kotkarankki

Updates on Crumble Quilt and Scandinavian Christmas BOM

2012-01-31T20:01:00.000+02:00

This is a crumble quilt I have been making with Jo since last summer, and it was buried under more urgent projects some time in November, when the first deadline was. I waited for a long time for the book Word Play Quilts by Tonya Ricucci with instructions to making letter blocks. I still have to figure out how I can make them more the same size.

I added the sashings today, because I felt I had to tame the wild mess of the crumble blocks. With other fabrics the blocks look great without sashings and form a colourful surface. I have so many colours and checkered fabrics mixed without much thought that they make me feel dizzy. Jo gave a new deadline for March 2nd, and I think I will finish my quilt by then. If you follow the link to Jo's blog, you will find a list of links to other quilters who show their Crumbles.

A small group has been making Lynette Anderson's Scandinavian Christmas quilt BOM together, and today is our first day to show what we have done with the pattern. Melanie started the group, let's see who has managed to keep her time schedule. Here is my first block:

The background is old unbleached linen, and the other fabrics are all from my endless stash. There is a cross stitch border, stitched details and appliquéd reindeers and birds.

Big Garden Birdwatch, Gifts & Sewings

2012-01-29T14:48:00.000+02:00

This weekend is the second annual Big Garden Birdwatch I have participated in. The idea is from Great Britain, where they have been doing it for a long time already, and are doing there this weekend as well. The morning was sunny and cold (-15C), promising a good possibility to see the birds coming to our feeders.

We had a long mid-morning coffee break, with the camera on a tripod, and managed to see 11 bullfinches, 5 great tits,

1 blue tit,

1 yellowhammer, 1 jay, 1 magpie and 1 blackbird. The time limit was one hour, but there have not been too many birds after that so I think we chose the best time for watching. The weather is so cold now that the birds are saving their energy and only come a few times a day to eat.

The mailman has brought me some gifts from friends for no particular reason, which is always very nice. This cute potholder in shadow knit came all the way from Australia from Kaite:

This is a very clever way to create a pattern on a knitted surface. The link will take you to her blog post where she explains how to knit it. Thank you, Kaite!

A very bulky envelope from Melanie came the other day, and now I'm prepared for Halloween for the first time in my life:

Now I see one of her pumpkins needs fastening. It must have come loose when I filled the sack with some sand in a plastic bag to weigh her down. She has a lot to carry! This is a very Melanie project: stitcheries, wool, crow, ghost, great colours. Thank you, Melanie!

I have been busy too, and reducing my stash of fabrics. I made these three aprons for the Club people to wear as a uniform in Villa Cooper when they are working there:

Sorry about the busy background, I just threw them on DS2's bed on the 9-patch quilt because there was more light than in the other rooms.

I hope you are all having a nice weekend. I'll be back soon with the Scandinavian Christmas quilt BOM.

First quilt of the year

2012-01-23T19:17:00.000+02:00

Today is DS1's birthday. In the Autumn he sorted his shirts and brought me the ones he couldn't use any longer. I liked the colours, and I was very inspired by Stephanie's masculine Courthouse Steps quilt for his son. I stole the idea of using a "trousers colour" with the shirt fabrics.

The Chinese Coins pattern has long been on my list of quilts I wanted to make, and here is is all finished:

I named the quilt "Business Class" for all the business shirts in it. It is bigger than I thought it would be, 150 cm wide and 190 cm long. I wanted to baste it in the sewing class on Thursday and took my backing fabric, the finished top and the batting with me there. I used masking tape to hold the backing in place on the large, lovely table, spread the batting on top, and then the quilt top. Believe it or not, by top was wider than the backing! I could not go home for some fabric to add, so I stitched my Scandinavian Christmas block instead. Well, I got quite a bit of that done! The next morning I cut through the light grey backing, and cut a strip of the dark grey sashing and border fabric and added it between the halves. Then I vacuumed the hall floor, rolled away the carpet, cleaned the floor and started the layering all over again. I was VERY surprised to notice that the backing was still smaller than the top. Yes, I do own a tape measure, or three, maybe five. I just didn't come to think of using one. On my knees I went, and spent some quality time there, stretching my hamstrings if nothing else. After machine quilting I simply cut the extra width of the borders to match the backing size. Friday evening and a good part of Saturday was spent with the binding, and I even added a label. Yesterday we went to his birthday party, delicious cake and coffee. He was surprised to see his shirts again. They matched their dark grey sofa nicely. - Why didn't I start earlier, you might ask? Well, we originally thought the invitation was for next Sunday, and I did want to baste the quilt on that good table in class instead of the floor. And by the way, he was born weeks early.

We have been getting new snow almost daily all this month. The young trees begin to bend under the snow load, but they will straighten up again when it gets warmer.

First PIP and some Winter fun

2012-01-16T09:57:00.000+02:00

The new year began with many good intentions, and joining Stephanie's PIPS 2012 was one of them. Here is my first finish of a Project in Process from last year, two Christmas ornaments with a pattern from Suzie. I'm working on a secret project at the moment so no other crafty pictures yet.

We have snow now, and someone thought the concrete swans at the little playground in the pedestrian area needed something to wear against the cold:

All three of them have traffic cones on their heads. I think they could use warm scarves around their long necks too!

Bullfinches come to our feeder regularly. They change places so quickly that I can't count them, but at least 20 of them have been there at the same time. Today's temperature has dropped to -17C/+1.4F, so the poor things need a lot of sunflower seeds.

In the evenings I have been knitting Angel Pods for stillborn babies using Kaite's pattern. She has just amended the hood to be stitched with 33 to 35 stitches. Here is my first version with the too small hood:

When I have finished some in different sizes I will take them to the local maternity ward. They may only need a few of these in a year, because all risk pregnancies are directed to a bigger hospital.

Final Stash Use Report for 2011 & PIPS 2012

2012-01-03T12:14:00.001+02:00

In 2011, like in many years before it, I have been trying to reduce my stash of fabrics by sewing more and buying less new fabrics. After every month I counted how much I had bought after all, and calculated how much I had used. My numbers for December are 4.8 m bought new fabrics, and 3.25 m used. Six months of the whole year were "positive" for me, I used more fabric than I bought. But the closing of my favourite fabric shop meant a disaster for my good intentions: I bought 19 m of fabrics when the discount sale started, and when the prices dropped to 70 % off the original in June, I bought 25.4 m more. No way could I sew so many quilts! In the following five months I controlled myself and only bought 1.85 m in all. Still the final figures for 2011 are

Bought: 71.7 m

Used: 66.1 m

Luckily I have decided not to count the fabrics finding their way to me from other sources than shops.

I hope others made better results! Buying new fabrics is fun, but when the stash is growing in an uncontrollable way (fabrics pouring in from other people's cupboards, attics and boxes), all I can do is try to be more productive and find projects where I can use the fabrics hiding in my boxes and containers. Challenges are the best medicine for this problem, and Stephanie from Loft Creations has a very nice challenge called PIPS:

Jump to Stephanie's post about the challenge by clicking the sewing machine and read all about it. No signing in is needed, just join the fun and show your Projects In Process when you have finished them. I can think of a few right now that really needed dusting off, but I have also joined Melanie and others in making Lynette Anderson's Scandinavian Christmas BOM. I hope to find suitable fabrics in my stash for it.

Here is something I made in December:

A light shopping bag for DD, using a bit from the same old curtain I used for my own Bag Club bag in the Autumn:

Yesterday we had finally some snow, more than just cover the grass, so it is beginning to look like winter. With the snow missing, I have enjoyed white Christmas flowers, these lovely scented hyacinths

and my first ever Christmas Rose (Helleborus):

With the flowers I wish you all a Happy New Year 2012, filled with energy and good projects!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-27T09:56:00.000+02:00

This is the last Advent Calendar post. Thank you for following me through the 24 days of December until Christmas Eve.

Mr. K. brought this tiny tree from our back yard, as I only wanted a tree to place on a table. We decorated it last night, and then I opened the gifts brought by mail. Thank you sweet friends, you know who you are! The gifts warmed my heart. I will be on a holiday break for now but try to find some computer time too.

I wish all my readers a lovely Christmas time and a Happy New Year! Thank you for your visits and comments; let's make nice things together in the coming year.

EDIT Dec. 27th: The above post was supposed to come out on Saturday morning at 8. I'm sorry I didn't notice it as I have been on a break and also having power cuts and no internet at all yesterday.

Sorry I'm late ...

2011-12-23T16:06:00.000+02:00

... but I have been baking:

Can you smell cinnamon, ginger, allspice and cloves? Not yet?

Now? I added raisins, melted butter and sour milk. I baked two cakes. My sister P will take one along tomorrow when she drives to spend Christmas Eve with our mother.

It has been a very busy day, and I hope it will make tomorrow more peaceful. Don't rush, sit down for a moment and take some time for yourself. I'll be back tomorrow to wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Snow and mittens

2011-12-22T10:23:00.001+02:00

Yesterday it finally snowed again.

Just a thin veil to lighten up the landscape.

On the train on Monday I knitted these tiny mittens for my niece's one-year-old son. I hope I guessed the size right, I tried to make them rather too big than too small. The pattern is borrowed from my mother who understood the needs of mothers when she made the children something to wear.

The long wrist parts help to keep the mittens on, either under the jumpsuit sleeves or, as they are wide, drawn over them.

Girly time with daughter

2011-12-21T08:11:00.001+02:00

On Monday I had a lovely time visiting my DD Kaija in her new home town for the first time.

As you can see, they have had some snow but the rains have taken it away. Luckily, it was not bone breaking slippery!

Kaija met me at the railway station and we had some mid-morning tea after my 3 hour train trip. Then she showed me the window display of the Craft Museum of Finland, as the Museum itself was closed on a Monday.

About 20 doll making artists had put together this scene from the President's Independence Day Reception. Imaginary, as they show a doll of our late President Kekkonen too, or maybe it is his ghost! The dolls were about 15" tall.

The cakes looked delicious:

There was a knitted graffiti on the door handle; a nice touch as long as it is not wet.

After spending some time at her home and seeing all her beautiful match boxes and other things, and exchanging Christmas presents, we went out for lunch and some shopping. Lucky girl, she has several second-hand bookstores (I bought just one book) within reach, more than one fabric shop (yes, I bought 4 metres of new fabric) and many other interesting places (yes, I bought some yarn too, and a lipstick).

Then it was time for me to thank Kaija for a lovely day and leave after a last cup of tea and gingerbread.

I hope you will have a chance to spend some time with all your loved ones at Christmas time.

Christobel the elf girl

2011-12-20T08:26:00.002+02:00

Christobel the elf girl has found a perfect place on the round window. Melanie sent her last year for me as a Christmas present, and her place was on top of our fireplace. The problem was that it was a bit too warm for her, and she is such a nosey little girl who wants to see and know everything. From her old place she could only see the back yard, and not even the bird feeder, so there really was not much to see. Here she sits next to our front door, and can see who is coming and who is going in the street, and she can see the sun rise and birds in the apple trees (if she turns her head just a little). Christobel can see the Finnish elves sneaking around behind windows and making notes of the behaviour of the children, and most important of all, she can see when Santa brings his gifts behind our door so we can go and take them in. Santa is so busy that he will not stop at houses where there are no small children, so we will not get a real visit from him.

Rudolf and Celeste

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000+02:00

Many years ago I used to buy an Australian magazine called Handmade. This little angel Celeste and her friend Rudolf are made with a patterns from that magazine.

They used to sit on our steps, but now found a new place on the old cupboard I cleaned last summer.

2011-12-18T09:50:00.000+02:00

Every day I add something to make our home feel like Christmas.

Glass ornaments from my childhood, carefully placed in a big glass jar.

