Tag: blogger

Knitting, Crochet, Crafting, Art & More

Finished Object | Anker’s Sweater by PetiteKnit

bookishluna3 Comments

Hello and welcome to a little post where I share some of the details about my most recently finished knitting project, the Anker’s Sweater (Website|Ravelry)! This project is a top down textured yolk sweater with some raglan increases, the rest of the sweater is stockinette. This particular pattern is made for sizes 3 months to 8 years. So, it works up super quickly! I ended up making the size 9-12 months so it can be used next fall/winter by the baby and their parents. I figured, they would get a ton of stuff for when the baby is very tiny, so having something for down the road would be helpful.

Picture of completed baby sweater on a comforter.

Why This Pattern

Well, I made this project for a few reasons, the first being I made an adult T-shirt version of this sweater in the past so I was very familiar with the construction already. This is for sure a beginner friendly pattern, but already knowing kind of how it was going to work up was for sure a selling point on the pattern. I also had yarn that I could use for the project already in my stash, so I wouldn’t have to wait to receive an order or take a tip to a yarn store. Normally, I would have no qualms about doing either of these, but I found out about the shower about a month before it was set to happen. Time was for sure not on my side to complete this project.

The Yarn

For this project it calls for two strands of fingering held double, which tends to be a DK once combined. Taking that into consideration, I took a peak at my yarn stash, I had a large enough pile of worsted weight yarn and did a swatch. It worked out so I decided to use Encore Worsted Solids & Heathers from Plymouth Yarn. I also liked that it was made of a material that could be washed with a little less care. Always good for baby things. I ended up using a green/blue color called 678 Light Green Forest.

While Knitting

Picture of half finished sweater next to its project bag with a wintery scene fabric on a couch.

This thing worked up so quickly, it was kind of hard to believe. I have never made a baby sweater, so that might be why I thought it was going to take longer. I knew, obviously, that it would work up faster than one of my sweaters, but honestly, it was kind of staggering how fast it went. On the first day I was already 60% though the yoke, the second day I was already entirely through the yoke and halfway through the remaining body. Only two days and I was working on other projects. The arms also only took about a day each, this really is a fast knit, I didn’t even knit the smallest size. The one thing I noticed while working is I did not enjoy working on such small circumference with a thicker yarn. It was more so noticeable the first 10 rows of each sleeve. It felt like there was just too much around my hands, but once length was added it was perfectly fine.

Thoughts Overall

I really think this is a great simple pattern with a little something going on for visual interest. It is a combination of simple stiches, and uses them to make something that looks harder than it is. Obviously, it still takes some work, and those increases can be tricky if you are unfamiliar with them, but a quick tutorial on youtube will fix that quickly. It was also well written pattern, it was all straight forward. Also, I just want to make it clear, I did not make any modifications to this pattern other than working with worsted weight yarn. So, this really shows how much I enjoyed this pattern, I tend to make modifications to wearables these days. I think I would for sure make this pattern again since the process was fun and enjoyable and the outcome was super cute and I cannot wait to gift it.

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Life Style

Decluttering 7 Things for 7 Days

bookishluna2 Comments

Hello and welcome to a decluttering post, I have done some cleaning and decluttering things in the past. I have not made a post on the topic in a while, but I wanted to get back to it for a few reasons. The first and main reason is that I felt that a lot more clutter has found its way back into my life. Now, my living situation has changed in the last year so it could be because I have less room so everything seems more cluttered, but either way I notice it and I am not particularly happy with that. The second reason is that I really would like to just keep things around me that I use or need to operate the things in my life.

So, I was scrolling around YouTube with this in mind and I came across a video by The After Work Channel where she did a 7 day declutter challenge where she got rid of 7 items per day for an entire week. I enjoyed her video and it inspired me a bit because I thought I was going to have to tackle something like I had in the past, but this idea was a bit more accessible for me time wise and with the space I have. I can easily find 7 things that I am no longer using for a week. So, I did it and here are the things I ended up getting rid of and to hopefully move back towards a more minimalist space that I had.

