Little Piggy and The Frog

Time to start a new project. Haven’t stitched for ages now, so i guess my new WIP is… Cross stitch..

  

Was so happy stitching while watching an episode of NCIS New Orleans where Fornell was called in for help. I really think that Fornell deserves his own show, he’s one of my favourite recurring character. 

Then… I realised a big frog came. Blast!

Not the frog from NCIS episode. I am talking about my WIP now. Yes, needed rip it rip it. I hate it when i have to do that. It made my thread frays 😦 

Was thinking that maybe it’s time to buy wax for thread?

x ❤ x

This Little Piggy’s Chinese New Year

It is a bit late to talk about it, I know. But I was busy, so I did not have time to talk about my Chinese New Year when I visited Indonesia three weeks ago. Yes… I came back to Indonesia just for this. So, it is only proper if I talk about it.

Chinese New Year is never be the same again now that I am married. Yes, I am talking about the annual income called the hongbao or red envelope. In Chinese New Year’s day parents or the elders would distribute red envelope with money inside of it. Every year since I was a child I always receive tons of them from my parents, and relatives — and save the money in the bank. I love the red envelopes.

http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/Singapore/Story/A1Story20130110-394638.html

However it has to stop.

When someone is married, they are now considered as adults. See, when a person is not married in our culture, they are still considered as their parents’s children. However when they are married they are no longer attached to their parents and become adults. Some of them see this as the turning point from the hongbao receiver to the hongbao giver.

Me? No, I did not give money to kids. Not now. And probably not ever. My excuse for being a complete dick is that my husband don’t celebrate CNY :p Not a real reason, actually… I would love him to celebrate CNY just for this:

My only CNY happiness now rely solely on our CNY eve’s dinner.

Every year, my grandmother always make an open house dinner party. She would cook lots of really tasty Chinese food. Some are even traditional to our family heritage such as: Mei Cai Kou Rou — a very labour intensive steamed braised pork belly.

Of course, I love other food as well. I had to restrain myself from overeating. It took a really strong willpower not to fight with my siblings over a slice of goodness my grandmother made? Talking about my grandmother, I think it is time for her to hand me down the recipes of these food.

     

Maybe one day?

x ❤ x

This Little Piggy’s First Socks

Previously on “Bored Little Piggy”…

Lol. Sorry. I just watched too many NCIS episodes, I started imagining Gibbs doing an intro for my blog. It is not related to the theme of today’s post, but I really… really want to say it out loud: “I really want Ziva back. Please?”

Right. My WIP.

Apparently knitting a pair of socks is not as difficult as I thought it would be — as long as I didn’t force myself to keep knitting (one more row) after midnight. The dreaded heel flap and gusset were not as scary as I thought it could be. In fact, it was done very smoothly, without confusion whatsoever. I give it to the pattern — the instruction was clear and easy to understand.

The part that I consider the most difficult in this project is the finishing bit. Grafting. What the hell is grafting — okay, I could just look up the dictionary, but that’s not the point. Why don’t they just tell me to sew them together instead of giving me so much technical instruction like that? However… I managed to do it (barely).

They look alright, aren’t they?

Problem is, they are too big for me. I am not sure whether it was because I measured my feet wrong, or because my gauge was off. Either or, the socks are not belong to my husband whose feet fit the socks better.

Now that I have made my first socks project, I started to understand why for some people this project is so addictive. I have to say, that socks, unlike hat has a certain level of challenge. And unlike jumper, it is relatively quicker to finish. I said relatively, because I am only doing a very simple – basic socks pattern.

Hm… what am I going to do next?

x ❤ x

This Little Piggy is Feeling Adventurous

I think I have been knitting as long as I have been blogging. I know I only started this one a few months ago, but I have had so many blogs in the past that I did not maintain. If my calculation is correct — which usually is, I have been knitting (and blogging) for almost 12 years. I said almost, because I cannot remember the exact date when I went to the knitting class, and signed up for the course.

source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/285697170085134573/

However, I remembered my first ever project (finished project that is). It was a hat. Blue hat, with “Sirdar Denim DK”, for one of my best friend who was like a brother to me. He lived in the Netherlands now, and I haven’t seen him for ages — but we are not going to talk about him or the Netherlands. Maybe later… but not now.