Feed the Birds

2011-12-17T10:37:00.001+02:00

At this time of the year, there is hardly any colour in the nature. The red and grey chested bullfinches whistle softly to make me see they are trying to cheer up the view. They are regular visitors on our feeder, but also find something to eat in the birch. This picture was taken from our doorstep, about 30 m from the birds, as I didn't want to scare them away.

Place for cards

2011-12-16T09:18:00.000+02:00

This is where I put the Christmas cards from friends and relatives. I used to collect them in a bowl, but I really like this mail bag I made many years ago for my parents. It came back to me last summer.

A simple tree with red candles, cross stitch in wool.

Christmas Flowers

2011-12-15T10:04:00.004+02:00

Christmas flowers all over at the Florist's. I get to watch these every time I sit in "my cafe". What is your favourite Christmas flower? I love the scent of Hyacinths and the handsome look of Amaryllis.

Christmas Cards

2011-12-14T08:47:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I spent the entire afternoon at the kitchen table crafting. I used three kinds of scissors, lots of glue, rubber stamps and many different papers.

Finally I had the Christmas cards we need. Today I will sign them and take them to the post office. Usually we send self-made cards, but sometimes we buy them from Unicef or the Red Cross, or the children's school fund raising. I think people like home-made cards, and they like making them. In November I was even asked to show a group of young mothers how to make nice cards. It was a fun afternoon, but I didn't get any cards made for myself then as I was busily helping the ladies.

Have you ever made your Christmas cards?

Christmas ornaments

2011-12-13T09:23:00.000+02:00

These traditional Finnish Christmas ornaments have always belonged to my Christmases. This set was made by my parents for us in 1990. They remind for the old times, when there was not much of anything.

Crochet

2011-12-12T08:35:00.001+02:00

I have been crocheting some potholders for Christmas for someone who doesn't read my blog so I can finally show something I have done. The super soft cotton is a Christmas gift from Stephanie last year. The brown striped one will be for me.

This morning there were hardly any clouds left, and I saw the almost full moon through the naked trees behind our woodshed.

Third Advent

2011-12-11T10:02:00.001+02:00

Wintery weather continues. We have rain, frost, snow, and a glimpse of sun on the best days.

Cafe makeover

2011-12-10T09:59:00.001+02:00

"My" cafe at the mall was closed for six weeks in the Autumn, but when it was reopened, I liked it even better.

There are sofas with cushions, and lightly upholstered chairs instead of the wooden ones they used to have. Much more tables, more light, more customers and more staff. I have learnt to avoid the tables on the left, as they are close to the revolving doors, and my bones don't like the draft. On the right, out of the picture, is the original part of the cafe with the view at the florist's, my favourite place. Today we will go there before grocery shopping and have a special cake to celebrate our engagement anniversary.

If you like Advent Calendars with a lovely surprise for each day, you might like to follow my dear daughter's daily matchbox postings until December 24th here.

Christmas baking

2011-12-09T09:36:00.001+02:00

Yesterday I baked the first Christmas baking of the year, traditional star shaped tarts filled with plum marmalade. Traditionally, I bake them using ready made puff pastry and ready made plum marmalade, so they are the easiest ever. I cut the stars this way so the points will not be too long and burn easily.

After baking, I sprinkled them with icing sugar, packed in a tin and took them to the sewing class. We always bring something for the last class before Christmas, and I brought the pastries this time.

We had some hot glögi, gingerbread and chocolates too, and a little less sewing.

Winter Sun

2011-12-08T08:38:00.001+02:00

Yesterday at 10.50 from our doorstep. The sun doesn't get very high!

It was the coldest morning this winter, -8 C or 18 F, but last night we had rain all night and the temperature is above freezing point again.

Flowers in December

2011-12-07T08:34:00.001+02:00

To my big surprise, my orchids have grown new stems this Autumn and now the first flowers are opening. This one has some buds on another stem too, and my other white orchid is also growing a flower stem. I received them in Summer 2010, and this is the first time they make new flowers after that. Sorry about the dark photo, but I had to turn off the lights because they were reflected from the window and the flower could not be seen.

Independence Day

2011-12-06T11:05:00.001+02:00

Today is the Finnish Independence Day. Traditionally we light two candles on every window at six o'clock in the evening for two hours. I remember how exciting it was to be in charge of the candles at our school, our own classroom probably and maybe another. The electric lights were off, just the candles lit the dark December evening, and the school was quiet, with just the candle watches on each floor. They must have used electric candles for ages now, but no accidents ever happened while I was young.

Last night we finally had the first snow. It had been raining a little during the day, but in the afternoon the pavements were suddenly icy as the temperature dropped below freezing point. And then came the snow, amazingly big snowflakes. In an hour it was over, but the snow has remained on the ground. It is like someone turned the lights back on again. The ground is no longer black, sucking all the light from the headlights and street lamps, but white and reflecting the light back. Winter, you are welcome!

Finishing school

2011-12-05T08:02:00.001+02:00

A week ago I took this picture of a cygnet spreading his wings. It was the last I saw of our swan family this year. They really stayed as long as they could, practicing their flight and filling up their energy storage for the big migration to warmer conditions. This pond lies next to the School Centre and is thus called the School Pond, so it is a perfect place to learn to swim and take off, fly, and make a smooth landing in water again. You can see how icy cold the water looked on that cloudy day. A few days later it was frozen over, but the ice melted away again because the temperatures keep above the freezing point for most of the time.

Christmas Stalls

2011-12-04T10:58:00.001+02:00

Small stalls like this were opened a week ago in the pedestrian area in Järvenpää. Little gifts are for sale, handmade candles, jewelry, ornaments, doll's clothes. Some have home made jams and jellies, mustard, and closer to Christmas there will be traditional Christmas dishes too.

Third day

2011-12-03T11:08:00.001+02:00

There is still no snow, just some frost in the night. This is moss in our yard. There is beauty in small details if you look at them closely.

Stash Use Report of November

2011-12-02T08:45:00.001+02:00

This is the second picture of my Advent calendar, from last Saturday's Christmas parade. The tonttu elves were from a gymnastics and sports club I think, and they were showing the audience some tonttu warm-up moves while I was warming up with a cinnamon latte. The Piggy is still my favourite!

Another month has ended and I added up my fabric statistics. I have been good, again, and not bought any fabric. The use has been very moderate, too, even when it includes 10 pairs of undies, two pairs of long trousers, several dresses and tops and skirts. With some secret projects, my fabric use adds up to 1.5 m for the whole month of November, because the clothes were all this size only:

I hope to finish several projects during the weekend so I could mail them on Monday. I always seem to start later than others and work better under slight pressure, but I refuse to take any stress because it is not good for me or anyone. I can face it if I don't get something done. So should you. Take it easy!

December 1st

2011-12-01T11:11:00.001+02:00

Two years ago I made an Advent calendar on my blog, posting at least a picture for every day until December 24th. This year I'm trying to do it again, with new pictures.

Here is the big Christmas tree in Järvenpää, photo taken yesterday at 4 in the afternoon when it was dark enough for the lights to show. They lit the lights on it last Saturday when the parade reached this square. The sun is working office hours at this time of the year, rising about at nine and setting at half past three in the afternoon.

Christmas Parade

2011-11-27T19:14:00.001+02:00

Yesterday I went to see the Christmas parade in town, as I had never been there before. There were elves, naturally, in their red suits.

There was an angel, or Lucia, or a snow queen, I couldn't tell which, but she was wearing white.

Animals were invited to march too, and so there was an alpaca, favourite of many children.

Next came many dogs walking with their owners, some very small ones came first

and some really big ones followed:

More tonttu elves, and a pig looking very satisfied as she was not going to end up on a Christmas dinner table. We traditionally eat ham at Christmas.

And finally there was the clipiti clop of horse shoes and ringing of bells as the most important person, Joulupukki, arrived

sitting in his sleigh with his Mrs Santa. They had put wheels under the sleigh as we still have no snow here in the Southern Finland. Santa was waving to children on the other side, so I didn't get his face on the picture. Anyway, he is the original Father Christmas, living at Korvatunturi near the Arctic Circle.

I had to take this picture of Santa's sleigh when he went to talk with the children. This is a very old Finnish ryijy rug, all worn out (the blue spots) by hard use. Rugs like this were originally used for warmth in sleighs and as bed covers with the furry side facing the sleeper. The wool yarn has been dyed with plants, and some colours have been harder on the wool than the brown and the pink. In this link you can read more about this traditional textile.

They lit the lights in the big Christmas tree at the square, but I will show it later when I can take a picture when it is dark.

Today I thought I should start my Christmas crafting, so I made this wreath for our door. By the time I was making the last quarter, I was getting the idea how it should be done. Next time I'll try to make a round base ring.

All sewing has bee so secret that I don't have anything to show you this time. Enjoy the Advent time and remember to take time to notice the nice smells of baking, the favourite songs you hear and the beautiful flowers and decorations starting to show up everywhere.

Stash Use Report for October, and Unicef Doll Show

2011-11-15T09:28:00.001+02:00

I had totally forgotten to write my stash use report for October, because there was so little going on. I bought nothing, which is very good. On the other hand, I can only think I used 2.5 m for the Unicef dolls I made:

I always sew on the marked lines and cut after that, so the seams will not draw and the fabric stays nicely in place. The faces are painted with textile paints before sewing and stuffing so the paints don't spread. The clothes were made mostly in November so I will count the fabrics for them in this month's statistics. These two girls are going to Germany with my sister tomorrow, for her friend's little granddaughters. I guessed right, the girls love pink and red dresses.

My other sister wanted dolls for her own granddaughters, and as I was busy with making the other dolls, I promised to make them on one condition: She will paint the faces and sew the hair on the four of them. Look at her magic touch:

Here are all the new dolls in a group photo before going to their new owners near and far:

The dolls are made like traditional rag dolls, using recycled materials and leftover bits of fabric. Each doll has the Unicef logo sewn on their leg seam, and an identity card from Unicef, filled with the doll's name and details by me. The dolls can not be "bought" but "adopted", and each of them represents a real child who is helped to a better start in life with the immunsation against deadly childhood diseases which Unicef provides for them with the adoption fee of 20 € or more. The idea and the original pattern of the dolls came from Italy, and they are made by volunteers in France, Czech Republic and Finland as well. The other half of the identity card is a postcard, where the maker of the doll can add her name and address. The doll's new family can fill in the form with information of the doll's whereabouts and family, and send the postcard to the "birth mother". Usually the dolls are adopted at Unicef events or in their shops where school classes or handicraft clubs have delivered the dolls they have made together. The makers have no knowledge of the destiny of them and so the postcard is a nice thankyou for the maker. Inventing personalities and finding suitable names for the dolls is one of my favourite parts of creating a doll for Unicef. I keep a list of my dolls and try not to give the same name twice.

On my walk last week I saw floating rocks?

No, the swan family has returned after six weeks' absence. I think the parents have been taking the young ones around and showing them possible places to stay next year when they are on their own.

You can still see how the young swans are grey and their bills are not bright yellow like the adults. This morning we had frost for the second time, but the ponds are not likely to freeze over before it gets much colder.

Computer news and picture update

2011-11-04T12:41:00.000+02:00

After long consideration, some waiting and two days of learning we finally have a new computer with everything needed, and I'm writing my first blog post here. There are some problems still: the laptop has no access to the internet like it should and used to have, and DH's email account has disappeared because of a misplaced password. I need the magic help of the next generation to get a photo editing programme (and at least two patience games ;-)!). Luckily DD is arriving tonight from Berlin. She originally put up this blog for me, and has taught me almost everything I know about using a computer, especially the internet.

Maybe you would like to see some of the pictures I have taken since September? I'll show them anyway. About at the time when the computer crashed, I saw the most exotic butterfly in my life:

The Red Admiral. They are rare visitors in Finland. This one was warming itself on the sunny wall of our new garden shed.

We put up the bird feeder early in October, and the birds returned to our yard quickly. The first portion of seeds was gone in a week, but as the Autumn has been unusually warm, the second fill wasn't needed until last night.

