Can’t decide which one/ones to leave behind so I just got all. Set me back more than ₱2K, yup 😩. I’m never stepping inside a Fully Booked (a local bookstore) again…

The WIP that’s been taking all my time after I cast it on this new year

Ever since we came back from Korea, I was determined to knit my husband a new sweater. He’s worn the first (and only) long-sleeved sweater I made for him so much and he consistently remarked he wished it had pockets. Well, far be it for me to disappoint, I’m doggedly making Tea with Bread and Jam by Heidi Kirrmaier while the temps here are not yet oven-levels. As you can probably imagine, the worsted weight sweater will be on my lap as it grows, and at 30 plus Celsius, that spells torture. Ah, the things I do in the name of love.

I wonder what qualifies as a fantastic toilet 🤔

Permission granted.

Do I get an “Awww?”

“Take me to your leader.” That’s what came to my mind when I saw her.

We did not have a lot of time to explore the area of Dongdaemun Design Plaza this snowy Christmas Day. This lady did not seem to mind the cold so it’s just right to say hello to her.

The best part of freezing my behind off in arctic places is the chance to wear some of my handknit sweaters and accessories. These are just a few of them. Most of the time here in Seoul, I bury myself in them to make sure I don’t end up like an icicle. I’m grateful to be here though, especially when we are reunited with our daughter.

Want a spoonful of perfect snow crystals?

A thin blanket of snow greeted us this morning

Pleasantly surprised to see a reminder of home in a subway in Seoul.

It’s the last moon that I will see over Manila. See you again in 10 days.

I’m on a roll… I recently finished Nelson and Alex DeMilles' The Deserter (4.5 stars for me) so I grabbed another book from the pile.

My husband watched this limited series on Netflix and DNF (Did Not Finish). He swore off any work by Harlan Coben since then, that’s how badly he received the first couple of episodes. I’ve read a few of Mr. Coben’s novels before hence I don’t understand Husband’s reaction. (Well, he didn’t like Where the Crawdads Sing film either which I read and totally enjoyed.) I prefer reading books to watching TV and movies so maybe my reception to the story will once again be the opposite of his.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…. This huge brightly lit Christmas tree stands beside a local Starbucks, twinkling the night away.

Korea, we are a go….

The family got our travel visas and we whooped collectively. We are really looking forward to freezing our butts off in the land of kimchi and k-dramas as we count off the last days of 2023.

Applying for a visa (for citizens of third-world countries like ours haha) is always a pain. So many docs to present during the application. And then there’s often that anxiety when the embassy does not return sensitive documents like birth certificates, bank certificates, SEC articles, etc. I hope data privacy law in this country really, truly works. FINGERS FIRMLY CROSSED.

Incidentally, I am equally amused and surprised our visas are just paper copies. There goes my penchant for collecting visa stamps in my passports.

It’s the First of December in my corner of the world.

Caught my son browsing the shelves

I picked up this book during a recent trip to National Book Store. It’s my first Nelson DeMille work. Not bad…. It keeps me reading which keeps my hands from knitting. I need my hands off my knitting needles because I can feel some pain already at times. The writing style reminds me of James Patterson. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. 📖📚

Hot Off The Needles and already I am planning to frog it. 🧶

This is the Little Lace Scarf by Lisa Hannes.

TBVH, I dislike the finished object. The pattern is great, the design is too, but I realized now that my yarn was not ideal for the project. I used Knitting for Olive Pure Silk, which is, as the name suggests, 100% silk. Which means, it is crazy soft and drapey. Not good for something that is long and narrow. I feel like I have draped a basahan (that’s our local word for cleaning rag) around my neck, huhuhu. I have yarn left over because I initially intended to make two tassels for it. Luckily, I still have not gotten around to cutting the yarn.

I’m really sorry I don’t love this scarf at all. I feel like I wasted a lot of time doing it. Maybe I would have been happier had I used a rounder, plumper yarn instead and it’s not as long. (I measured the finished scarf and it’s more than 2.5 meters long tip to tip. Oh, my goodness.)

Once I’m ready, I will frog it and make another Silke by Justyna Lorkowska. I think that design and this yarn should be a better match.

Once in a while I get it in my head that I want to knit socks. 🧶

(On a scale of 1 to 10, I am a 2 as a sock knitter. I just don’t enjoy it. Second Sock Syndrome? I practically invented it.)

Once in a while though I get rewarded with something nice and functional, like this pair.

Owing to the beauty of the self-striping nature of my sock yarn, I knitted myself something that I could wear with my flip flops. It’s basically all vanilla until I reach the toes. I followed the instructions from Sake Socks (a free pattern by Jackie Tabor www.ravelry.com/patterns/…).

Maybe it will take a long time before I knit myself socks again but for now, I will enjoy these and thank the sock gods for holding my hand along the way.

Aren’t they cute?

I knitted a vest for my husband.

Admittedly, it has a feminine silhouette but he’s not complaining. Or dares not 😂 . He reasons he’s wearing a jacket over it anyway so it’s hardly visible. The important thing is the wooly garment will keep him warm in winter. The family is going to Seoul this December so we’ll be needing a lot of cold-weather clothes on this trip.

The yarn I used was repurposed from a test knit I did two years ago.It used to be a woman’s open cardigan. Now it’s a man’s vest. Something tells me this might not be its final journey yet 😉

It’s no secret that I am an avid knitter. I can be incorrigible as well for I insist on making garments that are not suitable for tropical Manila weather.

One of my favorite pastimes is pattern searching on Ravelry - a monster internet resource for all things knitting/crochet/weaving-related patterns. And this morning while I was watching a YouTube video podcast, the host featured a design that immediately caught my eye. Naturally, I jumped to Ravelry and checked it out.

This is the Soft Loop Sweater by Other Loops. The design can be seen and the pattern purchased here www.ravelry.com/patterns/…

I love the softness of the fabric as seen from the project photos. I love the way the turtleneck wraps around the model. I just don’t like the amount of positive ease (or how loose the garment is going to be), especially since it is boxy in silhouette. I’ve done a few of those boxy sweaters and know that it’s not for me; the deep armscye is a major turnoff for me personally. However, since I have a few years of experience in knitting, I am quite confident that I can work my way around that. Now all I need is to take a deep breath, push this thought aside in the meantime, focus on finishing some of my WIPs (works in progress), and then come look at it again in the future. If I still want it then Bob’s my uncle.

Some days it helps to keep this is mind.

Irreverent but wacky.

Yesterday was our 30th wedding anniversary. Time indeed flew. Lately, I have been saying that if I were given a chance to go back 30 years, I would choose not to have children. I am sorry I will be leaving them to deal with the poor state, not just of the Philippines but also of the world in general. Is there still time to turn things around? Things are looking bleak.

I slept too soundly last night so I missed the heavy downpour that went on for half an hour according to my husband. There’s an incoming typhoon (International name Koinu, renamed Jenny when it entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility), that’s why. It’s extra special humid at 8 in the morning and I am sweating buckets, LOL. There’s a local saying, “Pana-panahon lang iyan” to mean whatever is happening is temporary and is likely to change without warning. Because Filipinos are very jolly people, we sometimes say, “Weather weather lang iyan.” It’s funny but accurate. If the weather bureau says it’s going to rain, I’m not leaving home without my rain gear.