order over 25 quid. I know that I have stash that is beyond my life expectancy, but… all of those for under 27 quid?? It is less than one pound each skein.

I am sorry, but… A girl had to do what a girl had to do…

Now… I will excuse myself because I have lots of yarn to hug… And hide before hubby sees it 😮

x ❤ x

Weekend’s WIP Report

Now now… what have we here?

Nope… we haven’t forgotten this neglected beauty

I am now working on 3 WIPs. The crochet top still needs some cleaning up. It is so boring, I put it away for awhile until I gained some discipline.

The jumper with two different yarn went really well. I really enjoyed making it. The only thing that slow me down is that sometimes when I purl I didn’t catch one of the yarn. Grr…

But it’s fine. I am quite happy doing it, because even with stst, there is enough challenge to keep the project interesting for me. I have to say it again now that I am really happy with the random flecks effect.

The cardigan for my husband is also right on track. One thing that makes the project more interesting than it should be is… that I think I would have to improvise a bit.

I am doing the sleeves now, and I realised I wouldn’t have enough green to make two sleeves. I miscalculated the amount of yarn needed, and pretty much underestimated how my husband XL size would use the yarn. So I decided to make stripes using the same yarn I used for the ribbing, so at least the colour combo would work.

Now, hopefully we could have enough green to make a complete cardigan.

x ❤ x

Knitting with Two Strands

I stumbled upon one really cute Rowan jumper pattern. I rarely found a jumper pattern which have a wide neckline like this one. But there are two problems with this particular pattern: 1. I don’t have rowan yarns — they are waaaay out of my budget. 2. The pattern calls for that yarn to be used “double”.

Now… I know that it is not unusual thing, but I have never knit with two yarns at the same time. I mean, I know how to use it interchangeably while doing colourwork, but it is not the same though.

I remembered when I was young my mum used double yarn to crochet, and I tried it too and it is just the same. I thought… maybe it is the same with knitting. After all, I have done a project with this yarn… which is basically two yarn twisted together. And I quite like the result.

However… Back to the jumper I would like to make. I don’t have the yarn which has the gauge mentioned in the pattern. It was either too short or too long, or too narrow or to wide. Then I thought, maybe it is the fact that the yarn was doubled so it created a unique gauge. I guessed that if I could find a yarn thin enough to bulk up the 4ply yarn I had, I could make up the correct gauge asked in the pattern.

So I browse my stash and found this… thing that I swore I would never touch again.

Now… some background story.

Long time ago, I bought lots of yarn from iceyarn. Being a noob, I thought because it looks pretty, it will make pretty stuff. This particular yarn, for example… in paper it would make a wonderful garment. As the strand is thicker in one place and thinner in another, it would automatically give a pattern while I knit it in stst.

In reality… not so much. I made a rectangular shawl with it, and it looked hideous. Not mentioning that it is horrible to knit with.

So the remainder of the yarn was in my stash… Not sure why I haven’t donated it already. Maybe the good side of me though I should never put anyone else through the misery I had with this yarn.

Ah… anyway.

I started my experiment. Making swatch this time was a bit more interesting than usual as both yarns kept tangling every now and then. However I have to say that it does make a nice freckle pattern in a stst, and I can imagine it would look really pretty in a jumper.

I did have to change the needle to 0.25 mm smaller, but in the end the gauge was bang on. Ha! Looks like we have another WIP on.

x ❤ x

What Goes Well With Tea?

Have you ever thought of that? What goes well with tea?

I started to think about that after my husband introduced me to one of the best British delicacy called Rich Tea biscuit. I mean, the name says it all, doesn’t it? Rich Tea… the biscuit that makes tea drinking experience even richer? Am I pushing it?

The traditional Cream Tea — Tea, scone, cream and jam

Then of course, along came Cream Tea. Scone is probably one of the best thing that can happen to tea. Those are new to me, because in Indonesia, and in my Chinese culture, tea is not enjoyed the way people do here in the UK. Completely different.

For example, in Indonesia we don’t need to drink tea from a cup. We enjoy it hot or cold, with or without sugar. But never… with milk or any whitener. Or lemon, as lemon is not widely accessible in Indonesia — expensive because it is an imported fruit.

Chinese Tea in a Bakutteh Restaurant in Malaysia. Definitely a must try… 

While my mum is a coffee drinker, my dad is a tea drinker. He enjoys a good tea, and only drink it black. I think I learn it from him. The difference is, while I am not too fussy with my tea, my father could be a mini pain in the neck when he started making comments about what tea should be. Come to think of it.. almost all his siblings are pretty fussy about tea.

Whenever I come back from Indonesia, I always bring some boxes of tea for me and my sister in law. Indonesian tea (especially the jasmine tea version) is generally more fragrant than tea in the UK, which was imported from India. I am not saying they’re better, but I am used to tea from the other part of the world, and processed differently too. I mean, there are hundreds or thousands of tea variety in the world, in the end it is all about your preference, isn’t it?

Right… while in that part of Asia we enjoy tea with almost everything — including savoury food, here we have a special kind of tea drinking experience called Afternoon Tea, or High Tea.