Day 1

  • 5 skeins of dk yarn I am not going to use
  • 1 ruler where it has a wonky edge
  • 1 pencil holder I don’t really need since I have a pen container in my desk.

Day 2

  • 13 socks, did a little extra and got rid of all my socks without a match

Day 3

  • 2 boxes of razor heads, there was only one in each box anyway
  • 1 comb, don’t use it really ever.
  • 1 spray deodorant, does not work well.
  • 1 pill organizer, don’t need it.
  • 1 hand sanitizer, was leaking everywhere!
  • 1 glasses plate, I don’t keep my glasses on there anyway.

Day 4

  • 1 heel cream, don’t like the smell.
  • 1 pack of makeup sponges, I apply my makeup with a brush.
  • 1 bottle of toner, toner breaks me out every time.
  • 1 peach makeup pouch, I don’t need it. I was using a different pouch to hold everything anyway.
  • 1 shaver, never opened or used.
  • 1 bar of soap, I don’t like bar soaps.

Day 5

  • 8 bottle of nail polish, they were all colors that dried out.

Day 6

  • 1 broken thumb brace
  • 5 pack of money pouches, from my cash wallet days when I was learning to budget
  • 1 eyeshadow pallet, I never reach for it and I always use my single shade anyway,
  • 1 coin purse, I thought I had lost it, turned out it fell behind my night stand.
  • 1 pack of emery boards, I use a glass file now.
  • 2 pairs of eyebrow scissors, they were starting to rust and I am not using anything rusty.
  • 2 nail files, I use a glass file and do not really like the metal ones personally.
  • 1 perfume sample, I didn’t love the scent and I have one I love that I use daily.
  • 1 pack of post-it tabs, not really large enough to be of use to me.

Day 7

  • 1 apple watch box, I need to stop keeping boxes forever.
  • 1 apple watch strap box, I really need to stop keeping boxes for years and years.
  • 1 pair of broken head phones, these were over 10 years old.
  • 4 packs of alternate ear buds, why did I keep all of the options of they didn’t work for my ears?
  • 1 old iPad cover, kept to make sure a newer one worked before tossing it. It’s time has now come.
  • 1 budget notebook, the layout didn’t work for my current needs.

Outcome

Did I meet my goal of getting rid of 49 things? After looking back at everything, yes I did! I ended up getting rid of a total of 65 things, that means I got rid of an extra 16 unused items. I realized pretty early on in this week long challenge that doing a certain area of the house or room was more helpful than just walking around the house picking 7 things. It led me to really take a look at what I had in that category and get rid of everything I was not going to be using. This led me to get rid of more than 7 things on a lot of the days, because I didn’t just stop after the 7 items were found, but continued to work through that area.

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Let's Talk

Let’s Talk | Blogmas Post Ideas

bookishluna9 Comments

Hello and welcome to a little post I think some people might find helpful this month. December is a truly magical time of the year, but it is also a time where many bloggers accept the challenge of posting for 24 days straight. I though that while I am not planning on doing the entire 24, but we shall see, this post might help a few people out.

Blogmas Ideas

Winter themed tag, I know I did a really fun one called Baby It’s Cold Outside Book Tag. It was such a blast!

Discussing a favorite winter memory and getting personal with your followers.

Sharing your go to warm beverage recipe.

Taking some time to share pictures of your decorations this year.

Make a list of things you are thankful for this past year.

Checking in on your 2020 goals.

Share a top five with your followers, maybe talk about books, movies, shows, candles and more.

Share a few small businesses you love.

Share some goals you have for yourself going into the new year.

Get personal and share something you learned about yourself in 2020.

Share a few pictures of your favorite wrapping supplies, I know I love the wrapping paper and bows!

Share your favorite posts from this past year, nothing wrong with giving yourself a shout out.

Take a day to do a low effort post and jus share what you are doing that day.

Write letter to your future or past self. If you do the future version, it might be fun to do a reaction for next years blogmas!