This squirrel has already changed fur for the winter, the reddish brown is only left in the legs. He was sitting in our oak tree, apparently resting, and I thought he was just like me with my second cup of tea and newspaper, when I sit at the breakfast table alone after the men have gone to their duties: my nose drops closer and closer to the paper as I'm almost falling asleep again.

The trees had beautiful colours

but they are gone now.

I have played with yarn, not only knitting it but felting some too:

These little balls of yarn have been machine washed in hot water, rubbed a little to smooth the surface, and sent to Stephanie for her birthday some time ago.

With my PIF gift to Kaite in Australia, I sent a small fabric basket for her mother Coralie.

And look what she sent me in return:

The prettiest little daffodil pouch is handmade by her, and the cute house brooch is from Kaite. It is Spring down there, and daffodil time. Thank you, Coralie and Kaite!

New way to knit

2011-10-29T18:01:00.000+03:00

In the past couple of weeks I have been learning a new way to knit. At the bookshop, I saw this book

and I was immediately fascinated by the idea of A) knitting two socks at a time and B) starting them at the toe. Before reading the book I could not imagine how on earth the two socks can be on one circular needle and still be knitted in the tube form, but it was not only possible but also quite fun. I followed the book's instructions and knitted a practice pair of baby socks in two colours so I could always tell which sock I was working on.

Naturally I forgot to take a picture of the beginning and the heel, but here you see my tiny socks on one needle.

The heel was no more difficult than the other way around, and I avoided the hole I usually get when I start knitting the foot part after the heel is half done. One more picture showing the finished (odd) pair:

Now I just need to have courage to start another pair in adult size and calculate where I need to start adding stitches for the heel. The book has several lovely patterns.

Autumn has changed to the darker side, and the day is already over 3 hours shorter than on the autumnal equinox about six weeks ago. The colourful leaves have fallen, but luckily we are still having some sunny days.

As you see, there is still some raking to do before the snow comes and finally covers everything mercifully for many months. Last year we had the first snow in mid October and permanent snow in early November. This Autumn has been unusually long, warm(ish) and beautiful. It is perfect time to start a knitting project and let the soft wool warm your fingers in the evenings.

Friends, Gifts and Dolls

2011-10-22T18:56:00.002+03:00

Some time ago I received a gift from my dear friend Melanie. She was in Egypt earlier this year on holiday, and bought some beautiful handwoven cotton scarves there. After she made her lovely Helping Hands quilt, she sent pieces from all those scarves to each of us whose hands are shown on her quilt. As soon as I saw my new fabrics, I knew where to look for a pattern to use them and make something nice.

I have had this Kaffe Fasset book for a long time, and the handkerchief corner quilt on the cover has always pleased me. I'll show you the results later, the idea is just maturing now. Thank you, Melanie!

This week another dear friend sent me unexpected mail. This came from Simone:

Bicycles on the wrapping paper and the stamps (for Mr. K!) and the owl must be for me.

Inside was this cute little wallhanging for Halloween. Luckily I'm not afraid of spiders or ghosts. Thank you Simone! (Without my photo editing programme I can't turn the picture, so you'll have to tilt your head.) Simone is also one of the Helping Hands friends, and you can see what she did with her scarf fabrics from Melanie if you scroll down her post in my link.

Finally a sneak peek at my dolls I'm making as Santa's little helper. They are my newest lot of "Anna ja Toivo" -dolls for Unicef. The names Anna and Toivo are also Finnish words and mean "give" and "hope". Very appropriate for dolls used to raise money for saving children's lives by giving them inoculations. Four pretty ones are at my sister's as I have outsourced the beautician's and hairdresser's services to her for the dolls going to her granddaughters.

Only one doll has a dress by now, but two dresses are in process and ideas for the other clothing are on paper. Everyone has at least undies, and they are sitting on the sofa near the fireplace so they are not cold. I think I'll knit some socks for them tonight.

Still Crumbling Along

2011-10-18T15:23:00.002+03:00

This Autumn I have been playing with a bag of "useless" scraps. Jo is hosting a Crumb Along to make a unique quilt in an unconventional way. First she showed how to make Flying Geese, without a ruler:

The next week's lesson was a star block. I have made Maverick Stars before, so this was easier for me. I also happened to have tiny white squares just waiting to be used.

It was the third week, I think, when we were to see the Nine Patch and Four Patch in a new way:

After that it was tricks with triangles. I used some already in the above top right corner block, they were leftovers from a quilt I made for my niece last year. I happened to cut very many triangles the wrong way and unpicked them. Luckily I had almost the required amount of fabric to cut them the right way and only one has the stripes going horizontally in the finished quilt. Now I made a bow, a Shoo-Fly, and two HST blocks in a square.

Last week's block was the Log Cabin. I need to make more blocks of all these and some crumble blocks as well, because I need 42 blocks for the centre of the quilt, plus a huge amount for the outer border.

Jo is making the outer border with Alphabet blocks, and I'm planning to make some words and maybe stars for it. I'm waiting for my book to arrive any day now. This will certainly be the scrappiest quilt I have ever made!

I'm linking in on Jo's blog. There you can find links to many other quilters who are doing their own unique versions of this fun quilt. Go and see them all!

PIF sent, and other news

2011-10-15T15:14:00.000+03:00

Finally I have a working system on this borrowed laptop and can show you some of my recent doings. Some time ago I sent all my PIF gifts on their way, and they have now arrived at their destinations in Australia, Switzerland and Ireland. I made them all a little tote bag using Marimekko fabric, and a smaller bag for small things.

Barbara and Heather both received the sets shown above, and Kaite, who signed in later, got a more colourful tote (because I had used my beige for the two others):

and a knitting needle holder as I happen to know she is a knitter.

The baby sweaters went to the Black Lion Hospital in Ethiopia, to fulfill my earlier promise from 2008 to send three handmade gifts. At that time I only had two ladies to sign in for the first PIF I signed in.The Finnish Nuttu project has received nearly 50,000 baby sweaters for them in a few years, and it has spread to Switzerland as well, where the sweaters are sent to another place. I'm so happy Barbara decided to knit some sweaters too, and luckily we found a way she can join the project in her own country.

You can see here what Melanie sent me and her other PIF ladies. The pictures are at the end of the holiday post.

I had to use my photos as they came from the camera, I hope they don't take ages to upload when you read this.
I have been working on some Unicef dolls again, and on my crumble blocks, enjoying some lovely autumn days but also had rain and wind, even the first night frosts. A new post will follow soon! I hope to be able to visit you all now that the internet seems to allow me opening more than a few of them.

Autumn bag and Stash use report for September

2011-09-30T08:58:00.000+03:00

This week I have been suffering from a crushed down computer syndrome and the situation is still going on. Mr. K offered me his laptop so I have been able to read and send emails, but this poor thing is slow and constantly having internet troubles. Therefore I have not been able to visit your blogs. On the other hand, I have had more time with my sewing machine.

The Bag Club, Melanie, Simone and I, have been working on an Autumn bag. Melanie and I kept to the original plan of making a more complicated pattern from our book The Bag Making Bible, and Simone wanted to finish a big bag she had been working on. The Organiser Bag inludes details like a gusset, several interior pockets, a harness for a laptop, and an adjustable strap. These were all very clearly explained in the book and not too difficult to sew. The final touch was my big headache: the flap is closed by two twist-locks. Cutting the holes for the buttonhole metal parts was SCARY! The bag flap had many layers like exterior fabric, interfacing and lining and heavy interlining , and I had to be so careful not to cut the hole too big. Next time will be easier. Melanie can tell, as she has already made two of these bags. You can get to her blog from the link Houseelf Doings in my sidebar, she has great pictures of her bags there, and more.

Here is my bag:

There should be a picture but I'm not sure whether you can see it. I'll download it again later when/if the good computer will be good again. Anyway, the exterior fabric is from linen curtains from my childhood, and the bag front is an upholstery fabric. The lining is a brown fabric handed down to me from someone in the family. This makes the bag made completely from stash. For my statistics I estimate I have used about 1.3 m fabrics in all for this (exterior and lining). Other September sewings took 0.8 m for the last PIF gifts I made for Kaite, who signed in later, and some other minor projects.The gifts are now on their way to Heather, Barbara and Kaite. Pictures will follow when the ladies have received their mail. This all adds up to 2.1 m fabrics used, and nothing bought!

This time I can't put in any links or photos in the normal way, but I hope to have the computer problems solved as soon as possible and visit your blogs again.

Crumbs, limping geese, and swans learning to fly

2011-09-21T11:03:00.000+03:00

Recently I came across a tempting challenge: Crumb Along! at Jo's Country Junction. I made my first crumb quilt last Spring and it was fun and addicting. Before I noticed I had started yet another block, and when I trimmed a finished block I was left with a new beginning. Therefore I didn't hesitate but started playing with another bag of crumbs. For the first block Jo showed us how to make Flying Geese in a liberated way, scissor cut and with no strict rules.

My geese look like they had a limp!

Jo is giving a new block every Tuesday, and yesterday she showed how to make a star and a heart. These are my first blocks for this week. If you want to play along, you can still catch up and start playing with your tiny bits of fabric.

On every Tuesday Jo also has a list of links to the blogs Crumbing Along, so you can visit the blogs and get new ideas. The button on my sidebar will also take you to Jo's blog.

Limping geese takes me to the beautiful whooper swans practicing their flight. The birds are big, from bill to tail 130 to 152 cm long, and quite heavy too. Getting up in the air is not so easy:

This is as high as this young bird got on any of its attempts I saw.

There was lot of running just under the water surface.

Yesterday Melanie gave us two challenges, one of them concerned decluttering the house and getting rid of five things that are useless, outgrown etc. I found all these blouses,shirts etc. in my closet, in good condition but made for a person smaller than I'm now, so they will go to the charity shop.

This is more than five already, but I also found a winter sweater of Mr. K and a small T-shirt of Son K to go with them. Then there was this pair of summer shoes. They were not my size either, but tended to be left behind like Cinderella's glass slipper when I tried to walk in them.

And finally something useless: two broken toys I had been thinking of repairing but I know I'm never going to do it. Binned!

The fun part of Melanie's challenge is left: an hour of time for myself, and as a reward for losing the useless items, to find something to the house that is really me. I'll need to think about that before I make the decision.

Autumn feelings

2011-09-19T10:15:00.000+03:00

The weather has changed to colder nights, misty mornings and shorter days. Two weeks ago we had our first New Jersey Moreton tomatoes finally ready to eat. Delicious! The seeds came as Christmas present from Candace and Mr. Squash.

Yesterday I had to pick the whole harvest as there is a chance of night frost any night soon. On the left are the Ramapo mid season tomatoes, and on the right the early season variety Moreton. Obviously our season is too short! And "everything's big in America", some of these are as big as my fist.

Here are the almost done ones. The small ones are our last domestic plum tomatoes.

These we had this morning at breakfast.

We also have some cherry tomatoes. Almost lingonberry tomatoes!

I have been knitting again. When I was digging through some boxes I found lots of yarn I didn't remember I had, and so I knitted the pink sweater using some of the darker red for stripes. All three sweaters have the same amount of stitches, and the same 3.5 mm needles, and the yellow and dark red even have the same yarn, but all three are different sizes. Luckily, so are babies! These are going to be my PIF gift for a charity. My PIF ladies, be patient, I will send your gifts soon too!

Yesterday I was picking our last apples for apple sauce and found a tired little hedgehog asleep under the apple tree. I didn't make a picture because I didn't want to wake him or her up. The hedgehog looked almost like dead but it was breathing steadily so I think it was fine, just enjoying the sun's warmth. There were many of these toadstools on our lawn , maybe here is a guest room for the Houseelf?

When I was hanging up my washing on the line, I heard the cranes. They are a sign of Autumn coming too, gathering together for their migration to North Africa and the Nile. There is a video on this link showing the cranes in the spring when they return here for nesting.

