#6 scallop hat

 Hey everyone 🙂 Just a quick little post. This week I made two scallop hats in an attempt to do some stashbusting. I knew I would not have a whole lot of time to knit this week, so I only ended up making two of these. The picture shown is of the small hat (cast on 81 stitches), the adult one (cast on 96) looks exactly the same. Fun little pattern to work up – fast and easy. It was a good way to refresh holding back yarn and making the pattern.

Maybe for next week I should make something that is not a #hat …

Have a lovely week!

#5 Danish Forest Scarf

Hi everyone 🙂 I told myself that I wanted to post something every week, and I have 30 more minutes left of today (March 1st). My family and  are in Newfoundland for a week so we are in this weird timezone. So tadaa! This is a scarf I made for a coworker as a secret-santa gift a while ago. I really underestimated how long it would take me to complete  this gift – so it was a lot of stress. But when it was finally done I was very happy with how it turned out. The color is a very warm red, and if I recall correctly the yarn consists of 30% wool. The overall scarf is quite heavy, which I prefer for winter scarves as they add warmth. I’m very very pleased with it. It took me a while to get this post up as, in my hurry, I forgot to take pictures before I gave it to her – so I had to ask her to bring it into work.

Have a lovely week everyone! Stay warm 😀

 

#4 traveling cable hat

Hi again everyone, what a lovely Tuesday to knit and blog about knitting. 🙂 I am proud to present to you , my traveling cable hat.

I have been telling myself that I need to do some serious stashbusting before I can allow myself to buy some new yarn (sound familiar?) and so I dug up these grey and white yarns, which I am pretty sure my grandmother gave to me when I told her I had taken up knitting. By themselves the strands would have been too thin, but I like how the colour turned out when I knitted them together. It’s a very soft colour which is perfect for autumn and late winter.

The pattern worked up very nicely, but I did find myself struggle over the cables sometimes. I have to work on loosening my stitches when I am doing cables, rather than making everything so tight. Luckily the yarn is quite forgiving and stretches once you wear it a couple of times. So voila 🙂 I quite like it, I’ve never made a project with such extensive cable patterning before. I tried to get the cat to be my model, but he wasn’t having it.

I’m so glad I’ve started knitting again, I had forgotten how calming I find it.

Have a lovely day!

#3 lace legs

Hi everyone,

I’ve been itching to knit knit knit, but life (aka grad school applications) kept on getting in the way. Now that everything is submitted and taken care of, I can sit back and get in some “Netflix and knit” time. It feels wonderful!

These lace leg legwarmers took a while, and you can see from my notes that I worked on the pattern in short stints. I like to write out the pattern on a sheet of paper and carry it around with me. For each day that I work on the project I will use a different marker, so I can see how much I get done on individual days. Do you keep track like that, or is it just me? Maybe I should invest in a pretty booklet to keep all my pattern writeups in.

So anyway, this is what my lace legs ended up looking like. As I only have size 6 double pointed needles (working on that, as soon as I clear some of my yarnstash I will allow myself to buy something yarn related) I casted on 40 stitches and worked the pattern 12 times. I think they turned out great – good practice on the double pointed needles. I’ve put them in my ‘gift basket’ for now, maybe they will make a great present or I will keep them for myself.

I’m already working on project #4 and I’m pretty excited about how it’s turning out 😀 Have a good week everyone!!

 

#2 a bunch of friends

Hello everyone, time for post number 2! I was cleaning up my room the other day and came across these guys, which I made in highschool. Now I take them to work and they are a great help in developing imaginary play skills. It’s been a while since I’ve done some amigurumi, maybe I should try and find the pattern again so I can make a couple more. Aren’t they cute?! Granted, it’s an old project of mine, but they deserve to be showcased. I remember feeling pretty proud of them when I made them in the learning-how-to-crochet days.

Have a lovely week everyone!

project #1 and downsizing to 110

Hi everyone,

tadaaa I finished my first project of 2016 (even though I am a couple of days late as I wanted to post on the 15th). I was going to make a hat for my friend in Montreal (the same one I made these leggings for), and I gave her a couple of pattern options. She chose for the Declan hat pattern, by Samantha Kirby. It’s a pretty simple knit, and I like the pattern it created in the end. I don’t know why it took me so long to complete this project, I guess life happened.

In other news, I have downsized my ravelry queue to contain only 110 possible future projects – what a feat! I am pretty pleased with myself, but there is still a lot to be done before I can start to add new projects to the queue. Add me on ravelry of you want, I’m “nikske”.

Let’s see what project #2 will be – 110 things to choose from! 😀

2016 resolutions and such

Hi everyone 🙂

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying your holidays. I hope the new year will bring lots of love and laughter, and adventures which will leave you with beautiful memories!

Ofcourse the new year brings resolutions, and I would love to spend some more time on my blog in 2016. Through this blog I wanted to share some of my passions, stamps from all over the world and knitting. I’ve recently picked up knitting again and can’t believe I did not pick up the needles for about a year. Now I’m hooked again (forgive the pun). My stamp collection is still slowly growing, it is hard to come by unused ‘lick’ stamps. I’ve got 29 countries right now, and would love to get up to 40 this year. Fingers crossed.

Right now I am working on a hat for a friend of mine. I’ll probably finish it in the first few days of 2016, and so it will be my first project of 2016

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND HAPPY 2016!! 😀

Country #25 China

My friend who is studying in China, and who also happens to be the President of the stamp and coin club at my university, send me this lovely postcard and some cute Chinese stamps. In return I sent him some postcards when I was in Europe. So excited to add this country to my collection! 😀

A year of collecting unused stamps :)

Hey everyone 🙂

It’s been a while since I last wrote – I’ve been travelling a bunch and so it’s been rather hard to keep up the blog. I just wanted to post something today, as it is around this time last year that I started to collect unused stamps from all over the world. I did not expect to be able to collect this many countries over the past year. Now hopefully I will be able to continue to add to my collection next year; as it will get harder and harder to acquire new countries. All of the ones I have so far are because I have traveled to these places or because friends and family have traveled there and have been so kind as to find a local postoffice while on vacation. It’s just so neat to see the stamps in perfect condition, telling a piece of history. I’ll try to upload some more pictures soon. For now, here is my list of countries I have collected so far 🙂

1. Canada
2. Australia
3. Fiji
4. New Zealand
5. Belgium
6. France
7. South Africa
8. USA
9. Thailand
10. Japan
11. Hungary
12. Germany
13. India
14. Mexico
15. Barbados
16. Jamaica
17. Azerbaijan
18. Pakistan
19. Poland
20. United Kingdom
21. Ireland
22. Czech Republic
23. Austria
24. The Netherlands

stamp country #18 Pakistan

Hello everyone 🙂 I am beyond excited to tell you about my new addition! One of my friends whom I met in Australia but who is originally from Pakistan, sent me some stamps when she was back home. It is so wonderful to add Pakistan to my collection, as the 18th country since I started collecting in June of 2014. I’m so happy to see the continued growth in my collection!

These definitives from 1994, depicting Jinnah, are my favourites. I love how intricate the stamp is, incorporating design and history.

 

 

I went into a stamp shop the other day, and as I was looking through their selection of mint-unhinged stamps from all different countries, I found that I will not be able to purchase from a store to enhance my collection. It just seemed like I was cheating. Ofcourse, this means that it will be a lot harder to acquire stamps fro every country in the world. I will have to depend on my travels as well as the travels of my friends and family, so that each stamp in my collection has a story to tell rather than ‘I bought it in a philately store’.

I wonder which country I will acquire next. Any guesses?