I hope those of you who are taking on this challenge have found a few of these helpful. Best of luck in your challenge and I wish you all he best this blogmas!

What are you writing about this month?

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Bullet Journal Jottings, Writing & More

Bullet Journal | March 2020

bookishluna11 Comments

Bullet Journal

Hello and welcome to another month and another look into my bullet journal! I am very excited about this months spreads because they are all inspired by my new adventure I am starting this month. I go into a bit of detail in my post Let’s Talk| A New Language Adventure. So, I wanted to really inspire myself because I feel like it takes a month to make a habit, so I wanted to make sure I stayed inspired and reminded to take even a few moments a day to study. Now, here are the spreads I am using this month!

So, this month I really wanted to create a calendar to refer back to because I feel like I was missing it mainly because when I needed to make appointments and such it was a bit of a pain flipping through a bunch fo pages. This way, I can quickly look at one page and have all of the information I need and I can add it to my weekly spreads later. I decided I wanted to add some Korean to my monthly spread, so I labeled the month and days in Korean. Since I am just starting to learn I added the pronunciation at the bottom oof each day. I am really in love with how it came out.

I once again am adding my tried and true reading log and tbr page I have been using for months and I absolutely adore. So, since I use it every month I am going to keep it. I am going too put a picture of a completed spread below.

Here is a completed version of my book/reading tracking tbr page.

I decided to add my blog notes and posts into my bullet journal. I still have a separate planner for it, but sometimes I just like to have everything in once place instead of just spread around when I am writing on the go. I feel like that is why I have been “behind” on my blogging this month. So, this is my way of trying to fix it. I also decided to put a picture from Korea on the right hand side.

So, I decided to mix up my weekly spreads this month. On the left I decided to make my spread two columns instead of just one. I feel like I just wanted to change it up a bit and I wanted to add a bit of color. I decided on this color because it was a matches the color in the picture on the previous page.

So, this is the last new page of my bullet journal this month. I decided to have a bit of a tracker for my. Korean study. Since I am using the Talk to Me in Korean series I wanted to make sure I marked my progress and everything like that. I know I am personally motivated by seeing this type of progress.

So, there is my bullet journal for the month of March. I am really excited to use it.

What theme are you using in your bujo this month?

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Let's Talk

Let’s Talk | Updated Annotating Kit

bookishluna4 Comments

Let's Talk

Hello everyone! A few / a lot of *months* ago (sorry) I posted a poll on twitter to see if anyone was interested in an update on my current essentials for reading, reviewing, and annotating my books. I will say I was not really anticipating a yes, but it seems like it is something that at least a few people wanted to see. So, without more rambling, let’s get to business!

For a reference moving forward, in my previous post, my essentials were: bookmark, mini notebook, 2 mechanical pencils and post-it tabs. If you want some more detail, you can find that here: Writing | My Reading/Review Kit. I didn’t really have specific pencils or anything, but just whatever was available and I already had.

Over the course of nearly a year and a half I feel like a lot has changed when it has come to my review essentials. I feel like I whittled what I carry around and use because I carry so much around for my work. Since I am always carrying around a ton of things, I really tried to not add more, mainly to ensure I don’t break my back. While obviously a few pens and a mini notebook aren’t heavy, but every little thing adds up. Anyway, here are the things I carry around with me now.

My go to writing implement is no longer a pencil, but a pen. I came into the problem where things were getting smudged and I getting graphite everywhere! I now use a Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Pen in the color Salmon. It is a light pink in color, which is a perfect combination of grabbing my attention when I go back to look at my notes, but not enough to be to distracting if I was to reread.

A few of the other things to go are my mini notebook, bookmark, and post it tabs. I realized that the mini notebook was not essential and with the lighter color pen I was able to write my notes in the margin or use a notecard, which I was inspired by Waving Fiction’s post, Why I Use Notecards in My Books. But, I only use a notecard in some books, where I realize I am writing a bit too much to fit on a margin. I do note the page number for my notes if I do use a notecard so I can refer back to a quite if my note doesn’t make sense when I look over them.