As the birds leave us, the nature gets more quiet. The cheerful singing belongs to spring when the males try to impress their mates. Come Autumn, the birds only chirp quietly and they will share in a peaceful manner the seeds we offer. In a few weeks the last little migrating birds are getting on their way and we will start feeding the ones which are meant to stay here for the winter: tits, bullfinches, greenfinches, yellow-breasted buntings, siskins, woodpeckers, blackbirds. I miss seeing them already, as they have disappeared in the forest for all summer. After the first hard night frost they will return and see if the sunflower seeds are in the usual place again. They will be!

Farmers' Market and Harvest Fair

2011-09-11T16:26:00.000+03:00

Last weekend we visited the annual farmers' market and harvest fair in Järvenpää again. We left home in rain, but were lucky to have sunshine for the time we walked through this marketplace and pedestrian area. You can see how dark the clouds were.

Farmers brought their harvest: chanterelles, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and cabbages here, and leeks

Home made jams, juices and pickled vegetables

Flowers

and flowers

Dried flowers and straw ornaments, including straw goats for Christmas

The yarns in soft colours here in the front are dyed with plants and mushrooms (not the pink, I think!). They had yarns for knitters and woven and knitted shawls.

The weather is getting colder, and wearing these fingerless gloves would be a good idea soon.

Hand-made ceramics

Some of the Villa Cooper ladies with their wool socks, leather slippers and ceramics

Guess how many new ladies wanted to join the open college quilting class this autumn after seeing my pretty display? 0!
Really, on Thursday only one of last year's ladies joined me and the teacher in class. After the rain stopped, one more lady came and asked if she could join and not quilt but make herself a jacket, and we all welcomed her with open heart. Three is not a crowd here, so we need at least two more to be allowed to start the class for real. We just hope some of our regulars have been busy with work, grandchildren, harvest or summer cabin, and will be there next week full of energy and new ideas.

Stash use report for August, and swan news

2011-09-04T14:08:00.000+03:00

August is the last of our summer months, and it seems I have been in the summer mood with my sewings as well. I have just been working on the secret PIF project, which is about half done now. I also and managed to finish a tiny mobile phone holder for a display I was asked to put together. This was for the sewing group in the open college; we are trying to get more people in the group as we have only been about 5 ladies at a time there. I used the lovely little table runner from Melanie to catch the eye, as all my self-made quilts were too long for this board.

As you can see, there is also a tutorial for No Waste Flying Geese on the left, and Half Square Triangles on the right. My Flying Geese phone holder is hanging in the middle. The signing in starts today, and our first class in on Thursday. Let's hope someone new will notice this class while signing in for her Pilates class. - Back to the statistics: fabrics used in August total the amazing 0.7 m, and fabrics bought, also very moderate 0.85 m. Then I also gave away about 1.5 m from my stash for an Armadillo project (don't ask!), and it counts as stash reduction aswell. This makes -2.2 m and +0.85 m.

With so little result to show, I will take you to the wild whooper swans again. This year the couple has five cygnets, and they all survived. They have moved from their little nesting pond to wider waters in the village centre, and were having a nap on the lawn in the middle of the day.

One of the parents was in the water keeping an eye on the others.

The other parent was balancing on one foot while sleeping.

Then they were waking up, one by one. The cygnets are all still grey, and their peaks are more flesh colour than the beautiful yellow of the grown-ups.

The others woke up too, but while I was standing there (quite a bit from them, not to disturb), they didn't go in the water.

There was a lovely white swan feather floating in the pond, and I had to wait for a long time for it to reach me and stop so I could get a focused picture. The feather came to me like a tiny sailboat.

Autumn colours and harvest time, knitting

2011-08-29T20:13:00.000+03:00

On Friday we had a very warm weather and I had a long walk in the forest. It is harvest time. Combine machines have threshed the corn, berries have been picked in the gardens. There are still wild berries in the forest, like arctic bilberries

and lingonberries

Hawthorn berries in a tree in the park of the library:

Lovely red of the poisonous toadstool amanita

Many edible mushrooms are brown

These yellow ones may be edible, or not. I always check twice and ask Mr. K before using any mushrooms for food.

All plants are making their seeds ready to fly with the wind or to fall on the ground or to be eaten and spread by the birds. This is willowherb.

My own harvest in the vegetable patch is showing no signs of real progress:

My Jersey tomatoes have grown big and lovely, but there is still no sign of red in them. We have had a handful of the smaller domestic tomatoes to taste.

I have not been sewing anything I can show just yet, as they will be my PIF gifts. Because no new names were signed on my list, I have decided to make a baby sweater project in Ethiopia my third PIF recipient. A Finnish midwife has started a project in Ethiopia in order to get the women to hospital to give birth to their baby. If they do, the baby will get a knitted sweater like this to go home with. Also, this way the baby will be registered and get a birth certificate.

This is my first sweater for them, just knitted and not yet sewn together. In September there will be information about how to send them to Africa. The deliveries are on hold now, as there has been a new customs fee to be paid for the sweaters, and the hospital people are negotiating about this and hoping to avoid the extra cost.

More wilderness

2011-08-16T10:08:00.000+03:00

Today's post is concentrating on the holiday photos only. Mr. K was fly-fishing on the shore:

His fishing line is floating on the water and the fly goes with the water downstream.

His friend was fishing from the boat on the lake above us.

Mr. K caught a beautiful trout. We had surprise visitors, two elderly German gentlemen, who had canoed for ten days downstream, starting from the Russian border. They wanted to check the rapid and decide if it was safe to paddle down or should they take their canoe down with ropes. Ropes it was, as they didn't want to get their tent and baggage wet for the last days of their journey. Mr. K asked if they could use a trout, and they were happy to accept the offer for a nice dinner on that cold day.

We had rainbow trouts for lunch, this time opened flat and smoked for 35 minutes.

Between the rain showers and constant rain we had moments of sunshine.

The lingonberries were on their way getting red and ready to be picked.

Some of the bilberry (artcic blueberry) leaves were already changing colour for Autumn. While I was washing up, the other lady picked bilberries for our morning oatmeal. All berries were already picked near the cabin, but she went deeper in the forest and found all we needed.

Here we made the coffee on open fire and had our meals whenever there was enough light.

Sunset over the lake after a rainy day.

Mist on the lake.

I miss the quiet peace of this place already.

Holiday in the wilderness, & PIF gift

2011-08-15T09:56:00.000+03:00

Last week Mr. K took me out to eat every day. We were on holiday in North Carelia at the same cabin as many years before, and our dining table was in the outdoor kitchen as usual. Here is the cabin, an old log drivers' cabin you can only reach by boat.

There were big changes from last year: we had electric light instead of gas light, there was even a lamp at the kitchen sink (only needed for making the evening tea before bed time, as I washed the dishes outdoors).

The bunk beds are on the other side of the room.

The electricity came from this solar panel.

I was trying to be a Coot Club photographer, but water birds were absent. I watched this little wagtail catching insects above the rapid, and tried to get a picture of the dozens and dozens of swallows flying up and down above the water with their peaks wide open, but they were way too fast for me to focus on.

The weather was good until the first night so we didn't get wet with our bags on the way there. We were prepared to the change in temperature and just dressed warmer every day.

Some fishing pictures will follow in the next post. When we arrived home for the weekend, a sweet surprise was in the mail on top of the bills:

Melanie had already sent her PIF gift to me! It was a beautiful pinwheel table runner in Summer colours. Tiny perfect pinwheels, and she told this was a stashbusting project for all her PIF ladies.

My hands have been busy with laundry only, but I hope to get back to the sewing later this week. There is still one PIF name missing on my list as Melanie's PIF recipient, and another from my original PIF list from years back. This is your last chance to let me know you want to join. Next week I will decide on two charities to take those places and make something to them to pay forward to people who need a little gift showing that we still care.

Bag Club strikes again

2011-08-08T09:08:00.002+03:00

After having made our own versions of the Mary Jane bag pattern Stephanie from Loft Creations so generously sent us in June, we decided to order a new pattern from her and make a different bag each for our next project. In fact we are gathering strength to start a demanding project from The Bag Making Bible for the Autumn, and wanted to relax with a well written, easy pattern during the Summer. "We" are the unofficial European Bag club, Bag Ladies: Simone (now an official Supreme for Stephanie's patterns), Melanie and I.

I decided to make the sweet little Hailee Bag, as I had bought some giant rick rack a long time ago and wanted to finally use it. Within two hours from ordering I had the pattern downloaded and printed, in spite of the time difference.

To my stash I went, and in honour of Stephanie I wanted to use polka dots. Mine are naturally brown; the brown on white from a piece of farbric from my sister P, and the bigger dots on brown are from a sleeve I had from my mother's stash. I don't know what happened to the rest of the dress, but I was happy to have the sleeve. Maybe she cut two left sleeves at first? It was a short one, so I made a seam in the bottom middle of the strips.

The solid dark brown is from the last one of Mr. K's slimmed shirts with long pointed collars from the 70's, and the lighter brown is a scrap from a charity shop.

The lining is from my father's shirt, and the biggest remnant of the dotty sleeve made a tiny pocket for keys or lipstick. Just my style: recycled fabrics all from my stash, nothing needed to be bought.

My sister Maija was here on a short holiday and she liked the bag so much that I gave it to her. The sleeve could have been from her dress, these are her colours as well as mine. This was a fun little bag, very easy to make. The fabrics make all the difference: If you look at Stephanie's Hailee Bags, they are sweet as candy, and my bag could make you think about coffee and cappuccino!

I wonder what Simone and Melanie have put together. Will there be a West Linn bag? It was the first of Stephanie's patterns I used after I won it and a charm pack from her giveaway in 2009.

I used unbleached linen for the solid colour. This is a very practical bag.

Maybe they are fond of Dresden plates and made a Ladyfingers bag? Some day I'm going to make one for myself using my father's old ties for the fingers. This one was a Christmas gift to DS1's girlfriend last Christmas.

They will not be making a Modern Mary Jane, as this was the bag we all just made in June. I can carry my A4 papers in this along with a smaller folder, notebook, tissue pouch, make-up pouch and wallet.

There is of course the Loft Tote, like this one I got from Candace for my birthday in the Spring. She is also a Supreme pattern tester.

This is a perfect bag for someone who needs to carry more than a wallet and keys in her handbag. Like me. It is deep enough to keep my things safe and there is room for some shopping as well. I think Stephanie has designed a bag for every lady, and it is easy to add pockets and details if you feel like it. If you pop over to Simone in Holland and Melanie in England you will see more of Stephanie's (Ohio, USA) bags in different styles. They will be showing their newest bags today too. These patterns and some more by Stephanie are available from Loft Creations in PDF form and you can get them today, if you want to try making one of these bags.

Stash use report for July, and PIF still open

2011-08-01T09:55:00.000+03:00

July with the hot, lazy summer days is gone, and it's time to look back at the fabric piles. It looks like they didn't melt away! I didn't manage not to buy any fabric at all, but I only bought 1 m calico for stitching as it is something I don't usually have in stash. My fabric use was very moderate too, but I had a lovely little project I finished last night. Earlier this year I got this old iron bed:

I cleaned and washed it, mended the net on the sides, and washed the fabric covering the original bottom half, and made a new one to replaced the missing half. They are hinged together with twine in the middle.

Then I made a mattress and a pillow using old mattress fabric to suit this antique bed. I don't want to repaint it.

The bed needed sheets as well, naturally, and I unpicked the lace from an old, worn out sheet and used the good parts for the pillowcase and the top sheet.

I finished the hexagon quilt in about 17 days.

It is in the bed now, with the lace sheet and pillowcase. Too bad the bed is too small for me to sleep in! All I need now is to make myself some dolls to keep in the bed.

