When I saw that chokers were suddenly making a resurgence, I swore I would never ever wear one; however, just like my relationship with high waisted jeans and gothic plum lipstick, a couple months later I jumped right on the bandwagon and never looked back.

Having said that, I didn’t really want to spend money on such a trendy item (new goal, don’t waste money on trendy, single season junk!), so I decided to go the DIY route. After grabbing a bit of scrap yarn and some DPN’s, I was in business! It seems like I’m not the only one repurposing everyday stuff into accessories, and, after reading an article about how a shoelace choker blew up Twitter, I thought I’d share my little DIY project.

To make these bad boys, all you need is some scrap yarn (I chose fingering weight), two double pointed needles (the ones I used were 3.5mm), and the ability to make an i-cord (you can find a tutorial here). Once you’ve got everything you need, just knit an i-cord that is long enough to fit around your neck, making sure you leave enough yarn at the ends to tie together in a bow (I left about 8cm). That’s it!

I love scrap yarn projects; they feel incredibly productive (no yarn wasted here!) and they tend to make you think outside of the box. For this hat, I started off with some leftover Brooklyn Tweed Loft yarn and Purl Soho’s Color Dipped Hat pattern.

To make my hat with the colour quantities I had on hand, I altered the pattern a bit; most noticeably, I kept both the brim and the crown shaping in solid colours (using “Nest” and “Postcard”, respectively) and only alternated the colours in the middle of the hat. My biggest takeaway from this project was that, despite the end result being nice and thick, I really dislike the process of knitting in Fisherman’s Rib. Lesson learned, and at least I have a new hat!

Well, after many months (basically since my last post) and a very busy wedding photography season, my Ivar cardigan is finally complete! This is another gorgeous pattern from Brooklyn Tweed (find it here!) and was knit using their Loft yarn in “Nest”. Luckily I was able to finish it before a quick trip to Japan, so these photos were taken in Fukui, my Japanese hometown and the place where I learned to knit and started this blog.

Long ago, my good friend/knitting sensei advised me that trying one new technique per project was a great way to build up my knitting skills, and I’ve definitely taken that advice to heart. For this project, the new skill was set-in sleeves, which didn’t come easily to me. Successfully accomplishing this part of the project, however, has given me the (not quite deserved?) confidence to try out out TWO new techniques and a new style of stitch on my next sweater! Wish me luck — you probably won’t hear anything from me until Christmas 2016.

I really love this cardigan, and, from now on, I only want to knit Brooklyn Tweed patterns with Brooklyn Tweed yarn. The yarn is beautiful and feels great (whilst knitting and wearing), and their patterns and thoughtfully written and easy to follow. I’m hooked!

Now that it’s spring and warm enough to wear shorts, I’m finally starting to finish my winter knitting! Clearly I’ve got great timing…

This big, cozy sweater was knit using Robin, a pattern by Josée Paquin. Since I wanted something that I could laze around the house in on rainy Vancouver afternoons, I purposefully knit it a size too big using Anzula’s Squishy, a fantastically soft mixture of 80% superwash merino, 10% cashmere, and 10% nylon. The main colourway is “Elephant” and the stripes are in “Persimmon”.

This was a super easy seamless top-down knit. It also has dolman sleeves (which I love!) and the back is longer than the front (which makes it the perfect match for tights!). Pretty excited to wear this 24/7 next winter!

There’s something extraordinarily demotivating about an endless sea of stockinette; perhaps that’s why it took me over a year to finish this blanket wrap thing. It probably didn’t help that, for a very large chuck of the year, it’s far too warm to wear wool in Hong Kong.

Despite these odds, however, I persevered and finally finished my Rivage, a beautifully designed piece by Julie Hoover. The pattern can be found at Brooklyn Tweed along with the yarn I used (Brooklyn Tweed’s Loft). Loft is a beautiful fingering weight, 100% wool yarn that comes in some amazing colours with even more amazing names (for this project, I used Sweatshirt, Soot, and Old World).

The colour combos are basically endless for this piece, and I remember spending quite some time at work in HK (oops) trying to choose three for this project. I’ll definitely be using Brooklyn Tweed yarn again, and I’m already eyeing some                                                              of their sweater patterns and dreaming about colourways.