For my 12 years of knitting experience, there are so many projects I deliberately avoid. Not because I don’t want to do it, but because I always feel that I don’t have enough skill to do it. And one of them is SOCKS.

I have seen so many knitters/bloggers posted their socks online, and I was so incredibly jealous of their magnificent skills. So I decided to break out from my comfort zone, go to ravelry and find an easy (very basic) sock pattern. And I found THIS.

It seems easy enough.

Most of the time it is the repetition of ribbing, and it will take a while. So I am going to come back to you after I go far enough to post more read-worthy entry. Okay?

Anyway, wish me luck for this project. I know the biggest problem that will await me in this particular project is the heelflap and the gusset. I don’t even know what gusset is — as English is not my first language, but I know roughly where it is.

So, see you soon.

x ❤ x

This Little Piggy Apologised in Advance

Why do I apologise in advance? Well… if you read this, you will find why…

I had so much fun making that Baable hat. Serious fun. No joke.

So much fun that I decided to make the second Baa-ble hat, with different colour. Yes, I have plenty of DK yarn lying around our living room after the yarn sale on QD’s birthday last September. Better make something of it before I buy more yarn.

I told my husband that since the first Baable hat was made in dark brown and dark blue yarn, I think I should make the second one with the lighter colour. I mean, if my husband and I are going to wear it at the same time, it would look as if we are wearing the “day” and “night” version.

“Sometimes, I am so amazed with my own overwhelmingly fantastic idea,” I said, replied only with my husband’s rolling eyes.

Just like magic… the second Baable hat appears.

Oh wait… Baable hat is supposed to have little fluffy ball on top of it. I just realised that in my previous entry, I did not put the photo of one with the bobble on it. So here we go… the reason why I apologised in advance.

I have to say that I am not a really big fan of selfies. I mean… selfies. Some selfies are alright, I don’t want to generalise. I do selfies once in a while, mainly because I always think that photos taken by other people are not good enough — some people really don’t have a sense of artistry. But most of the time, selfies are just… horrible. Now — remember that I have apologised in advance — I am going to do something that I despise myself. Posting a horrible selfie.

In my defence, I am only doing this so that people could see how the baable hat would look like when it is worn by real people — side by side. So bear with this for once, OK?

For the sake of humanity, I cropped our face. I don’t want to accidentally traumatise anyone who stumbled upon this blog. But here they are. Couple’s Baable hat, with “night” and “day” version.

x<3x

 

 

This Little Piggy’s Baable Hat

Gosh… I finally caught up on this Baable Hat craze. Being in Indonesia for a month, and away from my stash certainly made me slightly outdated. So, I have decided that my first project this year should be the Baable Hat.

What is Baable Hat really? Well it is the official 2015 wool week pattern made by Donna Smith. It is an incredibly cute pattern and you can get it for free from the website and also from ravelry, and there is no way I don’t knit that one.

It seems a bit daunting for me to start this project though. I did make hats in the past, so I was quite familiar with how DPN works — it is no longer too awkward working with 4 needles (I might want to buy one in sets of 5).

However, the idea of doing the fair-isle-ish technique is a little bit worrying me. I have tried that before and it did not end up well since I was knitting the hat too tightly. So tension is the focus in this project.

It is going well so far, isn’t it? It was not too difficult at all. I can already see the cuteness radiating from the project. I can feel that it is getting thick and warm inside too because of the excess yarn from the pattern. I just hope the “one size for all” would work for my husband.

Oh well… it takes three days for me to make this one. It does look alright, and I have tried it in my own head and it fits. I think my husband has a bigger hat that I do, so we’ll see about it later…

cheers~

x<3x