Here is a better look at the little hexagon quilt. The border is the same fabric as I used for my DD Kaija's quilt three years ago, the one that took me 17 years with pauses to finish.

The bed project used about 1.5 m fabrics in all, and washpeg aprons, a secret bag and a bag for Mr. K's bamboo rod took 2.2 m more, so the stash was reduced by 3.7 m. I hope to show the bag soon, and I'm planning to make a completely not quilting or sewing -related post about Mr. K's bamboo project. Oh I almost forgot the polka dot bag, I don't even have a picture of the white one. They were both sewn in July, and used up 2 m of fabrics. Total use was 5.7 m, not very much but not too bad either.

There are still two more possibilities to sign in for my PIF, as Barbara and Heather are so far the only ones on my list. You can read more about this offer in my previous post, if you are interested.

Tour de Hexagon & Pay It Forward

2011-07-22T11:12:00.000+03:00

In my last post I promised my new Grandmother's Garden quilt would not take another 17 years to make, as I had one flower block as a leftover from the big project. I had the remaining fabrics still left in a basket, and a handful of basted hexagons. It took me some time on the Pyrenees (with Le Tour de France, on TV, naturally) to make these:

As the cyclists are torturing their muscles on the Alps, I'm stitching. That was quick, wasn't it? I must admit this quilt is not a very large one.

A while ago Melanie announced the PIF challenge she took, and I was one of her lucky three who promised to carry on and pay it forward to another three persons. Do you know what this is all about? The original idea is from a film, and it is living its own life in the blog world. The rules are simple: I promise to send a handmade (by me) gift to the first three people who are willing to join in. I don't know yet what the gift will be, but I will send it within a year from now, probably much sooner. What you need to do to get that gift, is write about the PIF on your blog and make the same promise. I have played along once before, when I had just started my blog, and back then I only had two answers. Therefore I promise a gift to the fourth person as well, to keep my original promise from 2008. Now I'm just waiting for my PIF gift from Melanie to arrive before the end of the year, but meanwhile I would love to start planning nice gifts for you, my dear readers. To give you an idea of the kind of gifts we are talking about, check here (scroll down past the interesting Egypt tour if you just want to see her gift) what Melanie got from Anne Marie, or what I got from a Swedish Ulla.

The weather has been too hot again. Our tomatoes five weeks ago were like this:

And now they are as tall as I am, almost at least. There are some tomatoes too, all green and small but they seem to grow fast. Like they say in the song in West Side Story "everything's big in America". The tall plants are from the seeds we had from Candace and Mr. Squash. In the lower right corner you can see our Finnish tomato plant in a pot, about 30 cm high so they have hardly grown since the first picture was taken.

I hope you can enjoy the summer, remember to drink enough water if the weather is hot. Who wants to sign in for the PIF? Be sure I can contact you when you leave a comment.

New project, and swan news

2011-07-15T13:29:00.000+03:00

This week I was looking for a nice hand sewing project for Tour de France, and came across a leftover block from an earlier project. I unpicked the outer row and two hexagons and had this flower for my new Grandmother's Garden:

When I first started blogging, it was to get this quilt finished at last after working on it on and off during 11 summers and leaving it to mature for several years before the final push in 2008.

My daughter's quilt has 2,226 little hexagons, hand pieced and hand stitched. I'm still going to work that way, and use the same fabrics I had chosen for the big quilt, but this time the quilt will just be a little one. I will share this process with you, and I promise it will not take 17 years!

The reason why I needed a new project was that I finished the previous one. I had been knitting beanies and a scarf for Jan's Oz Comfort Quilt projects. Here I used some super soft and fine yarn Stephanie has sent me:

Here is the multi-coloured green beanie again with two others I knitted with my leftover yarns.

I mentioned in my stash use report the clothespin aprons I made. Here is mine, hanging on the washline waiting for the laundry to dry. The fabric is ' "Klopins" - Sven A. Gefeldt - Design Finnish Linen printed exclusively for Nordiska Kompaniet'. Nordiska Kompaniet is a big warehouse in Sockholm, Sweden. The fabric used to be curtains in our utility room when Scandinavian Design was getting very famous, in the 1950-60's. Now the curtains are faded and stained, but they can have a new life in close contact with real clothespins. In case you wonder, the design is white clothespins on yellow background.

Some weeks ago I went to the village centre to take pictures of the swan family, last year's couple with five new cygnets, who had been seen there again. On that day there were big lawn mowers working around the pond, and a man with a trimmer too, so the peace-loving birds had moved back to the smaller, more quiet pond where they nest. Last week I was lucky to have my camera with me on an early morning walk. The pond was quiet and the weather was beautiful.

One of the swan parents was there! They obviously take some time off from childcare and fly in turns to this bigger pond for some private time and a quiet breakfast without interruptions.

I stayed behind a tree and hardly moved when I took several pictures of this whooper swan, but maybe the click of the camera was too loud for him after a while. I felt he was saying something about staring and privacy, so I put the camera away and walked home. I had private cup of tea and some newspaper reading without interruption and without anyone staring at me.

I'm looking forward to seeing the cygnets' flight practice at the end of the summer when they need to get to these wider waters in order to have long enough landing strips.

Zippered pocket tutorial, and bird babies

2011-07-08T12:20:00.001+03:00

Bags are nice, and bags with a zippered pocket inside are even nicer. When I make a bag for myself, I usually like to add a pocket to keep my keys and cards safe while the bag can preferably be open or closed with a single button. Maybe you think zippers are difficult to sew, but I can show that they are not necessarily. (Changing a zipper for boys' jeans is on the top of my least favourite list.)

EDITED TUTORIAL
First you need to measure the zipper you are going to use. I prefer 18 or 20 cm, the length commonly used on skirts and trousers. Measure the teethed part only, and add a tiny bit like 2-3 mm.

Cut the pocket so the width is the same or more than the length of your zipper tape. The pocket can only be as deep as the distance from the zipper to the bag bottom. Draw a line as long as you just measured, about 3 cm from the top of your pocket fabric:

Pin your pocket fabric right sides together on the lining where you want the pocket. Now sew a square around your line using the side of your normal sewing machine foot as a guide. Make right angle corners and double stitch the ends where your drawn line ends.

Here is my square, you may need to click the picture to see better.

Then comes the exciting part: you must cut along the line. I start by folding the fabric in half across the line and cut a hole along the line somewhere in the middle.

Then open the fold and carefully cut along the line. When you are close to the end, cut towards each corner but be careful not to cut your stitches. Do this at the other end as well.

Then pull the pocket fabric through the opening, and finger press the seams flat. Pin the pocket on the lining at the corners, finger press the ends so there are no wrinkles. If this seems impossible, you may need to cut a bit more, but again be careful with the stitches. You could iron the opening to make things easier at the next stage.

Next take you zipper and pin it under the opening with the pins on the right side. Use your zipper foot if you have one. This can be done with a normal foot or a quilt foot as well. I usually stich the zipper down on both sides, so I started on the right side, with the zipper pulled down a bit so I can make a straight line. When I have sewn down to the first pin, I stop with the needle down, lift the foot and pull the zipper closed. Foot down again, and continue sewing close to the edge of the fabric all the way down, make a nice turn and double stitch across the bottom. Then change your zipper foot to the other side and sew across the top a double stitch, and finally down the left side of the zipper. Again, you can open the zipper for the first bit if your needle comes close to the zipper pull.

Here is the zipper on the reverse. Notice that I have sewn the top ends of the zipper tape together, this helps to sew a nice square seam when fastening the zipper.

To make the pocket, sew both pocket tops together above the zipper -the zipper foot is good for this as well. You need to fold the bag lining away and sew only the pocket fabrics.

Then join the pocket sides, and bottom, if you have a separate pocket back fabric (I had a long piece which I folded at the bottom). Stitch the pocket front piece (with the zipper) on the pocket back with right sides together.

The pocket is now ready, and you can finish your bag lining. You can make any bag pattern perfect for you by adding the pockets you need.

Here is my new bag made of the fabrics I bought in June. I have another one coming in white with purple dots.

A week ago the pied flycatcher babies flew out from their nice house. This last one took a long time, coming to the opening and going back in again.

Finally it made the decision, jumped out and ended up on a big branch about a metre from the nest. The mother came immediately and rewarded the baby with a treat. I watched them for about five minutes, but apparently the baby then knew how to fly, and they both vanished. I can still hear them almost every day, but they don't live in the nest any more.

The baby is almost the same colour as the oak, and with his or her back towards the camera. You can click the pictures to enlarge.

Stash use report for June

2011-07-03T18:25:00.001+03:00

Welcome to hear about my month with fabrics. Take some rhubarb upside down cake with your coffee:

Or maybe I can bribe you with some wild strawberries? The aroma is way better than in the big strawberries from the garden or strawberry field.

You have heard of my favourite fabric shop closing, and selling their stock with 30 % and 40 % off., and how I started buying fabrics for backings and bags and unknown purposes. Well, in June the prices went irresistible:

Sewing notions -50 % and all fabrics -70 %. With the cake and the strawberries I offered you, can you blame me for this:

or this?

I may have not photographed all new fabrics but I did measure them, and 25.4 m new fabrics bought with money came home with me in June. (This is my clever way of not counting the fabrics I have been given, as they are not new and I didn't ask for them.) It is a lot, but I really can't see why on earth I should need to buy any new fabrics this whole year.

On the stash reducing side, I have not been quite idle. I used 3 m for the children's pillowcases, about 1.2 m for my Antique Mary Jane bag (as you see, all fabrics used count, old and new!), 1.5 m for some clothespin aprons and Kaaren's block, and finished the crumble quilt which took 3.4 m off my shoulders, as I already counted the crumble blocks last month. The fabrics used in June total 9,1 m. That is not bad after all, I think, only leaves me with 16,3 m more fabric than I had at the beginning of the month. Ouch! I sincerely hope everyone else carrying the Use your Stash badge has done better than I have!

The weather has been hot again, and we are expecting a refreshing thunder and rain before we melt away. Not much energy for sewing as the sewing machine is in the hottest room of the house. I have been stripping paint instead, trying to get all the black paint off a little cupboard before I will paint it white and fill it with my sewing things which without warning have taken over the high table I was supposed to keep empty for cutting my fabrics.

Mary Jane, the antique version

2011-06-25T10:47:00.002+03:00

The unofficial European Bag Lady Club is launching today their newest bag. This time we have made the Modern Mary Jane bag by Loft Creations. Simone won the pattern in Stephanie's giveaway (you can see three version in this link!), and Stephanie was so generous that she sent the pattern as a gift to Melanie and me so we could all make this nice and useful bag as a "Bag of the Month". Simone already made one version using the kit she won, but today we'll see her second Modern Mary Jane.

I decided to use an old, stained tablecloth with torn hemstich and a hole.

This is my Antique Mary Jane:

I used the best part of the tablecloth for the panel, and cut the remaining embroideries for the squares around it, adding some colours of the stitcheries for fun. Inside I added a zippered pocket:

I remembered I had a vintage button from Stephanie, and the size and colour were just perfect for the bag.

This is the backside. I had some old linen for the back panel and the handles.

Finally a closer look at the front. Many of the embroideries are worn from use and washing, so this has been a well-loved tablecloth. I'm happy to give it a new life.

Thank you Stephanie, this was a nice and easy pattern. I like roomy bags with something special, just like this one. Now everyone, pop in to see what Simone and Melanie have put together!

A while ago Stephanie told a sad story about an empty robin's nest in her garden, so I thought I could cheer you up with these pictures. We have three couples of pied flycatchers (ficedula hypoleuca) in our birdhouses, and they are all busy feeding their young babies.

I just read that the babies eat about 15,000 insects during their 16 days in the nest, so we should be really grateful for the mama and papa birds. Above is the mama bringing a mouthful to the babies, and below the papa looking for new prey.

Have a nice Midsummer!