The last thing I want to mention is a little addition to my essentials and this would be a mini ruler. I was driving myself crazy with lines that went crooked or I accidentally wrote in the middle of a line, so I picked up a ruler. Now, the one I got is metal, but has cork on the underside so I don’t feel like it could hurt my book any, which is great. The best part is I carry it around anyway because I use one in my bujo too! If you want to check my bujo out, you can look at my spreads and such here: Projects: Bullet Journal.

Thanks so much for reading about my annotating supplies, I know it isn’t as much as it used to be, but this is what works for me! I also hope that this little explanation helps you find what works for you on your reviewing and annotating journey!

Do you have any annotation go to supplies?

Do you write in your books or on something else?

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Let's Talk

Blogmas | Let’s Talk | What I Want From Blogging

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LetsTalk12:17

Hello and welcome to this little discussion post! Since it is nearing the end of the year and my wordpress renewal went through I wanted to take this time and reflect on what I truly want from blogging and to check in and see if my motivation for it has changed since I started writing and posting on here.

So, when I first started blogging I was still in college and I had a very different way of life. A lot of the people I went to school with loved to read, but no longer really had the time to read due to our heavy reading loads. My degree was reading and critique heavy, so it is understandable that a lot of my peers didn’t want to pick up a book over reading a text and determining if it biased and how and if sources are right and so on. I on the other hand went to books to relax and still read a decent amount, but not as much as I do now.

I started to blog because I saw other book blogs online and I wanted to jump in on the conversation. I wanted to chat and gush about books I loved and hear what others had to say about their favorite reads of the year, month or in general. I feel like this is why a lot of us started our book blogs, if I am wrong please feel free to correct me.

Now, many years later and out of college my life has changed a lot. I actually have more time to read if I feel like it, I don’t pressure myself to read. If book blogging every did that to me I would honestly walk away. Reading in my hobby and how I enjoy my time, if anything stops that from happening outside of the dreaded book slump, Hello November 2019 Slump I am looking at you, I would stop. Now, I still am here to talk books and hear about others gush about books. I still want to talk to bloggers, I even started a twitter since I started blogging and I am on there all the time.

But, the question is, do I want more? The honest answer is yes. I would love to start a book club or a podcast of sorts. I feel like these would support my overall goal for blogging, connecting and talking books with awesome people. I know reading a blog is not always doable and bookclubs and podcasts are a wonderful alternate option. I also want to have more discussion posts like this, sometimes just reading information about what a person is reading or doing isn’t always inviting to comment on, but preficit it by saying “Let’S Talk”, it seems way more inviting.

Overall, I just want to find new ways to connect to you, my readers and fellow book lovers.

If you blog what do you want out of blogging? Have you ever blogged?

Do you still blog or have you stopped? If you stopped what were the reasons? 

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Bullet Journal Jottings, Writing & More

Bullet Journal | August 2019

bookishluna16 Comments

Recs

Hello everyone! Today I am going to give you a peek inside of my August bullet journal. Like the past few months I am really inspired by plantbasedbride’s theme. This month I took from her watercolor ocean  vibe. I am really feeling the deep blues and greens, not sure why because blue is not my most favorite color, but I am going with it. I also changed up my weeklies for the first time in the last few months, I hope it works out well. Anyway, here is my bullet journal!

The image on the left I fell in love with. I did some googling and came across Let’s Make Art  she has an entire kit you can buy or you can use her print out and paint along with her if you have paints already. It is so cute and I loved how she shared her talent. As normal I have a mini calendar on the other page so I can have a quick reference for the month.

I really have been loving this new social media calendar I have been using. It really is great to be able to see everything in one place and visual see when I past because lists of dates don’t really work for me. I added a little quote with my stamp set on top of a water color water image I came across.

