And the winner is...

Alright, the time has come! We had more than 30 entries and I want to thank each and every one of you for your participation and support of this reopening of my blog. I had so much fun reading all the comments you kindly left and I hope you had an enjoyable time celebrating the start of my new exciting journey with me! Enough of my gushing! Let’s get on to the contest drawing!

So, first of all, my super sweet boyfriend wanted to help with all this and who am I to deny him his kind gesture? So I let him print out these lovely contest raffle slips for the drawing. Aren’t they cute?! Now, for a raffle bag, in the American movies they always pull the names out of a baseball hat, but well… That’s not really my style so I choose one of my recently designed drawstring knitting bags. I really adore this vibrant color and rustic texture (if interested, I hope you check it out at my atelier). Isn’t this shade of coral just perfectly festive for our contest?!

We’ve put the names in the sack and now it’s time to select the first name! I’m so excited to see which of my lovely fans will come out first!! Who could it be?

The first one is… INDIGONIGHTOWL!!

Now, before we continue it would be a good time to explain how this drawing works (hold on tight, this might seem a teensy bit complicated!) Instead of simply pulling four names out of the bag, I thought it would be more fun to add a little spice! So, for the first part we pulled out eight names and these are our semi-finalists!!

For the second stage of the contest, the final eight get paired into four groupings and our winners decided by the ever-popular game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors”! In Korea, we call it ‘가위, 바위, 보’ and for some reason, we love to use this little game to decide just about anything from who will pay for the Korean barbeque to who gets to go first in the karaoke room!

My boyfriend and I each represented one contestant from each pair and after four rounds of playing the game (I won the first two – sorry if I represented you and didn’t win… L I’ll try harder next time!) here are our four lucky winners!!  Finally!!

Congratulations to HELENA, TESHA, M., and OOEYGOOEYKNITS!! Please contact me at psoyoun@yahoo.co.kr so I can get your info and arrange shipping! As I promised I’m gonna send one of these little guys (just to jog your memory check out here!) to each of you - I hope you enjoy these goodies! 

 

To everyone, thanks again for playing and supporting my blog. Please stay tuned for upcoming posts and for those of you that didn’t win this time, I promise I’ll give you another chance soon!! Details regarding the next contest will be revealed just around the corner! Until then, happy crafting!!

-Soyun 

Not-so-‘Korean’ yarn shop

I’ve always wanted to introduce you ‘Korean style’ yarn markets I usually hang out to get my craft materials. Many of my foreign knitter friends get very curious and ask me often. “Do you knit in Korea? What kinds of yarns do you use? Where do you get your pattern books?” Well, actually Korea is just like the Western world now. Unfortunately not so many things Korean I can show off. We knit (I guess knitting in Korea has been considered to be granny’s hobby, but it gradually found its renaissance recently.) and have some pattern books (some in Korean, some Japanese, and some western languages) in the book stores. We have a few yarn shops offering various yarns and notions from all over the world. So, I can say knitting in Korea is getting more popular as well as international. By the way, there’s a huge craft market in the center of Seoul that you might want to check out (Don’t worry. I will introduce you this interesting market not too much later. I promise! J)

Today I am going to take you to a lovely yet not-so-Korean yarnshop. A few days ago (well, have to admit it is not a few days anymore.. it’s been a few weeks now. I know. I need to be more diligent for blogging. I am working on it!) I visited this well-organized as well as well-known yarnshop’s house warming party. This shop called ‘banul story’ (http://www.banul.co.kr ‘banul’ is a needle in Korean) has been one of the famous yarnshops among knitters and crafters in Korea. Originally located in Myeong-dong area in Seoul it moved to near Ewha women’s university in Sinchon area recently. 

Being extremely excited and thrilled to explore this new shop I couldn’t sleep the night before it opened. Getting up ‘amazingly’ early (such a night owl as I am it was a huge devotion I made that morning.) and feeding myself well to survive a long and busy day I headed to the place I’ve dreamed of. You could’ve seen me doing happy little dances if you were with me on the way to the shop. J

What a joy! My friend and I turned out to be the very first guests. The shop looked great already yet they were busy for working on some of the final touches. The owner of the shop opened the door for us (Do you see the doorknobs looking like knitting needles? How creative!! I seriously wanted to grab them and run away with. What a naughty girl I am!) and warmly welcomed us. Yay, I got overly emotional and felt my small devotion of getting up early totally paid off at the very moment.

Look at the inside of the shop full of fun and lovely treasures. Colors, shapes, and textures of those goodies grabbed my attention instantly. What a great collection they got! I desperately wished I could live in the shop playing with all of blingy knitting needles and crochet hooks, gorgeous-colored yarns, and cool knitting notions. Do you see these itsy- bitsy buttons? How adorable! It seems like they were waiting for me to pick them up. Those would go perfectly with a baby sweater I am currently working on.  