Crumble block quilt top, and tomato news

2011-06-23T13:20:00.001+03:00

The big peonies are opening their flowers in our garden, just for Midsummer.

This week I took my pile of crumble blocks and added white sashings with black cornerstones (from stash, naturally) to make the quilt look less wild. This will go to Australia for Oz Comfort Quilts. Jan is working all the time to make quilts from donated tops or QAYG blocks and sending the finished quilts to places where they are most needed: flood victims in Queensland, earthquake survivors in Christchurch, New Zealand, abused kids or homeless people. Read this post on her blog Oz Comfort Quilts.

These pillowcases - fabrics I couldn't resist for 70 % off the price in the fabric shop now closed down forever - will find their way to kids through Jan as well. Can you imagine, she has sent 396 quilts this year alone! Naturally, she has "sub-contractors" all over the world, but joining the QAYG blocks or making quilts from donated quilt tops is a huge effort. In her spare time (!!) she knits scarves and beanies to keep those people warm as it is winter now down there. If you feel like you could join in and help, you find more information on Jan's blog. If you don't feel like sewing or knitting but still think you want to help her with the postage fees, there is now a donate button on her blog, and on the other blog as well: Sew Many Quilts, Too Little Time.

The beginning of the summer here has not been as warm as the end of spring in May. However, our tomatoes are doing fine, they have grown higher and there are first signs of tiny buds to be seen. How are your tomatoes, Candace? On Sunday I sowed radishes in front of the tomatoes, and this morning there was a green row to be seen already! Melanie, these were left over from last year.

On my way home the other day I saw the first wild strawberries by the roadside. The ones in our yard are not quite ready yet, but I think we can celebrate Midsummer with a handful of them.

Lazy days

2011-06-11T14:38:00.000+03:00

Writing a new blog post takes longer when you don't have anything to show. The weather has been hot, +27 C and more (80 F), far too hot for me. The plants need water. Yesterday we were sure there was going to be a thunder but all we got was a few drops of water and some rumbling sounds. I have not sewn anything worth showing. It is too hot, and I need a new cutting mat. I have been getting to know my new toy:

I had some birthday money and decided it was time to give Mr. K his lovely little pocket camera back and get my own. This big camera is not so easy to carry along, but on the other hand, I always have big shoulderbags, so I'll just leave out the umbrella and the book if I want to take the camera with me. I'm only learning, and I have not yet read through the 195 pages of the manual. Uploading the next pictures on blogger I noticed the huge size of them, about 2.4 Mt compared to the first one, 83.9 kt. I need to find out how I can take smaller pictures!

At the beginning of the summer I like to use the new harvest, when the green things start to grow again. Nature is ready to give us organic food which is rich in vitamin C and iron, nettles:

I wear rubber gloves and use scissors when I cut the top three pairs of leaves of the nettles growing at the edge of the woods. This loosely filled bucketful was enough to make three meals. I rinsed them in cold water and blanced them for a minute or two, and pureed them. I mixed one third with potatoes and cream to make a soup, and the rest of the nettles went in the freezer. They can be used like spinach, and taste almost the same.

I wanted the bigger camera so I could take better pictures of the birds without disturbing them. This blackbird father was struggling with a big worm he was going to take to his babies, and he didn't notice me at al because I could sit on the verandah while he was down on the lawn.

You can click on the picture to see the details. If your don't like his kind of food, click on my soup plate instead.

Now it's time to drink some cold water before I melt. I promise to sew something for the next post!

Stash use report for May

2011-06-01T16:45:00.003+03:00

This has been a productive month after all. I have used lots of fabrics (5.3 m in May) from my stash to make the QAYG blocks I have already shown in my last post, but I wanted to use the too short bits as well, and started making crumble blocks to clear the sewing table. I tried to use colour themes for the blocks:

I even used tiny triangles to make squares to start a block:

Sometimes there were no matching fabrics long enough for the last 6½" side, so I pieced them too:

At the end of the project I noticed I was trying to make log cabin blocks with no system at all.

Finally I had my blocks, packed the remaining scraps in the plastic bag and looked under my desk: No bits wider than 1" in the waste!

I estimate the blocks used up about 1.5 m fabric. Hip hurrah! The Raggedy Friends Quilt took about 3.7 m; I have been working on it since last July, but not counted the fabrics until now that it is finished.

I used 2.7 m for a jacket and lining, and 0.9 m for a slip, and gave away 0.7 m fabric for the Bag Club ladies, which is also counted as using my stash. This means that 14.8 m of fabrics have stopped being in my stash! On the other hand, I have only bought 2.2 m new fabrics, balancing very well the ugly results of April. Now I can feel relaxed and think about the fabric store selling all fabrics for 40 % off, as there is not much time left.

I waited for the apple trees to look like whipped cream again to take a lovely picture, but before I could really see the blossoms, white petals were blowing in the wind! I hope it was warm enough for the bees to fly so there will be apples in September.

In October Mr. K and I planted some Phlox Subulata on the slope facing the street.

They survived the Winter very well and are blooming now!

The narcissi are blooming for the first time in their new place, last year they just made buds.

Today is the first day of Summer, and at my time it meant the beginning of a three month summer vacation. Have a happy Summer, holiday or not!

Using up old fabric scraps, and bird news

2011-05-25T20:28:00.000+03:00

Today I finally could send this lot to Jan at Oz Comfort Quilts. Can you imagine that 326 quilts have been delivered through her hands this year alone to the people who have lost their homes in floods, fires and earthquakes. She makes most of them, using donated QAYG blocks, orphan blocks or quilt tops, and sometimes gets finished quilts to deliver. I'm glad to be one of her "sub-contractors".

She will join these Quilt-As-You-Go blocks into a warm quilt and send ít with many other quilts to the areas where they are needed. I had a sub-contractor as well. The block below was sewn by a Belgian guest, Christel, who was visiting the sewing class I take from September to April. She was visiting Finland and came for one class with her hostess, one of the other students. To give her a taste of quilting I showed her the QAYG method. In no time at all she had sewn this block using my bag of strings:

I added some warm socks I knitted in the winter to go with the quilt blocks, as the weather in Australia is getting colder now for their winter.

The best thing about making the QAYG blocks for such a good cause is that I can use all kinds of fabric rests for them, and using a rough calculation I estimate that I have used 5.8 m fabric for the lot. I actually used up all longer strips needed to make them, and found a new pattern to keep me going and getting those bags empty at last: Crumb Blocks! You can find instructions for them here in Quiltville, here in Kaite Yarngarden or here, Nancie V.'s printer-friendly tutorial. I'll show my version later when I have finished some more.

The weather has been rather cool, and our little birds still come to eat the sunflower seeds they have dropped on the ground during the winter. I was watching them the other day, and suddenly they all fled to the trees and red currant bushes. They had seen the shadow of this old fellow, who then landed on the empty place.

The picture is not very good, taken through the kitchen window very quickly, but it was enough to identify the new visitor: Accipiter nisus, Eurasian sparrowhawk. Our bird looks very different from the one in the link, but my book says the male gets an almost blueish back and red-brown stripes on the chest with age. We have seen him several times after that, and luckily have not seen him catch any of the little bird friends.

New flowers are slowly opening their buds, and at the moment the Bergenia is the only one in bloom in our garden.

Raggedy Friends Quilt, and Spring news

2011-05-16T20:06:00.000+03:00

The Darling Buds of May - I have been watching a re-run of the life of the Larkin family based on the stories of H. E. Bates. It is a very nice series, no wicked persons who get away without consequenses, just a story of a large and loud family. Our newest buds of the month are these lilies of the valley, and with the temperatures around +10 C they will remain buds for a long time. While spending time with the Larkin family, I have also been hand sewing...

... finally the binding on the Raggedy and Friends quilt, and Andy posed for the block 11:

Here are the last three blocks, this one is 11:

And Annie is on block 10:

Both dolls are shown in the final block.

Here is the finished quilt, picture was taken in today's cloudy weather after the rain had stopped.

Thank you Kaaren, this was a fun project and I managed to finish it using only fabrics from my stash, many of them recycled. It was sometimes difficult to choose "my colours" for the ones given by Kaaren, but I think I can be pleased with the result. There are 5 ninepatches included, so I think this will qualify for Anne Marie's 9-patch challenge as my third finish as well.

For the first time in my life I have been growing tomatoes from seeds. These were sent to us by Candace and Mr. Squash as a Christmas present. Now I heard from experts that I should have started growing them indoors in March already instead of the beginning of April, but I hope that my little green~~house~~ cupboard will keep them warm and they will grow big and strong and happy and make lovely tomatoes.

Today I made sure we will get at least some tomatoes from our own garden: I'm making an exchange with a greenhouse-owner friend and get one of her plants agains two of my tiny ones. We will not have space for all these when they need bigger pots, so we will be giving some away to other friends as well. I couldn't imagine there would be a plant from every single seed I put in the pots! Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Squash! Mr. K. is wearing his Jersey Tomato t-shirt when he is gardening. It was a perfect fit, which is very unusual.

Stash use report for April

2011-05-04T19:59:00.000+03:00

Oh this was a bad month! I didn't finish any bigger projects, just a pincushion, a tissue holder and a pair of potholders, for which I used about 15 cm of fabric scrabs all together. The fabrics are all from my stash, and the potholder fabrics are all recycled, so this is naturally a good thing. Both have a 9-patch, so they qualify for Anne Marie's challenge, even when they are just a tiny project. I took the photo before the last binding was sewn on the reverse.

My only other finish, the Bag Club reversible bucket bag took about 1 m of the three fabrics all together, and that is all I managed to sew in April.

The other side of my statistics shows very big figures. The fabric store I usually use is closing business and selling all fabrics with a 30 % discount, and I have bought something every week. Big pieces of fabric, to make backings, and lovely pieces that have been too expensive until now. Can you believe it: 19 m in all. (I wrote it small so you would not notice how much it was.) Soon there are no nice fabrics left in her shop, so I don't need to buy them any longer. And I hope to get at my Raggedy and Friends quilt this month; it only requires quilting and binding, and then I can count all the fabric I have used for it since last Summer. I'm also working on a jacket for myself, and a slip for a dress, so I think things will look better for May.

I hope you have had better results than I for your using your stash and (not) buying fabrics in April.

Bag Reveal and Spring News

2011-04-30T11:19:00.000+03:00

April is almost gone and spring is finally here. This was the last bit of snow in our yard this week:

The aspen are letting their furry tails fly in the fresh spring wind - and soon the lawn will be full of them to be raked away.

The willows are in full bloom, their yellow colour can be seen from far. I hope you are not allergic!

The birch are ready to start spreading their pollen after a few warm days, and the tiny leaves will remain "mouse's ears" only for a short time. You can notice them growing by each day. Heavy rain is falling as I write, and it will make nature greener in no time. The temperature has cooled down to below 10 C (50F) which is normal for this time of the year.

Christmas hyacinths of last winter or the year before; I have thrown the bulbs in our garden compost heap in the winter and now they surprised me with new flowers.

Chive has survived the winter very well in my vegetable bed.

And so has the parsley.

Today is the day to show the first bag of our little European Bag Club. Melanie, Simone, Suzie and I decided to make a bag from the same pattern for May Day, and we used Lisa Lam's book The Bag Making Bible. This is the pattern on the cover picture, a reversible bucket bag.

I have shown my fabrics earlier, and this is how I used them. I added a plastic hose inside the handle.

To make things easier, I joined the ends before sewing the bias binding on the top edge of the bag. The polka dotty side has a pocket for my train ticket.

This is the checkered side. My button is smaller than in the pattern because a) I couldn't get a 4 cm self-cover button, and b) because for some reason I made the button loop shorter than instructed.

The bag was very easy to make because the instructions were clear and easy to follow. I'm looking forward to the next Bag Club project! Have you visited the other participants already?