Here is my favorite spread of the month, my NEWTs page. I wanted to take a bit of inspiration from Book Roast and her first OWLs bullet journal tracking page. I loved the look of used roughed up parchment. On the left I printed out my desired career and put it down as a little bit of inspiration and motivation and on the right I placed the NEWTs grade I need. I didn’t write in my books from my TBR, which you can find here:___. The reason is because sometimes I don’t stick to a TBR, so I decided I would write in the book title when I read a book that meets the NEWTs requirements. I had a lot of fun doodling the castle and the fancy HP font for NEWTS.

This page is just like I have every month. It works really well for me so I don’t want to change it. I did add a bit of color to tie in the water / ocean theme. On the right I draw a physical representation in the form of spares or rectangles for the days I read a particular book. These books are color coded based upon the color that is assigned to them on the key page.

This is my new weekly spread. I decided that I did not need an hourly breakdown for the upcoming month and I didn’t want to have wasted space and waste my time making something I don’t need. I put all of the days on the left hand side and on the right I left open for notes and reminders. I did put a mini calendar on the top corner and highlight the week I am currently in. It gives me a good visual perspective as to where I am during the month.

This month I also decided to redo my blog kanban board. I found that I needed to redo the order of the steps. I find that it is best for me to write my posts first and then take the pictures. I also gave myself a little more room the blocks are larger and I left a page blank.  On the left side I decided to leave it blank to hold the tabs for the days I need to brain storm topic idea. It is a nice visual for me to see empty tabs with dates waiting for my attention.

What Bujo spread is the most used by you?

Do you track your reading outside of goodreads?

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Tags

Tag | Sunshine Blogger Award

bookishluna6 Comments

TagTimel12:17I was tagged by Renée over at Global Bookworm, she has some great posts on her blog such as why you should become a global bookworm. I hope you check out her blog and see what she is up to.

Also, the next few Tuesday will be filled with fun tags that I need to get caught up on. I hope you all enjoy reading my answers and also consider yourself tagged!

RULES:

  • Thank the blogger who nominated you in a blog post and link back to their blog.
  • Answer the 11 questions the blogger asked you.
  • Nominate 11 new blogs to receive the award and ask them 11 new questions
  • List the rules and display the sunshine blogger award logo in your post/or on your blog

Divider 2Previous Editions

Tag Time | The Sunshine Blogger Award Vol. 7

TAG | Sunshine Blogger Award Vol. 6

TAG |The Sunshine Award Vol. 5

TAG | The Sunshine Blogger Award Vol. 4

TAG | Sunshine Blogger Award Vol. 3

TAG | The Sunshine Blogger Award Vol. 2

THE SUNSHINE BLOGGER AWARD

The Questions

  1. Why did you start a book blog?
    • I wanted to have a place where I could share my love of reading as well as talk with others who have the same love of books. Since a lot of my friends aren’t readers like myself I wanted to find some new ones online.
  2. What is the best book which has been written in your country?
    • Oh, this is a hard one. I think my favorite book Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. There are so many wonderful stories though.
  3. Which book is you guilty pleasure?
    • I don’t think any books I read I would consider “guilty pleasures”.
  4. What is your favorite non-fiction book?
    • My favorite non-fiction would be The Witches: Salem, 1692. I highly recommend it since it reads more like a narrative and the content is very interesting.
  5. When would you say that your blog is a (big) success?
    • I would say my blog is a big success every time I have a wonderful interaction with one of my readers since that was the reason why I created it in the first place.
  6. Which book do you believe should be mandatory to read at all schools worldwide?
    • I don’t know if I could answer this because a book that would be useful, relevant, and meaningful in every country, state, and town.
  7. Do you rather buy your books or get them from the library?
    • I really enjoy using my library for books I am iffy about, but I enjoy buying books that I really loved.
  8. Which mistakes did you make when you started blogging?
    • I think the biggest mistake I made was that I went a little over the top when I got started, which led to getting burned out quickly and then not posting again for months. I eventually redid everything and tried again.
  9. How do you take care of yourself and you mental health?
    • I make sure I have me time, which could be me just hanging out by myself, doing something I have wanted to do, or just eating my favorite meal. I realized that I need to set time aside to do things I feel like doing and it goes a long way.
  10. From which country would you like to read a book?
    • I would love to read a book that takes place in Egypt. I loved reading non-fiction books about the country, but I can say I never read a fiction set in the country. Any recommendations are welcome!
  11. If you could give advice to a blogger who starts today, what would it be?
    • Write about what you love, those who share those interests will come. Do not write what you think others want to hear.