High Tea or Afternoon Tea… Three Tiered Yums

I was finally able to convince my DH to go with me to enjoy an Afternoon Tea in the city. He is a coffee drinker, so he swapped his tea with coffee — don’t mind the heathen. He thought Afternoon Tea is an overpriced cake eating experience. I beg to differ…

I believe that afternoon tea is not just about eating cake and sandwich while drinking tea. For me it is a way for us to allocate a time for just us, enjoying the finer things in life without distraction from computer games, or mobile phone apps, or tv show. It is a great way to go on a date as a couple.

Seriously.

And you know what? When we finished the afternoon tea (we were allowed to bring the leftover home, so… bonus), he admitted that he quite enjoyed the whole experience. See?

Anyway… what else goes well with tea? You guessed it…

Knitting.

x ❤ x

 

WIP, Weekend, and Mini Achievement

Whoa… it’s a weekend again? How’s your weekend?

People in the US, the Caribbean, Asia, Mexico, Sierra Leone… Everybody. I hope you are all safe out there. It has been a tough week, but hopefully it will pass soon.

My weekend? Well.. not quite as productive as I expect it to be, but I managed to work on my WIP, and a mini achievement.

I think this is my first time I knit outdoor. I was super conscious about it, and wonder if people would start staring. However, I think because knitting is quite a British thing anyway, people didn’t bat an eyelid seeing someone knitting in public. How wonderful. Maybe when the weather is getting better, I would do that again.

For an achievement… I finally completed my German course in Duolingo. Now, I know how to make a simple sentence in German. But does it mean I can start conversing with a native speaker? I doubt it. This course is great if you want to start learning the basic. In the end of the course you would know how to make a sentence, ask for a cuppa, and thank people when they show your way back to your hotel if you get lost in Berlin. BUT, you wouldn’t have enough vocabulary even to translate “Thumbelina” — not kidding, I tried.

Nevertheless, it was still an achievement. So, here we go… *clears throat*

“wenn ihr Deutscher seid, oder Deutschsprechen leute, und ihr würdet gern mir helfen zu lernen — bitte”

How’s that?

x ❤ x

In The Flood

Enjoying a breezy but sunny day in Norwich, makes me very grateful. The news have brought home stories about hurricanes and floods everywhere in the world. It reminds me when I found myself trapped in a building because of the flood.

It was April 2004. I remember because… who can ever forget something so horrible like that?

I was supposed to be home, but I was on campus at that time because I was waiting for my boyfriend then to finish his class. From the eighth floor of the building, I could see the rain pouring outside, and one or two students went back in because they said they could not reach their vehicle on the parking area. In a matter of minutes water has gone up to our ankles.

It got darker outside, and my ex’s class finished but by then even more students stayed in because it was impossible to access the ground floor. We were trapped inside.

The university people decided to keep the air conditioning, and electricity on our floor on. But that’s all they could do. Nobody could get in to rescue us, nor can they get us food. Yes… no food. At all.

Some boys took the chance to hunt and gather, but most food shacks and eateries near our uni has closed. I assumed they closed earlier that that because of the rain and the flood. I can’t remember much what we did to pass the time, but I did remember one thing that night that change my attitude towards everything. I knew at that time what hunger is.

It wasn’t quite a starvation. But I knew what hunger was, and I remember it until today because that day I swore that I would never… ever… ever… take food for granted.

Most of the flood has gone by midday the next day, and I went back to my boarding house and find a devastation. It smells, and dirty. And some of my clothes were missing. It was horrible.

And it was just ONE night. And I still had a place to come home to.

I was lucky. But many people today aren’t as lucky as I was. Thousands of people lost their lives in South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh), because a massive flood has swept over the area. Many people lost their property and livelihood in the US because of the hurricane Harvey. And the hurricane Irma is coming to the Caribbean.

People… please be safe as much as you are. And my thoughts are with all of you.

x ❤ x

This Weekend…

Hello you… and you… and you…

…

Goodness… It’s so awkward to sound like an outgoing person. Let’s just skip that bit. How’s your weekend?

I started a new WIP, a jacket for my husband. Or cardigan. I honestly can’t really see the difference. Do you know the difference between jacket and cardigan for men. My husband likes to call it jacket because it probably sounds more manly for him.

Whatever works, Bro…

I am using the green wool I bought from iceyarn long time ago. I had it when it was on sale, and I only had for skeins of green. That’s why I combine it with blue for the ribbing bits. Hopefully it would be enough. Husband chose the colour combo, and I though it works alright. Let’s see…

We also went for another cream tea day. Now we had one in Ludham.

The tea room is called Alfresco Tea Room. Tea is wonderful. Food is exceptional. Husband bought Norfolk Pasties for himself, and thoroughly enjoyed his meal with a glass of latte. We love it. Better yet, the food and drink are very affordable. That is surprising because they’re using high quality local produce.

Recommended. Obviously.

So… there. We had a great weekend, too bad that all good things come to an end… Hope you had a great one too.

x ❤ x