Old embroideries and UFOs

2011-04-24T21:49:00.000+03:00

This weekend has been amazingly warm, and even with some snow still in the garden, Mr. K. has started working there. He went through his shirts to find a suitable one, and gave me these four he no longer will use because the collars are worn out, the sleeves are too short or the shirt is just simply too uncomfortable (the one on the left). I spent a lovely time in the sun on the verandah cutting up the shirts and folding the pieces to add in my stash.

I have sometimes wondered if UFOs are hereditary. I mean the eagerness to start something and then not being able to finish the project? At least in my family it seems to be the case, as I have several UFOs from my grandmother's generation, some of which I have been able to finish. Recently my mother was sorting her stash and she let me have some of her UFO collection. Many of these look like test bits, never meant to be finished projects. I think I could use this one to practice new stitches:

This is obviously a sampler, with different patterns at both ends of the row:

This small placemat looks like something I could try to finish, if I manage to find some matching thread.

This one looks like mother didn't want to do the difficult part at the ends.

One reason for the many UFOs must be that we are also keepers, we don't like to throw things away. This old tablecloth is a perfect example for that. It has been used a lot, so the embroidery has started to fray, and the hemstitch is torn at many places. Still it has been washed and put in storage, and I saved it once again. Maybe I can use some of the good parts of the embroidery, or maybe my daughter will do so.

Here is a pattern I would like to copy for future use. The stitches are quite simple, and I can see in my mind a detail of a bag or something like that. I could make the daisies smaller, or bigger.

Dear friends, gifts, and men in trees

2011-04-15T21:41:00.000+03:00

After my birthday several weeks ago I have still received some bulky mail from Melanie. First came this book, The Bayeux Tapestry Embroiderers' Story, because Melanie liked it and I loved the other book by Jan Messent she sent for my real birthday. It is an amazing story.

This was packed in a big biscuit tin: a small bucket bag for my knitting or sewing notions to take to class, some fabric scraps for Unicef dolls' clothes, vintage embroidery silk, a bird brooch made by Melanie, and a pair of Dutch clogs from her recent journey to Amsterdam.

I'm sure you want a better look at the brooch.

This all wasn't obviously not enough for her, because today I got another Walkers biscuit tin, very heavy this time. Melanie enclosed "some of her favourite things" for me. Many sorts of tea and portions of coffee, some Oxford marmalade with ginger to have on toast, and horse radish sauce for roast beef. This all gives me a taste of England, and many hints to our shared reading project of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons are included.

I want to show the owl a little closer. Melanie has told about this Athenian owl in this post on her blog. She has also better pictures of the wall hanging; it is wrinkled now as it was so tightly packed in the tin.

The name on the tin naturally refers to the Walker children, the Swallows, which I'm planning to make as Unicef dolls for myself. Melanie has already received her Amazons, Nancy and Peggy, and the Callun kids Dot and Dick. But Walkers on a biscuit tin sounded distantly familiar, and when we were grocery shopping, I suddenly noticed why:

Walkers Pure Butter Shortbread Rounds are on the shelf right next to the plain cinnamon biscuits I usually buy for my afternoon tea. The Walkers Shortbread rounds taste very nice and buttery, but I will need to keep to the Kaneelkeks or I will soon be as round as the butter shortbread rounds.

This week I saw something funny at the railway station in Järvenpää. Four men were in trees, cutting dry branches. It made me remember a TV series some years ago "Men in Trees", placed in a very small town in Alaska. I didn't see any men in trees in it, just a traffic sign warning about them. - As you see, there is no snow in this picture. The snow in our yard is about half gone.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Nine-patch, and signs of new life

2011-04-09T22:54:00.000+03:00

Today I saw the first sign of new life in the garden: the first snowdrops came through the snow:

Do you remember my unlucky binding on the 9-patch?

Here it is now after one night of unpicking and some hours of new cuts and sewing:

The quilt is all finished now.

There are three nine-patch blocks in different sizes on the backing. A row of the smallest squares goes across the quilt, and a row of three squares just so, joining all the bits of white sheets I used for the backing. Anne Marie's strict rules required all material to be from stash, and so it is. This is my first finish for the Nine-Patch Challenge.

The label is framed with tiny leftover scraps from the denim shirts I used for the solid squares on the top. This was the first washing I could hang out to dry this year. Until now the snow has been too high under the line. I love the fresh smell of laundry from the washline on a sunny day.

Raggedy News

2011-04-07T17:07:00.000+03:00

It can happen to any diet. One day you just can't resist, and end up with cakes, chocolates or pizzas on your hips in no time. Or if you are trying to use your stash of fabrics, you end up buying more. Much more. This is what happened to me (I don't want to speak about the food type of problems here). My trusted fabric shop owner will retire in Summer, and she is selling all her fabrics -30 % of the prices. I bought the red flannel in March, and went to buy a stash of big pieces for backings on the third official Sale day. All her nice coloured solids were gone! I bought two checkered fabrics, one floral print (very lovely, I think), and a blue baby fabric for baby quilts. The heavy white solid is for bags I'm going to print and maybe dye. I forgot the amounts (like one easily does with unpleasant facts) but I will measure them for my statistics later. I think I will just exercise more. More and longer walks, and more sewing and finished projects. I forgot to take a picture of the finished 9-patch. I'll do it for the next post.

I have already finished one project this month! I had bought this tea towel panel last month for a friend who is moving to France in a few months, and I machine stitched a useful sentence for her to learn. It must be useful because I learned it at school over 40 years ago and still can remember:

Kala ilman juotavaa on myrkkyä. Fish without something to drink is poison. I gave it to her on her birthday on Monday, so she'll have time to learn French before the big move.

It's a long time since I last showed you my Raggedy & Friends BOM. Kaaren published the last three blocks at one time in February, and now mine are stitched and the quilt top is finished. Here is block 10:

and number 11

and the last one:

Tonight I'm taking the top with me to class and I will piece the backing and make the quilt sandwich on the large table in the classroom. Beats kneeling on the floor at home any time! I could finish this quilt for the exhibition on the weekend after next, but there is really no place to hang quilts. Our teacher has asked for smaller projects for the show, like cushions, potholders and such. I will borrow the Ladyfingers bag I made as Christmas present for DS1's girlfriend.

Stash use report for March

2011-04-02T15:40:00.001+03:00

This should be the beginning of Spring, and the shops are full of daffodils in yellow pots. They can cope about -10C /+14F, and I planted some to replace the faded Callunas of last Autumn. After their first day we had some new snow again, and then two nights with -15C/+5F. About half of my flowers have frozen to death, but many have survived. I hope the nights will be warmer from now on.

One more birthday present, a rusty brown and red shawl knitted by my sister Maija. I'm wearing it now around my neck with my winter coat, but it will be lovely in Summer on my shoulders too. Kiitos, Maija!

As you can see in the picture, there is quite a lot of snow on the ground and it will take weeks before the first Snowdrops raise their heads through the last snow.

My stash seems to be growing, but there is a perfectly good explanation: My favourite fabric shop will close in the Summer when the owner lady retires, and she started selling everything 30 % off the normal price from the 1st of April. I was looking for some white flannel for baby quilt backings, and as she didn't have any, she sold me some in red, and gave me the special price in advance. As the cotton prices are expected to go up, it is only rational to buy now.

This is the pieced backing of my 9-patch quilt, with some 9-patches in different sizes just for fun. I had to piece the backing as I couldn't buy new fabric for it, to meet Anne Marie's challege rules.

I wondered how stupid a quilter can be. You see, I straightened the edges for the binding and cut exactly at the points of the red sashings, thinking the white points will be sharp anyway. And then I machine stitched the binding on, and spent three nights hand sewing the three edges before I was too annoyed with the cut-off red points.

So the stupid quilter unpicked the binding, ironed it again , cut a bit from all 4 sides of the quilt and started sewing the binding back on. It is almost done now, so I can count the backing and binding to my March fabric use.

This is something else I did in March, after Melanie sent me the adorable book on Celtic, Viking and Anglo-Saxon Embroidery by Jan Messent. The book is about ancient embroidery and the new use of the stitches and pictures by the author. Beautiful, inspiring pictures of her work. Melanie had sent me some plant-dyed threads earlier, and some perlé threads a year ago, so I thought I would use them to make her a small picture of the Kalevala Jewelry bird I sent her for her birthday. I added some antique silk threads from my Great Auntie Saima. My design and stitches reveal that this is my very first attempt, but I had great fun while making it, and Melanie understands all the hidden meanings important for both of us.

A few weeks ago we had a visitor from Belgium in our sewing class, and to give her a feel of quilting I helped her sew one QAYG block from my strings for the Oz Comfort Quilts. I made one too, and hope to get at sewing some more for a new delivery later this month. Counting all these projects together I have used 4.5 m of fabrics from my stash in March, but also bought 5.5 m new fabris. Increase: 1 m. I need to finish lots of projects in April to make the figures look better!

The party goes on

2011-03-26T19:11:00.000+02:00

Would you like to have some tea or coffee? The fun part of getting old goes on, as some presents arrived this week. First I'll show you Stephanie's loveliness, as it was on the way across the Atlantic for more than a month.

A beautiful Dresden plate (she is really good at them!) in vintage fabrics, and yarn for some soft and lovely socks. The colour is called Thyme. I think I'll try to grow some thyme in my vegetable garden this summer. I'm addicted to knitting at the moment. Here is a closer look at the Dresden plate and its feedsack fabrics and other beauties:

Thank you, Stephanie!
The other parcel came from Candace, with a link to Stephanie. The bag is Stephanie's Loft Tote pattern; Candace is one of her Supreme pattern testers. It is a nice, roomy bag for all my things I carry when I go to town. Candace also sent some chocolate (to be shared with Mr. K.) and four fat quarters of Moda fabrics, and a tiny bird for a zipper or just so.

Closer look at the fabrics:

Thank you, Candace! Everyone knows I'm trying to get rid of my fabrics, and now I have several new, lovely fabrics to play with. The best part of this is, that I didn't BUY them, so they will only be counted when I use them some day!

The tulips from last week are gone now, but my special sewing group friends brought me a beautiful white orchid which will bloom for months. It will also keep reminding me of the special wall hanging project I should be working on for PN.

The weather is changing ten times a day, typical for the coming of spring. One minute we have beautiful sunshine, and the next time I looked out of the window, this is what I saw:

A gale with snow and hail for two hours, and after that sun again. The temperature keeps below zero so there is not much melting going on. The bullfinches don't come for group lunch any more, they come in pairs. A finch, could be the same we saw in early February, came today again. Normally finches migrate and we get to see the first of their species in early April, when they have the colourful feather dress and are ready to sing. The Mr. Pheasant arrived also this weekend, widening his territory. Mr. K. bought a third 25 kg sack of sunflower seeds for this feeding season; we can't stop feeding our little friends before the weather has warmed up and there is food available for them in the nature.

Porvoo, part 2

2011-03-22T13:27:00.000+02:00

This will be a long post, so you may want to take a cup of coffee (it is still my birthday party!). Yesterday you saw the Cathedral of Porvoo in snow. The first church here was built in the late 13th and early 14th century, and the present church in the 1450s. Let's go in now through this door.

Behind the altar ther is a window and a crusifix. The altar painting is on the far right (not in sight), a version of the Last Supper.

The church's roof was badly burned in a fire in 2006, and it took two years to rebuild it. I think the dark colour in this vault is fire damage. The chandeliers fell on the floor but the ceiling was not damaged. The church has suffered several fires during the centuries, but it has always been rebuilt. During reformation it was usual to cover all the paintings in churches with white paint. The original paintings could be restored only partially.

The four apostles are painted on four pillars in the church. St. Matthew

St. Marc

St. Luke

and St. John

Miniature ship hanging from the ceiling. Some ships were donated to the church as votive ships by grateful seafarers after a dangerous voyage, or before one. This tradition has spread to Finnish coast areas from Sweden.