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Let's Talk

Lets Talk | Posting Update & Blog Changes

bookishluna5 Comments

LetsTalk12:17

Hey everyone, this post is going to be a little different than my normal. In the next few months there are going to be quite a few changes in my life, hopefully all for the better. Since I will be busier because I am working towards something that is a huge goal of mine. I am going to be cutting back on my blogging from 3 times a week to 2. Maybe this will temporary or last forever, only time will tell. But, I wanted to just talk about it a bit and explain why there is a sudden change in my posting.

I have been blogging for some time and I have met some amazing people and I really love talking to everyone. I have found such awesome books since blogging and really opened my eyes to a lot. I don’t want to lose that connection and experience because I am working towards something else, but I need to be realistic.

Chances are this new project is going to take a ton of my time and I will be stressed out of my mind. Who knows if I will even have much time to read, I really hope I do. Anyway, when I decided a change needed to be made I posted a poll on my twitter and on my instagram to have your input.

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So, according to my twitter poll, the most popular choice was Sunday/Wednesday and the same went for my instagram poll as well. So over the next few weeks I will slowly start to make a change to this new posting schedule. Thanks for all the input who saw the polls and voted, it really helped.

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Thanks for reading! I hope in the next few months I will get to share really exciting news with all of you.

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Knitting, Crochet, Crafting, Art & More

Garden Adventures | March 2019

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Gardening

Hello everyone, I am here again with another update on my gardening adventures. I am happy to say that there have been no plant casualties. I was so happy that I have been able to keep all the plants alive, I am still a bit uneasy about some of my plants, but I will get more into that in a bit.

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My Plants

As you can see in the above pictures, I have my first plant, my air plant, as well as a few others. I will list them from top row left to right then the bottom row. As you can see, I have my plants labeled so I can remember them a bit better. Especially since one was just sent to me with another plant without a name or anything. I had to ask twitter for help in identifying it.

  • Ionantha
  • Moon Valley
  • Marble Queen Pothos
  • ZZ Plant
  • Snake Plant

Snake Plant Identification

Thankfully, with some retweets someone was able to point me in the right direction and I was super happy about it. I was not happy with the seller I got it from. First the ZZ plant they sent me was not in good health at all, it was way over watered. They decided to just put this plant in because they were sending me a “bad” plant instead of just refunding everything, in fact it was root bound and I had to literally cut open the pot to try and save this plant. They did end up refunding the price of the plant, but not the shipping then sent me no information about this plant. Sadly, it has a fungi growing on one of the leaves so I had to cut it off. So far both plants seem to be doing alright, I hope the ZZ and Snake plants continue to thrive.

Marble Queen

I am a bit worried about this plant, when I got it, there were a few small brown edged holes in the middle of the leaves, now the tips are starting to turn brown. I was thinking it was due to under-watering so I am being more vigilant about it and am continuing to research the issue, but any suggestions would be helpful. You can kind of see the issue in the image above.

Moon Valley

My latest and random addition, I am kind of confused as to how to take care of it. When I picked it up in the store it said it needed low light and normal watering with getting dry in between. With my own research I found that they like a lot of indirect light and the soil needs to stay slightly wet at all times. So…. since more than one site said the latter, I am going to go with that? Wish me luck.

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Thanks for reading my plant updates for March! I know this is not my normal bookish thing, but I am really enjoying sharing other hobbies of mine.

Do you have a favorite plant? Do you garden, indoor or outdoor?

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