Welcome to Stitches and Suitcases

If you've found your way here, welcome.

I'm Yun—a mom to a wonderful daughter, a retired educator, a lifelong reader, an enthusiastic traveler, and a knitter with enough saved patterns to keep me occupied well into my next lifetime.

This blog was born somewhere between grief and adventure.

In 2021, my husband of twenty years passed away, and life suddenly looked very different than I had imagined. Like many widows, I found myself learning how to navigate a future I hadn't planned for while raising a young daughter and figuring out who I was becoming in this new chapter.

The answer, it turns out, involved a surprising number of knitting needles and airline tickets.

Over the years, I've discovered that healing rarely arrives all at once. Sometimes it appears in small moments: finishing a sweater after months of knitting, wandering unfamiliar streets in a new city, laughing with my daughter over a travel mishap, or sitting quietly with a good book and a cup of coffee.

This blog is where all of those pieces come together.

You'll find travel stories from near and far, knitting projects that range from "I can't believe I made this" to "What on earth was I thinking?", favorite books, reflections on widowhood and motherhood, and occasional musings on mental health, gratitude, and finding joy in ordinary days.

You'll also learn that I have a tendency to research random topics far beyond what is necessary. One minute I'm reading about memory and brain health; the next I'm deep into finding a perfect apartment in France or Italy or trying to determine whether I can fit one more skein of yarn into an already overstuffed suitcase (my plan for trip to Copenhegan).

The answer is usually yes.

These days, I believe that life is too short to save the good yarn, postpone the trip, or wait until everything feels perfectly in place. I am ready to discover and appreciate the joy in the small, incidental moments that quietly create a meaningful life

So this is my invitation to you: come along for the journey.

We'll knit, travel, read, laugh, get lost occasionally, and hopefully discover a little more gratitude and wonder along the way.

This blog is my runway for second chances, new adventures, and the occasional (or many) missed stitch(es). After all, taking off doesn't require having a perfect flight plan.

One stitch, one suitcase, and one story at a time. ✈️🧶📚