I thought you wanted to have a better look at the unicorn.

The organ opposite to the altar.

Two galleries on both sides of the church. Usually there is just one, but this is a cathedral. The wood is painted to look like marble.

This was the end of the tour. - In the evening we had the most delicious meal in the restaurant Wanha Laamanni. They have a special organic and local menu for this month. I had the soup and Mr. K. chose the Islander's plate with various cold fish. We both took Fried whitefish with Beurre blanc for the main course, and Colostrum panna cotta with lingonberry sauce for dessert. Yum! The restaurant was very close to our hotel, and we enjoyed the walk in the snow after the meal.

Back home I had the lovely gifts from friends waiting. Big sister P must have read my earlier post about bright flowers, because she brought me a bucketfull of tulips, one for every year. I needed three vases for them!

Then I admired the presents again. ( I must admit I opened them before I left for the weekend.) These are all from my European blogging friends, it takes surprisingly long for mail to cross the Atlantic. In alphabetical order, first the presents from Anne Marie from Norway:

Two beautiful cup mats, four lovely fabrics folded like a star, and some Easter marzipan chocolates. Thank you, Anne Marie!

Next comes Melanie, she has been busy sending me presents - I showed the wonderful book already. We share a love for mushrooms, and she knows I have a messy sewing room, so she made me a unlose-able pincushion in the same style as her houseelf's house.

In my Christmas parcel came a birthday-wrapped present I have kept in the closet waiting, and finally got to open it. The prettiest ever Miss Bunny was there, cramps in her legs and her pretty dress all wrinkled, but after some ironing (for the dress and apron) and some stretching (for the legs and ears) she was happy to find Christobel's old place on the fireplace corner.

This is Christobel, the Christmas elf from Melanie:

She is spending the off-duty time in my sewing room, and I bet she'll tell Melanie that I don't deserve any gifts for next Christmas because I'm so messy.

The last lot is from dear Suzie. She sent me a fabric with old sewing machines, very inspirational for the cutting mat bag I have ben planning to make for several years already. It will be perfect for the front side. Under that fabric is some "pocket Coffee", chocolates with liquid espresso filling. The first night Mr. K. and I had three of them each, and stayed awake half the night! Now they are restricted to one/night or two in the afternoon.

Here is a closer look at the sewing bag Suzie made. You can see part of the heart stitching on the right.

Inside she used other lovely sewing themed fabrics, and I found some hand sewing needles and machine needles and some quilting thread in the pockets. Thank you, Suzie!

I think I need to show you one more present, this is from Mr. K and DD Kaija. Some of you know that Kaija has started a new blog showing old black and white photos taken by my Great Auntie Saima's husband, Emil. She has scanned the photos from an album my mother gave her, and now she has hand picked lots of them for me and had them made to a book.

The front cover shows Saima at very young age in a white summer dress. In the next pictures she is a grown woman, with a lovely hat. Kaija did a wonderful job with the layout of these not-standard size photos, and now I finally have some photos of my dear Great Auntie Saima.

This was the end of the birthday party. I hope your liked the whitefish as much as we did. Don't eat too many chocolates!

Porvoo, part 1

2011-03-21T09:39:00.000+02:00

Welcome to take a tour with me in the second oldest town in Finland, Porvoo. I had a mini holiday with darling Mr. K. there to celebrate my birthday. Like most places in Finland, Porvoo is at its nicest in the Summer. In winter some of the alleys in the old town looked like this:

It is not possible to keep the snow away from the smallest alleys so they are closed for the winter. The little streets are not much wider:

There were interesting yards with the gates open:

I wanted to se the toy museum, but it was unfortunately closed. I have seen it about 20 years ago, when the children were little:

Details from the same yard.

The houses are built of wood, as usual in Finland. The town has burned down many times, but the houses have been built again on the same foundations. The buildings standing there now are built after the last big fire in 1760.
The icy streets were so slippery that I didn't want to walk across the bridge to get a nice picture of the storehouses by the river.

We stayed at the Hotel Onni (=Happiness). There are only 5 rooms and a suite. The service was friendly and we loved the room. Welcome in:

We had a bowl of fruit and chocolate crisps waiting.

We had chosen the Peasant room. Each room was decorated in a different style.

We had fluffy bathrobes and slippers too, Melanie!

The bed was better than average. This kind of beds used to be pushed together for the day to make a sofa. I think they used straw mattresses at the time, so they could be folded away.

The breakfast was chosen from a list for each of us at arrival, and served at the time we chose.

The hotel is just across the street from the Cathedral, so it is a popular accommodation for newlyweds.
I will take you to the church in my next post. As you see, it had started to snow on Saturday when I looked out of our window.

There is a little cafe in our hotel.

They sell decorations and little gifts there too. The Easter is coming!

In the morning the crocuses placed under the decorated tree were all covered in snow. I hope they will survive the cold temperatures. In the gardens the crocuses will not show their heads before May.

You must be exhausted and cold by now, so let's go back in and have a cup of something hot. Pick your cake here, please, and enjoy!

Surrounded by snow

2011-03-17T22:24:00.000+02:00

You might think that spring is almost there, but it certainly is not here. We had some new snow last Friday

and the weather has been so cold that the white new top layer still is there making the snowbanks look fresh and clean.

Last weekend we cleaned the birdhouses for new nest builders, and the tits have already started looking at the houses again, and singing their little songs.

I have been working on some secret projects I can't show before next week, and enjoying my new book I was allowed to open as soon as it arrived. The sweet Melanie had come across this book when she was looking for something else, and she knew I would love it. And I do. I think this is the finest, loveliest, most interesting book I have had in ages, maybe ever. And the most inspiring one too. I think it is wonderful that someone knows you so well that she can choose you a gift better than you would yourself. Thank you, Melanie!

I'm half way through machine quilting the 9-patch quilt, but for some reason I have no pictures of the backing I had such trouble with. I will show it when the quilting is done. I made the binding for this in class tonight.

On Mondays and Wednesdays I go to Järvenpää for errands and grocery shopping, and I usually have a moment of my own time in the cafe at the shopping centre. I like the view to the florist's shop, always changing with the seasons and special days.

At this time of the year we need colourful flowers in the house, because the gardens are still covered in snow for weeks, and after the snow is gone it takes some time before the greenness wins the battle against night frost and the autumn's dead leaves and grass.

I'm going on a little holiday during the weekend, just a short trip to an old little town Porvoo. I try to make some nice pictures there, but the weather forecast tells there will be snow again on Saturday. Maybe I just need to concentrate on staying on my feet on the icy pavements. Maybe I'll need a walking frame now.

Stash use report for Fabruary 2011

2011-03-02T19:26:00.000+02:00

The short month of February slipped through my fingers without much progress on the Nine-patch quilt. I just happened to buy quite a lot of fabrics. I have shown you earlier the sweet cake fabrics, and after that I have bought 3 m of flanell for baby quilt backings, two 1.2 m bits of linen on sale, and this pile:

These are 0.5 m bits of curtain fabrics for the new bag I'm making with Melanie, Suzie and Simone. The pattern in Lisa Lam's book uses bright Amy Butler fabrics, but I just couldn't see myself carrying such an exclamation mark. My boldest choice was to take a checkered fabric instead of a plain solid as the third fabric to go with the dots.

My fabric stash grew by 8.9 m in all during February.

I only finished some small (pillowcase, boob and needlebook size) projects and 12 QAYG blocks for Oz Comfort Quilts. I sent them today to Kaite along with the three I made this morning before I ran out of batting. The three new blocks will be a good start for my March sewings. The pillowcases were also mailed today, to Jackie.

I used 1.2 m of flannel for a gift to a sewing friend, but even with that addition my fabric use was only 5.1 m in February, so the stash has grown by 3.8 m. I hope to finish the ninepatch quilt this month and some other, more secret projects, to get the stash in balance again.

The weather has changed a little, as the temperatures have gone up to almost 0 C. It still looks like this outside:

Snow is everywhere, and it is deep. The birds have started to practice their songs, and the day is more than 4 hours longer than at Christmas. The roads were dry today, and the dirty snow by the roadside is melting. This helps us believe the spring is coming after all.

A week of very small accomplishments

2011-02-26T14:23:00.000+02:00

Weather report: the winter is still very much the same, cold and long and snowy. The temperatures keep around -20 to -25C (-4F to -13F) in the mornings but warm up to about -10 C /+14F by early afternoon. The sun must be working a little on the snow, because in the morning the trees are often covered with frost as the humidity in the air concentrates on any surface. It has not been snowing in over a week.

I had more cupcake mail from Melanie:

She used up her cupcake fabric rests to make me a mushroom mat for autumn. We have had long correspondence about the use of mushrooms in the kitchen and for dyeing yarns and fabrics. Melanie knows so much about history and old methods in handicrafts.

I have been sewing some more QAYG blocks for Oz Comfort Quilts, satin stitching the shoes I showed in my last post, and using little scraps of fabric for a needle book for my friend P who is desperately waiting for the wallhanging to be finished:

She started in my sewing class last autumn, and for her new hobby I equipped her needle book with small scissors and a seam ripper

and some machine needles so she can continue sewing at home when school is out.

At the moment I'm working with some silk threads I have inherited from my Great Auntie Saima. My regular readers know a lot about her, she was like a young grandmother for us and lived many years with our real grandmother, her elder sister, so she was always there for us.

If you want to see a picture of Saima, you should visit my daughter Kaija's blog here. My mother has given her a photo album with pictures by Saima's husband. Now Kaija has started a new blog, Emil's, to show the contents of this great amateur photographer's work. We have very little information about the people and places in the photos, but they are great pictures from the early decades of the 20th century. Enjoy!

What have I done while I missed class

2011-02-19T11:13:00.000+02:00

On Thursday night I didn't go to my sewing class, and my teacher Anne said she will keep an eye on my doings here on my blog, as next week is the school's winter holiday and we can't have our class. I bet she doesn't control everyone's absences like this, but I have been in her class for several years already, and hardly ever absent. And I have reason to believe she was joking, but here it comes. First the 5 socks I have knitted, the tiny one is for a Unicef doll. I have started knitting a third pair of normal size socks and will use the rest of the yarn for the dolls' socks.

Then some strip cutting on Thursday ...

... to make a new lot of QAYG blocks for Oz Comfort Quilts.

I have bought 1.5 yards of lovely fabrics from Sew Fabulous, it arrived on Thursday:

I think I have made space for some new fabrics in my stash, so this is to fill the gap (gap?) and "just because it was lovely".

I have also worked on the everlasting wall hanging project, adding some shoes in the lowest part, and batting and backing for the first panel:

and the two first shoes for the second panel. There will be five panels in all, so I know I'm far behind my schedule. My original plan was to finish the whole thing by the end on 2010, but sometimes projects just don't happen as planned. These shoes still need the satin stitch which I will add as soon as the other shoes are ironed on.

I have also received some lovely mail this week. First from Candace a handmade fabric Valentine's Day card with some chocolates for Mr. K and me (we had some for dessert before I took the picture!).

Sweet Houseelf sent a cupcake mug mat (free pattern by Stephanie can be found here) for her housewarming guests, and for me she added some plant dyed embroidery threads and what looks like handmade buttons. We have a Bag Club with her and Suzie and Simone, and I think the buttons will be used in one of the bag I'm going to sew with them later this year.

The weather keeps staying on the very cold side of the thermometer, and on the coldest days the little birds may save their energy and not fly to our restaurant. This was the newest cold record at our place -29.5 C or -21.1 F on Friday morning. We now light the fire also in the morning to keep the house comfortable. The sun works wonders: during the day the temperature can be nearly 20 C higher, around the very comfortable -10 C to - 15 C. That feels very OK after a long period of colder days.

From other blogs I have read about signs of spring, and it sounds a little comforting. The only sign of spring here is the increasing amount of light, and I think without it the winter would seem too long.

Enjoy your weekend!