I already own many sets of knitting needles, but I decided to indulge myself with extra thick knitting needles I’ve been looking for. (As a gift, I received another small-sized circular needle. Wow! Isn’t that amazing?) As many of you understand (hopefully) we knitters do never own enough yarns, needles, and knitting notions. As a serious sewer, I also collect lots of fabrics and always long for more. I know, I know. I need to control and discipline myself. But, those little luxuries inspire me and excite me all the time and I should admit they work exactly like ‘vitamin’ to me. Oh, well, perhaps the most expensive vitamin I could ever take though.

Now, here’s a fun part of the shop. There’s a lovely knitting café on the 2^nd floor. (Sorry, I was having so much fun enjoying the coffee and the interior of the room that I mistakenly forgot to take photos of the café.) But, I assure you that this is the heaven of the knitters and crocheters. I really hope you make a trip here and have fun and enjoyable time with your fellow knitters. What would go with knitting better than good music and savory coffee or tea? ‘Knitting, coffee, and music’ altogether sound so right, don’t they?

I purely enjoyed this day at the fabulous shop. It’s always a pleasure to find beautiful and interesting crafts shops that make you dance. I wish I could open my own atelier just like this someday. I will invite all of you guys and throw a cool party on opening day. Hopefully you can make it and celebrate with me dancing together! It will be wonderful to see you from all around the world!

So, now I am wondering how your local yarn shops look like. Similar to the one I’ve just introduced? Or, do they have any cool personalities? I am sure you have your favorite yarnshops in your neighborhood you’d like to share with me. Or, you might have fantasized your own dreamy yarnshop? If so, please don’t be shy and feel free to leave a comment. Who knows? You can inspire me and I might take your suggestions when I open my own shop later. 

Oh, one more thing before I close. As many of you already know, I am doing a giveaway celebrating my blog renewal. I hope you’ve already checked it out and participated in. If not, you still have time so please take a look. You can be the one of those who will receive the adorable pouches. It will end Apr. 23^rd and I will announce lucky winners shortly after. 
http://www.atelierdesoyun.com/2012/04/returning.html

Thanks for visiting and supporting this new journey. I am so excited to see you real soon.

Have a happy and crafty day!

Returning...

Hi all. I am so excited to have you here. After many years of neglecting blogging and feeling guilty (oh, well), I finally decided to start over sharing my virtual studio and little bit of my crafty journey with my knitter friends (and of course anyone who’d like to know about me and my projects). I’ve spent very ‘unreasonably’ long time on reshaping this blog. Honestly, it took about 2 years (Can you believe that?). I’ve come up with “lots” of ideas and thoughts: from the topics, photos, color schemes to publishing schedules. It was an overwhelming process at the beginning. I seemed to lose my excitement about returning to be a blogger as I realized there is so much work to be done to make this perfect. Did I say ‘perfect’? Perhaps that’s the problem that took me such a long time to restart. Here’s a little yet critical secret I found though. As we all know there’s no such thing as perfect in the world, but there’s always room to improve as we go. When I look back my early days of creating I remember what I created was far from perfect, but anyway I kept moving: Made a bunch of mistakes here and there and started over and over again. Aww... that wasn't so exciting I remember. Then slowly (very very slowly) I’ve been inspired and getting better little by little. 'Finally' I became to feel more comfortable and confident with what I was doing after a few years later. Recently I am a happy bunny satisfied with what I create. I admit I’m still learning, developing and obviously making mistakes from time to time. Not perfect, but I am getting it. :)

So, here I am persuaded by myself that I am going to enjoy writing and sharing anyway from the place where I am now. I understand there’s a long way ahead of me to make this blog great but I also know I will have to start first and then make that happen, right?

Hopefully my blog inspires you somehow and gives you chances to explore the other side of the globe and to have some fun and joy reading behind stories of my creations. I also hope blogging encourages myself to appreciate and adore every moment I have even more. I am sure I will be more perceptive and sensitive about things happening around me and very excited to share them with you guys.

To celebrate reopening of the blog I prepared little gifts for you. Those are my brand new babies. Teeny tiny pyramid-shaped pouches to keep your little treasures, company you when you run your errands, gift someone who adores handmade little things or simply brighten up your craft corner. To enter this giveaway, please leave your comment here. Be creative and have fun. Surprise me with some ideas you have for the blog. Anything you leave will count and I will tremendously appreciate them. Don’t be shy and give me some of your sugar~ The deadline is Apr. 23^th and I will announce winners (I will choose four of you) here right after.

Have a creative day and good luck!